Providing information to help you live a Simple Country Life and be as self-sufficient as possible.
Vegetable Gardening
First tip for Vegetable Gardening...
For tips on growing peppers, the health benefits of eating them and how to stop the burn click here.
health benefits and a little history click here.
Need help with planning your garden?
Success with Vegetable Gardening will take some planning and a lot of trial and error. We have put together a few helpful hints for you to get you started. Click here for a few helpful tips to get you started.
The story of our first vegetable garden on J-B farm...
We have been getting settled into our new life together and last year was the first time growing a vegetable garden either of us had in years. We raised tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, and cucumbers. I will admit we also raised a lot of weeds. The place we had planned for the vegetable garden had never been used for a garden plot and was in the middle of the field. Joe used his rotary tiller on the tractor to till the soil. I was afraid the grass would be a problem so I had the bright idea of removing the sod and placing it on a bare spot in our pasture. We took the bucket on the tractor and scooped the sod off and placed it on skids and then relocated it. As you can imagine this was a very labor intensive process. We both were thinking what a “brilliant idea” as we were drenched in sweat and tugging the sod off the skid and tamping it in place. We ended up only removing the sod from half the garden and the other half we just simply tilled it under. We knew from past experience that it would have been much better to have turned the sod over in the fall with a plow but we didn’t have a plow and in the Fall, we hadn’t had time, so we made do with what we had. Vegetable gardening is not an easy task.
Where the fertilizer came from...
My son has a boarding stable and sales the manure to local gardeners so for my Mother’s Day gift I was presented with a wonderful load of this aromatic fertilizer (my sister and I call it “West Virginia perfume” I hope that doesn’t offend anyone. We love the smell of horses.) We scattered it on the plot and tilled it in. The vegetable garden did fairly well.
We cut stakes out of young saplings in our woods for the tomatoes. Joe showed me how to use a machete . I didn’t have the strength to handle it but it was fun watching him swing and cut a sapling down with one swipe.
Some of the plants we bought from a greenhouse he traveled passed for work and some from the FFA greenhouse at our local school. Some of the plants looked kind of pitiful as we put them in the ground and Joe laughed at me as I talked to each one. I was saying things like, you will make it, I just need to get you in the ground and give you some food and water. Most of them did make it but some didn’t have a chance. We harvested several tomatoes and green peppers. We enjoyed fresh tomato and bacon sandwiches and I canned quarts of peppers in a tomato sauce. The cucumbers didn’t do as well but we did get a few and the cabbage got nasty cabbage worms. We had a lot to do and some of it involved traveling we left one week and when we returned the cabbage was covered. We tried to pour salt water on them as we had read would rid us of the pesky critters but it was too late and we didn’t have time to replant. Did you know cabbage worms can be the pretty white butterflies you see around your garden? I didn’t either but trust me I do now. Yuck!
Pieris rapae, the small white
We made a lot of mistakes and our biggest was not giving our garden the attention it required but even with the lack of care it still produced a beautiful harvest.
Our goal for this year is to do more planning and spend more time working to hold back the weeds. When I was in the FFA my sister and I raised tomatoes and green beans to sale for our project. We made our spending money selling at the local farmer’s market and grocery stores. We used hay for mulch and old newspapers. I have never used black plastic but we have friends who have and it was very successful for them. All I know is we should have more time to dedicate to planning and caring for the vegetable garden this summer. I’ll keep you posted and share some of our research. Here we go…..
my cup runneth over.....Psalm 23:4-6
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