The Gardening Everyday

Note: This is part three in a multi part series aimed at helping gardeners start a new vegetable garden. Look for links at the bottom of the article to the other segments of this report.

Site Preparation

If you have gone through all the steps to choose a great location and size for your vegetable garden, you are now ready to begin site preparation. Although this is where the real physical work starts you should not get discouraged and instead focus on why you want a vegetable garden. This focus should keep you motivated throughout the entire process.

If the location you have chosen is currently bare ground then you will want to skip this section which deals with starting from a location that is in sod, weeds, or other vegetation.

Starting From Not So Bare Ground

If the site you have chosen is in a lawn, pasture, or any other non cultivated area, you have some extra work to do in order to begin preparing your soil.

There are a few ways to clear the current vegetation from your plot. Before I get into the specifics there is one other step that should be completed first unless you choose to implement the second part of method three below. No matter what your area contains, I suggest mowing it or cutting all the plant material down as low as you can. This will aid in the final removal of your current ground cover. Ultimately, you want all the current plant material to be dead before you start cultivating the soil.

The first method, and probably the easiest, is to use a non selective herbicide such as RoundUp. These chemicals will kill all vegetation that they come in contact with. Because of this mode of action it is important that you spray on a windless day and protect your surrounding plants, if any, from accidental exposure. If you do spray a plant that you didn’t intend to, you can save it by quickly rinsing the leaves with copious amounts of clean water. I know many people have adverse opinions to using herbicides or any other form of pesticide. That is just fine. The next two methods for killing the existing vegetation are chemical free.

The second method you can use to kill weeds or grass in your chosen vegetable garden plot makes use of the sun’s natural heating. You can cover your area with clear plastic to kill the plants. Simply lay the plastic sheeting over the area and secure it in several locations along the edge and middle regions with rocks or any other heavy material. You can do this in sections if you are limited in the amount of plastic available. Mowing your location first, as I mentioned above, is very important for this method. You want the plastic to be as close to the ground as possible for maximum effect. This method takes longer than the others (approximately 2 to 4 weeks) but is very effective at cooking plants to their death. When using this method you’ll want to water the area thoroughly prior to laying the sheeting. The moisture in the soil will help to hold heat in longer, even into the night. Plus, you’ll also kill weed seeds that may be in the upper one to two inches of the soil!

The third and final method for clearing existing plant material from your proposed garden location is the most labor intensive. If the area is currently in sod you can undercut the grass with a sharp, flat shovel and begin to pull or roll it up. Sod cutters are available from tool rental stores that make this job quick and easy. If your vegetable garden plot is covered in weeds you can dig them or pull them up. If you choose to go this route, I suggest not mowing first. You’ll want the have the long stems still intact to get more leverage when pulling. As with the plastic method, watering down the area first will make your job of removing weeds a lot easier.

Whatever method you choose to clear your vegetable garden plot your final goal before moving on to the next step should be bare soil that is ready for cultivation.

In the next section of this series I’ll cover soil preparation and the best practices that you can use to improve your chances of vegetable gardening success.

If you are enjoying this series and this blog, please subscribe to the RSS feed using the orange button near the top of the page to be notified of future updates and new articles. 

Part 1 – Choosing A Site

Part 2 – Garden Size Considerations

Part 3 – Site Preparation

Tags: how to start vegetable garden, kill weeds, new vegetable garden, vegetable garden

Note:This is part two in a multi part series aimed at helping gardeners start a new vegetable garden. Look for links at the bottom of the article to the other segments of this report.

Garden Size Considerations

Before we move on to site preparation, you should consider how big you want your garden to be.  If you are limited in regards to space, this section may not be of much concern to you.  You already know how big your garden can be.  If you have plenty of room then now is the time to think about the size of your vegetable garden.  I have a couple of tips below to help you decide.

The amount of produce you wish to grow is the first big factor.  If you are only growing tomatoes, for example, and you know you want to have enough tomatoes to eat some fresh and put some in the freezer for the winter there is a way to correlate that desire with garden size.

Each tomato plant should be given 18 square feet for optimum growth.  This translates to plants spaced three feet apart in rows that are six feet apart.  Given average growth potential, each plant should produce at least 5 to 10 pounds of tomatoes as a general guide.  Let’s assume that you want to eat maybe 10 pounds of tomatoes fresh (that’s about 20 to 25 tomatoes depending on the variety) and you want to freeze another 20 pounds for a total of 30 pounds, you would need to plant 3 to 6 plants.  From the spacing requirements above, you would need a garden size of only 54 to 108 square feet.  That’s for one person.  You can multiply the number of square feet by the number of people you wish to provide tomatoes for.  So, for a family of four, you would need a garden size of 216 to 432 square feet to provide approximately 30 pounds of tomatoes per person.

