Home Vegetable Gardening

Here’s something to think about as you're planning what to do with your planting areas this year. How about setting aside an area for vegetables or even consider planting some vegetables in among your flowers? Growing vegetables in containers is easier than ever with the new self-watering containers and specially mixed potting soil.

Vegetable gardening is gaining momentum with the rise in the cost of food and concerns about safety and quality. Growing your own vegetables can take some work but the benefits are great. There’s nothing that tastes quite as good as vegetables fresh picked from your own garden!

If you haven’t tried vegetable gardening before, Horticulturist Charlie Nardozzi from the National Gardening Association recommends some simple guidelines to get you started:

* Start small with a 3 ft x 5 ft bed that's in full sun in an area that you'll pass by frequently.

* Start with easier to grow vegetables like bush beans, summer squashes, tomatoes, any greens, Swiss chard, peppers, carrots and radishes.

* Keep the garden low maintenance. Apply mulch around beds and plants.

* Visit the garden every other day and spend a few minutes weeding instead of once a week. The circlehoe is especially handy for keeping the weeds under control around your vegetables. Our motto is ''WEED EARLY, WEED OFTEN''.

* Get the children involved with fun stuff like planting seeds and harvesting carrots and radishes. Once they are invested in the garden, there's a good chance they'll learn to appreciate the great taste of fresh veggies.

Important factors to consider in selecting a garden site include:

SUNLIGHT at least 6 hours of direct sunlight each day, 8-10 hours is ideal

NEARNESS TO THE HOUSE for convenience of harvesting, watering, weeding, insect and disease control

SOIL should have good texture, be fertile and well-drained. If you don’t have loose well-drained soil to start with, clay and sandy soils can be improved by adding organic matter.

WATER the garden as often as needed to maintain a uniform moisture supply. Water early in the morning at least one inch per week.

The Vegetable Gardeners Bible by Ed Smith is a great reference book for those of you who get involved in vegetable gardening. If you are not ready to tackle your own vegetable garden, consider checking out your local farmer's market. Next to growing your own, there's nothing better than local, fresh picked fruits and vegetables.

Let's Talk About Weeds And How To Get Rid Of Them

Our definition of a weed is unwanted vegetation in the wrong place that competes for the nutrients and moisture needed by the plants that we do want. For example, I've got Graph Hyacinth in my flower beds that is driving me crazy. No matter how many bulbs I dig up every year, they seem to come back ten fold the next year!

We’ve just come back from several weeks of doing Home & Garden Shows where we spent many hours talking to people about their weeding problems and, of course, why the circlehoe is such a good tool for certain weeding and cultivating chores. Controlling the two basic types of weeds, Annual or Perennial, requires different steps, different strategies and different tools. Although chemicals are available for weed control, we prefer an organic approach.

I used to believe that every weed should be pulled by hand in order to get the roots out or the weed would grow back. The good news is that it's not true of most Annual weeds that germinate each season by a rapid life cycle from seed, to flower, to seed again. Fortunately, this cycle can be stopped (or at least slowed down) by eliminating the weeds BEFORE they have a chance to go to seed. We recommend cultivating and mulching to control them. Annual weeds have a fibrous root system that spreads just beneath the soil surface. By slicing through those roots just below the surface you can remove as many weeds as possible while they are still small. Careful, shallow weeding and cultivating close to your plant will help prevent damaging the plant’s root system. Controlling Annual weeds will always be a project but each year will mark a noticeable decrease in the weed population. Our motto is ''WEED EARLY, WEED OFTEN''.

We suggest mulching with compost after the first initial rounds of weeding and cultivating. Weed barrier fabrics are porous but they do not allow water to penetrate the soil readily and they decrease the amount of oxygen that is drawn into the soil. The worst weed barrier is black plastic because it allows NO oxygen or moisture into the soil, except at the base of the plant, where an opening was made to accommodate planting. The soil needs air around the plant to promote the microbial activity. The plants don't bloom as well as they could, don't grow as fast, and decline prematurely.

It's Perennial weeds that produce an abundance of flowers with seeds that reproduce and can spread by fleshy underground roots (taproots) and rhizomes. If you get to perennial weeds while they're young, you can still hoe or pull. But mature perennial weeds sometimes have extensive root systems that need to be removed completely. The plant can re-grow from any portion of the root that remains in the ground. The most effective way to get rid of a Perennial weed is by carefully digging up the entire root system but this not usually advisable in a lawn or around your Perennial plants. Unfortunately, even though you may succeed in getting most of the plant's roots, the tip of the root is usually snapped off, and remains in the ground to potentially re-grow in a week or two. Although your weeding efforts may seem futile because of the weed's ability to regenerate, each time you remove it you weaken it. With subsequent weed extractions, your healthy plants should eventually crowd out the weeds.