backyardGARDEN Are You Making These Five Vegetable Gardening Mistakes?
ou’d love to enjoy the bounty of organic vegetables fresh from your back yard, but you may have tried and failed in the past. Hopefully, we can help. Below is a list of the five most com- mon gardening mistakes and how to fix them – just in time for spring planting!
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1. Using native soil To start a garden you scrape off the sod, loosen the existing soil, add compost
and fertilizer, and grind it all up with a tiller, right? That’s the way 95% of all back yard gardens are started. The problem is that most native soil is full of dormant weed seeds that can wait 20-50 years before they germinate. Instead of a veg- etable garden, you end up with a very productive weed patch! Even if your soil doesn’t have a lot of weeds, you don’t know its composition and soil tests for one spot won’t be valid for a different part
of your yard. You’re never sure if anything toxic was spilled in any particular part of your garden.
Raised beds are much better – and
easier. Build a raised bed as an open box on top of your soil, and fill it with inex- pensive potting mix, and add organic fertilizers to the top 4” of soil. Raised beds allow for perfect drainage, and heat up faster in the spring and stay warmer in the fall, extending your harvest.
2. Using synthetic fertilizers Synthetic fertilizers act like an elec-
tric shock to a plant. They cause it to grow whether it wants to or not. The result is weak, spindly growth, which is suscep- tible to pests and diseases. Furthermore, synthetic fertilizers are usually salts and they kill the life in the soil, which is needed to convert the minerals in the soil into a form the plants can take up. Instead, use organic fertilizers like
worm castings or other organic mixes. They enhance the biological life in your soil, won’t burn plant roots, and remain in the soil until your plants need them.
3. Planting at the wrong time Picking the right time to plant is es- sential. Plant too early in the spring and your seeds will rot in the soil; too late in the fall and they’ll freeze before you get a good harvest. The two numbers you need to know are your last frost date in the spring and your first frost date in the winter. To find your dates, go online and search for “frost dates by zip code.” Your spring garden is planted 60 days
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NaturalTriad.com
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