As a side note, I have produced a special report entitled “How To Produce 15-25 Pounds Of Ripe Juicy Tomatoes PER PLANT” that you can download for free when you sign up for my newsletter using the form on the side of this page.  The information in this report can save you lots of garden space and increase your production way beyond that of the typical gardener.

You can also look at spacing requirements found on the back of seed packets and plant labels to determine the amount of space needed for your other vegetables.

For my family, we have a vegetable garden of approximately 800 square feet.  In previous years our garden space was only 550 square feet and we always tend to produce more than we need.  The main point here is to remember that you can have as big or as small of a garden as you want and that your usable space will allow.  I’m always amazed at just how much produce we are able to harvest from our garden and you will likely be too!

The second tip I can give you when it comes to determining your vegetable garden’s size involves work.  Here I am referring to the amount of work needed to maintain a garden.  Digging, tilling, and adding amendments are all preparation considerations.  Plus after your garden is in place, you’ll be faced with weeding, watering, fertilizing, and training chores.  Don’t go overboard on size if this is your first vegetable garden.  You may decide it’s too much work and suffer ‘burn out’ the first year.  Remember, there’s no shame in starting small.  You can always expand where space allows.

Part 1 – Choosing A Site

Part 2 – Garden Size Considerations

Part 3 – Site Preparation

Tags: Garden Prep, garden size, garden soil, vegetable garden

Several years ago I had the crazy idea to try to make some money from my garden.  I knew from my employment background at the time as a research assistant at the Noble Foundation that many small farmers were making good money selling vegetables.  In particular, tomatoes were known to be a great crop.  So I set out to turn my one acre into a gold mine (or so I thought).

I started ninety tomato plants in my home that spring.  I prepared the ground, which wasn’t the whole acre, and began my quest for red riches.  However, I ran into a few snags that I hope to share with you here.  Hopefully, if making money from your vegetable garden is your goal, you will be able to learn from my mistakes.  I’ll cover some of the steps involved and give you examples from my experiences that season for you to follow or avoid.  Let’s get started.

Probably the greatest perk to growing vegetables for money is that you do not need a large chunk of land as with traditional farm crops like wheat or hay.  I had an acre to utilize but I only used 0.05 acres total or about 2200 square feet.  In addition to tomatoes I also had several varieties of peppers, radishes, and eggplant.  The area I used for tomato production was about 1500 square feet for the 90 plants.

It’s important to note, as with any product, that you must first find your market before going into production.  A great resource that I have used is the book by Eric Gibson entitled Sell What You Sow: The Grower’s Guide to Successful Produce Marketing.  You can also find a link to the book at the bottom of this post.  It makes no difference whether you can produce 200 pounds or 2000 pounds from your garden if you have no place to sell them.

I suggest starting with your local farmer’s market.  Check around and find out what the requirements are for your farmer’s market for things such as selling dates and season, booth costs, and any other registration or commission fees.  These are all operating criteria that you’ll need to be aware of before planting your first seed.  Most farmer’s markets are open on Saturday mornings so you should consider whether you really want to spend half of every Saturday during the summer peddling your produce.  Also, you might want to speak with other vendors about sales volumes and pricing.  Be aware, as I found out, that many other growers will obviously see you as competition and may not want to share some information.

Once you’ve determined the specifics of your market, it’s time to start planning your vegetable garden.  As I stated before, tomatoes are a great value crop for small gardeners trying to make a few dollars.  I’ve often stated on this blog that you can produce 15 to 25 pounds of tomatoes from each plant.  In fact, I’ve written a special report at Grow-More-Tomatoes.com that can help you achieve this goal.  For simplicity, let’s assume that you can produce 10 pounds per plant.  Planting 90 plants, as I did, would result in 900 pounds of tomatoes.  At an average price of $1.00 per pound that works out to $900.  Not bad for a garden of a smaller size than most homes!  However, not all of that is pure profit as you’ll see below.

There are a couple of ways to establish your planting for a market garden.  One is to start your own seeds like I did.  This method will allow you greater control over variety selection but may cost more than the second method which is purchasing plants from a garden center.  By purchasing plants that are ready to go into the ground you can cut out 6 weeks of time that it takes to go from seed to transplant in your home.

Other inputs that cut into profit are irrigation, fertilizer, and plant training such as tomato cages.  All of these are costs that should be considered.

At The Market

Every Friday while I had ripe tomatoes, I would spend the evening harvesting and culling tomatoes and peppers.  I took great pride in offering only the best of my produce.  Any tomato that had severe cracks or blemishes would be placed in different buckets for sale at a reduced price or simply placed into the compost pile.

People are funny.  My wife and I usually had some, if not the best, looking produce at our small market.  However, we often lost sales to an older couple that were well established at our market.  Our prices were the same, but we simply did not win over some of the customers.

