Your Questions About Gardening

GardenersCardiff answers:

Beginning a vegetable garden is a massive project but is worth a lifetime of happiness. Begin by getting the soil tested in several locations to determine what nutrients are lacking in your soil so that you can amend the soil before planting. Also it is not so much knowing what plants grow in the UK as knowing what has been successful right in your own neighborhood. Talk to folks with vegetable gardens that are near your home and find out what has worked best for them. Neighhborhood experience is the best education. Insects are good and bad. In a well balanced garden, insects take care of each other. If you use pesticides you might knock off the “good bugs.” Get some really good gardening books that give you layouts for plants that complement each other. Give your plants lots of space for good air circulation. Til and enrich your soil. Any vegetable such as a carrot, parsnip, etc that is a root vegetable, needs unobstructed soil about 12 inches deep. Your top 6 to 12 inches of soil must be free of rocks, sticks, etc. A vegetable garden is a wonderful challenge but initially a lot of work. If you dont do this work, you will be disappointed with your results.

GardenersCardiff answers:

It is a committment to time and physcial effort…not mentally difficult. Getting started, no you won’t save money. You have tools to assemble and physical effort to get the soil in shape for growing. If you container garden, then you have the expense of containers and soil, etc.

You save money when you are experienced, have enough growing to justify the time and put quality over quanitity. If you are not gun-ho…….don’t bother.

Time: couple of weekends to get the soil in shape, planting a tomato in May, it won’t bear until August. Green beans from sowing to harvest is 75 days or so. During the time you have to be on top of watering, weeding and pest control.

You don’t sound like a good candidate, instead spend the time searching out local growers at farmer’s markets.

GardenersCardiff answers:

A little bit of both. Many people enjoy tending their own garden and enjoying the fruits of their labor. I spent about 15.00 on seeds at Walmart and have already gotten it back in lettuce, carrots and summer squash. And sweet peas. I should be picking my cukes very soon and as always, I will need to give some away as there are more than I can ever use for my family. Now tomatos this year are a different story. Normally I alwaaaaaaays start by seed under lights, but decided it would be cheaper to get plants than spend the electric on my plants 12 hours a day. So, I went to Lowe’s and spent 45.00 on 26 tomato plants and 1 frying pepper and one salsa verde pepper plant. While the tomatos need more time to get red (some yellow types and 1 purple), there are literally too many to count any longer. With the price of tomatos on sale for 2.99 a pound, I will easily recoup my 45.00, plus some. These will be canned and stored for salsa and sauce all winter. So to answer your question completely, while vegetable gardening is pleasurable, it is also well worth it to plant your own as opposed to buying at the supermarket. Additionally, the veggies are fresher and if you are an organic person, you can buy your plants and seeds as organics and raise them and feed them organically. My question, is why wouldn’t someone plant their own veggies? 🙂 Good luck and I hope you try it yourself next year.