Vegetable Gardening - A Hobby for Everyone

The Rewards of Vegetable Gardening

If you love to have fresh produces in the spring and summer, you should consider creating a home vegetable garden.  Growing a vegetable garden is a fun and healthy hobby that anyone can excel at.

While gardening, you may find that your troubles and stresses of the day simply float away.  Home vegetable gardening relieves stress and allows you to be out in the sun.  Vegetable gardening is proven to lower blood pressure and clear the mind.  Also, the act of nurturing plants and watching them grow is rather soothing. And it can look good too!

The Pros of Organic Gardening 

One great aspect of home vegetable gardening is that it does not require a bunch of chemicals. Therefore, home vegetable gardening allows you to have more natural, juicy, and healthier vegetables that are also better for the environment.  Using a lot of chemicals on vegetables is not only unhealthy for your body, but also takes a large toll on the environment.  Growing your own vegetable garden and using less chemicals yields natural food.

Organic vegetables are always the best-tasting because they will not be picked until they are completely ripe and you are ready to pick them.  One more pro of growing your own organic vegetable garden is that it will save you money.  Instead of buying all your organic vegetables at the store, you will have your own selection of vegetables at your disposal whenever you want them.    

Anyone can create a home vegetable garden.  As long as you have dirt somewhere, you can create an outdoor vegetable garden in the solid ground.  Even if you don't have a plot of dirt, you can buy a few pots and create a container garden.  

Vegetable Gardening on Solid Ground

Before starting your vegetable garden, should keep in mind these simple thoughts: size, location, and soil.

First of all, we'll discuss the location.  You must plot your garden in an area with plenty of shade and sufficient drainage.  You must nurture your plants by putting them in a place that receives about 6 hours of sunlight each day.  Every plant is different and requires a different amount of light, but the average is six hours a day.

Therefore, do not plot your garden in a shady place!  Also, make sure that your garden has adequate draining.  If you place your garden at the bottom of a hill, water will flood your plants during the wet season; this is a common mistake that many beginning planters make.  By locating your gardens away from bottoms of hills and other spots where water is likely to collect, you will prevent your vegetables from drowning!

Second of all, let's talk about size.  You should decide how big you want your garden to be initially.  Remember that you should start out small and expand later; otherwise the size of the garden may overwhelm you.  I recommend starting out with a garden space of 25 square feet or less.  After you get the hang of it, you can expand your vegetable garden as much as you would like.
   
Third, let's talk about soil.  Soil is one of the most important aspects of gardening, so it is very important to have good soil to produce a good garden.  The best type of soil is slightly loose and easy to till.  Therefore, stay away from soil that is hard-packed.  If your yard does not have a lot of good soil in it, you can fix this problem by using mulch or compost in your garden. Alternatively you can buy good soil from your local nursery.

Mulch is usually an organic covering, such as straw, leaves, compost, or peat that you can cover your garden with to enrich the soil, prevent weed growth, and prevent excessive evaporation of water.  Compost consists of any organic particle, such as dead leaves, manure, or (most commonly) kitchen scraps.  People put compost in their yards to improve the soil and provide nutrients for plants.  Composting kills two birds with one stone; it is great for your garden and cuts down on your trash.

If you address the location, size, and soil of your garden, you will have a booming vegetable garden in no time.  Also, some of these tips will also help those of you who choose to have a container vegetable garden.

Vegetable Gardening in Containers

Container gardening is the best type of gardening for many people.  If you do not have a good plot of land to garden on, container gardening is your best bet.  It is the most practical way to garden for those of us not lucky enough to have large plots of soiled land to garden on.

There are many pros to container gardening.  You can place your plants wherever you want: in your living room, on your patio, etc., so that you can add color and radiance wherever you would like.  With container gardening, you can easily place plants wherever they receive the best growing conditions.  Another pro is that you will have fewer pests eating your plants if they are in containers rather than in the ground.

Although almost any plant will grow just fine in a container, there are some that grow exceptionally well in containers.  These are: salad greens, spinach, tomatoes, eggplant, Swiss chard, radish, beets, peppers, and bush beans.  

The con of container gardening is that they require more upkeep and maintenance.  You must check up on and water many container plants everyday.

Most vegetable crops grow well in 5-gallon containers.  No matter what size container you use, make sure it has adequate drainage to ensure a bountiful garden.  You should add about 1 inch of coarse gravel in the bottom of the container to monitor drainage.  Learn how to prepare the containers of each type of plant for a nice and low-cost indoor garden.    

Gardening Problems You Can Tackle

There are two notorious enemies of gardening: weeds and pests.  Here is some basic information and helpful hints on how to tackle each of these problems:

One problem a person may have in plant gardening is staying on top of all of the weeds.  In order to prevent weeds from taking over your garden, you should go out daily and pick the weeds. Picking weeds may seem like a dull task, but if you have the right attitude, it can actually be quite relaxing and stress relieving.

Where there's a garden, there are bugs.  Unless you want to use a bunch of chemicals, you must go outside and kill any damaging bugs on your plants.  But make sure not to kill the good bugs, such as ladybugs or praying mantis, because they kill the bad bugs that eat your plants.  In fact, you can buy good bugs at your local plant store and put them in your garden to help kill pests.  Because no bugs kill big pests such as grasshoppers, you must pick off these big pests by hand.  

The Love of Vegetable Gardening

Vegetable gardening is very rewarding because it makes you feel better, less stressed, and produces delicious vegetables for you to eat.  If you like the fresh vegetables at farmer's market, you'll love to have a garden vegetable of your own to tend to and eat from.

Mary Amos loves to garden and is blessed with green fingers. Take a look at Organic Garden | Organic Vegetables [http://www.gardenswebsite.com]  to make the most of your garden. Also visit [http://www.homediyweb.com]Home Improvement | Home DIY  for home improvement ideas.

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