One of the worst things that happened at our market was the sale of wholesale vegetables.  A couple of the vendors, including the older couple mentioned above, would go to Dallas on Fridays and purchase tomatoes and other crops from a wholesale market just as brokers do for grocery stores.  They would bring these items (with the same stickers on them that you find in the produce section of a grocer) and sell them to their customers.  They would even pass them off as locally grown.  I could hardly believe that people would rather buy from a “middle man” than from an obviously local grower.  It really made no sense!

On several occasions we went home with half of the tomatoes we brought to market.  We ended up giving many vegetables away to anyone near our home that could use them.  Most markets these days have strict rules on the source of produce to protect you as a local grower.  Our experience is likely an isolated event.  But, it is good to check your potential market’s regulations.  If you are considering a large farmer’s market, you’ll likely have no problem with wholesale vendors.

That summer I made about $300 in profit.  However, with the many hours I spent on the project, I really didn’t have a great experience.  I did learn a great deal about people and ethics.  I suspect if you take the plunge into market gardening you will too.

If you liked this article please consider subscribing to this blog to receive all of my future updates.

Also, if you have tried making money from your vegetable garden, I’d love to hear about your experience.  Leave a comment below to share what you have learned.  There are many other gardeners that would benefit from your information.

Happy Gardening!

Tags: farmer's market, making money garden, sell tomatoes, vegetable garden

Note:This is part one in a multi part series aimed at helping gardeners start a new vegetable garden. Look for links at the bottom of the article to the other segments of this report.

So, you would like to start a vegetable garden. Good choice! Having your own vegetable garden brings many benefits. You can have your own produce store right in your backyard without paying supermarket prices. Plus, by growing your own vegetables, you know exactly what goes into them. And finally, with the great variety of vegetable seeds and plants available to home gardeners, you get produce that simply tastes better.

The biggest hurdle that new vegetable gardeners face is how to start. In this series of posts I will attempt to help you put aside your fears and take action. We’ll start with site selection and finish with planting and mulching tips. So, grab a cup of coffee (or your favorite beverage) and let’s get started building your first vegetable garden.

Choosing A Site

This is perhaps the most important step in starting a vegetable garden. Many, if not all, vegetables require full sunlight throughout the day. If possible, your site should be situated in an open area that receives at least six solid hours of direct sunlight. Anything less and your results will be sub par. 

The slope of your potential vegetable garden site is important as well. The image above shows an open area with a slight slope.  You should try to pick an area that is level. I know many gardeners who grow on a slope and that is fine if it is your only option. The problem comes in, though, when you water or your garden receives rainfall.

On a slope the water applied will tend to run off to the lower portions of the garden. Common sense, I know, but some people are not aware that this could cause a problem. Your soil in the upper areas will tend to dry out quicker while the soil downhill will remain wetter and could lead to rotting issues with the roots of your vegetables. Therefore, it’s always advisable to choose an area that is level.

What about soil conditions? Well, that should be a consideration too. If you have a garden plot picked out and it contains many rocks you will have a tougher time preparing the soil in the first few years. I have this problem at my home. But, by removing as many rocks as I can each spring, I have been able to form a vegetable garden that has quite good soil.

Sandy or mucky soils should also be avoided where possible. Sandy soils tend to dry very quickly as they do not have the holding capacity for water. Nutrients are also an issue on sandy soils. Nitrogen in particular is very mobile in the soil meaning it is carried down by irrigation easily. Plus, the nature of a sandy soil does not allow for much holding capacity of nutrients in a similar way as with water.

Mucky soils, those high in clay, tend to work in just the opposite way as sandy soils in terms of water holding. They are often wet year round and will bring many problems for vegetable roots such as rotting and a lack of air transfer.

In summary, try to pick an area for your vegetable garden that gets plenty of sun exposure, is free of rocks, and does not have too much sand or clay. Sound like the perfect garden? It is! I would be willing to bet that your location won’t be perfect. Mine never have. However, don’t despair if you are limited to a less than ideal vegetable garden location. Many of the issues can be dealt with as long as you know what you are up against. The biggest step is to choose a spot and start working.

Part 1 – Choosing A Site

Part 2 – Garden Size Considerations

Part 3 – Site Preparation

Tags: garden preparation, garden soil, Gardening, how to start a vegetable garden, Vegetable Gardening

Listen to The Gardening Everyday Podcast Below  

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I recently wrote a post about growing basil indoors that proved to be quite popular.  Because of that, I’ve decided to also add an audio version as Episode 3 of The Gardening Everyday Podcast. 

In this episode, I discuss the basics of growing basil indoors.  These tips and ideas can work well for other herbs too.  I hope you enjoy this installment.

Tommy

Tags: gardening podcast, herb garden, Herbs