Tending to your garden can be a rewarding and beneficial thing. If you grow your own vegetables, you can be sure they’re healthy, tasty, and ripe. The thing with this idea is, you don’t even have to have a full-fledged outside garden, you can make one on your balcony for instance. You could start with a few vegetables that are easier to take care of than others. Even if you get stuck and unsure what to do, there’s always help on the internet where you can compare experiences and learn new things!
To learn more, keep reading the article!
You may or may not have a plot of land to plant flowers and vegetables, but you’re still not sure whether it’s a good idea to have a vegetable garden. There are plenty of arguments in favour: your home-grown vegetables are the only ones you can enjoy when ripe an hour or two after harvesting. They are healthy, you control what you eat, and you eat seasonal produce grown on the farm.
If you are new to this activity, opt for a “square” vegetable garden. Small squares of 90 cm to 1.20 cm on each side, delimited by boards and filled with potting soil, will be subdivided into squares of 30 cm on each side, each hosting between one and five plants of the same vegetable. Small, it is easily manageable and even more convenient to work with if it is raised. The disadvantage? The surface area is small and the range of vegetables is limited.
If you’re into yield, choose the traditional vegetable garden, which is made up of straight plots one metre wide. The area is optimised and all species can be grown.
If you want to succeed in your challenge, consider planting a few “easy” vegetables. Among them, the cherry tomato can be sown by seed in April, courgettes require 2 m2 per plant to let them run on the ground, the pepper requires four hours of sunshine per day. Pumpkins will be at home with their feet in the compost heap and their heads in the sun, pumpkins will climb a fence and herbs will grow wherever the soil is light, sandy, drained and the location is sunny.
To be sure of the quality of your produce, adopt an organic attitude in the vegetable garden. A little elbow grease, a dose of common sense and a few tricks of the trade will allow you to harvest baskets of healthy and tasty vegetables.
Good advice can easily be found on the Internet or in gardening magazines, and you can also find the sowing and harvesting schedule. Most seedlings can be prepared as early as February under heated cover, as early as March under unheated cover and are usually planted in the garden from April to June.
ON THE BALCONY!
Just because you have a few square metres on a balcony or terrace doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy fresh vegetables, their vitamins and flavour. Get advice on the choice of soil: vegetables in pots need particularly rich soil. Suitable vegetables include radishes, salads, herbs, watercress, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, carrots and mushrooms. Your containers should be 20 cm deep and as wide, but at least 30 cm deep for carrots, tomatoes, beans, courgettes and cucumbers.
Get advice on the choice of soil: vegetables in pots need particularly rich soil.
Watch out for watering: this is the most delicate part of balcony growing. Water when the first two centimetres of soil are dry. Also remember to remove dead leaves and stems every day, use mulch to prevent rapid water loss, top up with organic fertiliser every week, and change the soil completely with each new crop. A small price to pay to make your vegetable garden your first source of vitamins!
