Grow your own fresh & flavorful vegetables
Monday, March 30th, 2009It’s officially spring and time to start planning your vegetable garden. If you have not considered growing a garden in the past, it’s the perfect time to do so! Gardens can be big or small, filled will green beans, tomatoes, or asparagus, but they all have one thing in common—the great tasting food that goes straight from your garden to your dinner table. Growing your own food provides not only better-tasting food, but also higher quality food that will help save money on food bills. It’s also fun and rewarding to see your plants grow throughout the summer and produce an edible harvest.
To help first time gardeners, or more experienced gardeners looking for new ideas, we’ve found a great guide to vegetable gardening and posted it here. This fantastic guide, created by Joe Lamp’l, talks about everything you’ll need to know to start your first garden, from how to choose the best location to what to plant and when to plant. Additionally, many of our church members are expert gardeners who produce bumper crops each year and can provide great gardening tips for those of us who are novice gardeners. We’ll share some of these gardening tips and tricks in the newsletter throughout the summer.
If you have limited yard space or aren’t ready to commit to a full-sized garden, consider starting a container garden! A window sill, patio, balcony, or doorstep that gets at least 5 hours of sunlight a day is all you need to get started. Most herbs and vegetables grow great in containers—even green beans can be trained to grow up a support if you purchase a pole variety. Many vegetables come in smaller, compact varieties perfect for container gardening. All it takes is finding the right containers, adding soil, planting seeds or small plants, watering regularly, and fertilizing as needed. Links to a few different sites that provide good information on container gardening are posted under Vegetable Gardening Links at The Happy Cow to help you get started.
Start planning, buying seeds, and dreaming of your perfect garden now. You can’t beat the taste of a homegrown tomato fresh from your own Vegetable Patch!