| Vegetable Garden |
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Toiling over a vegetable garden can be a very satisfying and rewarding experience. First off it makes for damn good excercise, and secondly the end result is always better than any store sold vegetable. However, you will need various tools and pieces of equipment to tend to your vegetable garden. The basics include the following, a fork, spade, hoe, trowel and rake. I would suggest you grab some decent brand name tools, as the cheaper stuff will likely fall apart the fifth time you use it. Also get your hands on a decent watering can and wheelbarrow, even a rain butt. Also, if you want to keep a decent back and save some time, maybe hire out a rotary cultivator for those larger jobs, you dont have to buy these.
Remember, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail, so locate and work out your lot first. The crops should be rotated to keep the soil nice and healthy, and make sure you use a good soil tester kit to check what soil you have on your plot. This step is quite important, as different soils demand different treatments. You may be home to some heavy clay, or some light and sandy, or even chalk or alkaline. All these soil types will also allow and disallow on what you can and cant grow on your plot. Crops will respond very differently to various soil types. Also, that soil'l need some toil to break it apart, letting the air and water in to the roots. Use a spade for this job, unless the soil is really hard, in which case get out the fork instead. Make sure to remove all weeds, and use an organic manure. It could also be useful to start up a compost near the vegetable garden, as a cheap source of goodness for your soil. Once the planning has been done and the soil has been well fed, you can start sowing and planting. Start by dividing the vegetable garden into root crops, root crops and brassica not in the first two groups. Root crops can include potatoes, carrots, swede, beetroot and onions. Brassica is sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli and kale. All thats left is vegetables such as peas, beans, sweet corn, squash and salad crops like tomatoes and cucumbers. You could give your crops a head start by growing some under a cloche or in a greenhouse, as the elements can be harsh on younger seedlings. Make sure you dont cut back on the watering or weeding, maybe even set up a chart for month to month jobs, to make it easier on you. |
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