Key to successful gardening is a good start

By Kathy Hatfield
Gardening Columnist

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If you're thinking about the possibility of fresh, crisp salad greens, thick, vine-ripened tomato slices, and crunchy sweet bell peppers for meals this summer, it's not too late to start a new vegetable garden. Here are some tips to get started.

The first thing to consider is where to put your garden. The garden site should receive plenty of sunlight; a minimum of about six hours per day, but more is better. Notice if there are any buildings or trees nearby that will obstruct sunlight as the summer sun moves into the northern sky.

The garden should be in an area with good drainage and close to a water source. If you've never had a vegetable garden, you'll want to start small, probably no more than 8 feet by 10 feet. You can always increase the size next year, if you find you really enjoy it. If you've chosen an area that has not been previously used as a garden, you'll need to remove the existing lawn or weeds. A sod cutter works well for this, but you can also remove the vegetation by hand if it's a small area and you're up for the exercise.

Once the existing vegetation is removed, you're ready to loosen the soil, using hand or power tools. This not only breaks the soil, making it easier to plant, but also works oxygen into the soil.

As you plan where your garden is going to be, you might consider whether you want raised beds. Among the advantages of raised beds are that the garden is at a height that is easier to maintain, especially if you have back problems. You don't walk on the soil and compact it. You can bring in good topsoil and compost, avoiding the hard clay that may be under the bed. The most important thing to remember in building a raised bed is not to use treated timbers! The chemicals used as a preservative could leach out into the soil and contaminate your produce.

Adding ample amounts of compost and working it into the soil is the next step. Soils in our area are mostly clay, and difficult, if not impossible, to work with if you don't amend with good organic matter. Even though you add organic matter when you first prepare the garden, you'll want to continue to add some each year to maintain a good quality garden soil. Work the compost into the top 12 inches of soil, or as deeply as you can, using a tiller or digging it in by hand. If you're using good quality compost it's hard to add too much to our soils.

Once you've added compost and raked it smooth, you're ready to plant. Think about what vegetables you really enjoy, which taste significantly better when homegrown (think tomatoes), and how much space you have. A plant like sweet corn takes a considerable amount of space for the amount of produce you get from it, whereas something like spinach or lettuce gives a lot in return for the space it uses.

It's best to start with a written plan so that you'll know how many plants you'll need and where to plant them. First-time gardeners should probably start with plants from the nursery, rather than trying to start seeds. Choose the healthiest looking plants you can find. Those that are bushy, bright green, and not root bound in their pots make better choices than the tallest, or the ones that are already flowering.

Check gardening books or seed catalogs to determine the best spacing for each variety. You want to leave plenty of space for walking between rows to water, weed or harvest.

If you find you need more space to fit everything you want to grow into your garden, remember that you can always tuck herbs into flowerbeds or plant small bush varieties of tomatoes and other vegetables in containers. Avoid some of the space hogs like squash or watermelon, unless you can find a space-saving bush type.

In our climate, it's a good idea to mulch your garden. You'll conserve precious water, and it will help keep the weeds down. When you do weed, they will usually pull up more easily if you have a good thick mulch layer. Watering in the evening, something you would never be encouraged to do back East, is another way to save on water.

The basics here will get you started, and you can find more detailed information at garden centers, in gardening books and magazines, online, in seed catalogs, on seed packets and from old-time gardeners. Keep a notebook of your gardening experiences so that you can learn from your successes and mistakes, and next year your garden will be even better!

Email your gardening questions to me at ocwildflowers@frii.com.