Chapter 1

Vegetable Gardening 101

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding why people grow veggies

Surveying some great vegetables to grow

Keeping your garden growing well

I've been vegetable gardening my entire life. I've followed my grandfather picking stones out of the potato patch, weeded my mother's garden, taught my daughter to plant her first seeds, and built cold frames to maximize the amount of food my wife and I can grow in our yard with edible landscaping. I can attest that after you start, vegetable gardening becomes part of your life.

Here I start you off with the basics on site preparation, and I tell you what to grow and how to grow it. All the details that follow in subsequent chapters build on the information you need to know to be a successful vegetable gardener. Along the way I hope you are inspired to get some dirt under your fingernails and start your own garden. Dig in!

Having a Garden: Yes or No

Over the years people had drifted away from vegetable gardening in the spirit of progress and affluence because of living busier lives and having smaller available spaces for gardening. However, more recently people are once again realizing that growing their own food, although not as critical to survival as it once was, is an important part of a healthy body, mind, spirit, lifestyle, and community. More people are again turning to vegetable gardening as a means of food and as a hobby. Veggie gardening is officially back!

Who can resist the flavor, smell, and texture of food literally picked minutes before you eat it? It you've ever sunk your teeth into a sun-warmed, ripe tomato and felt the juices and flavors explode in your mouth, you'll know what I mean.

But vegetable gardening isn't just about taste. It's about safe food that's produced close to home. It's about knowing what has been sprayed on that food. It's about feeding your friends and family nutritious food that's high in vitamins and antioxidants (cancer-fighting compounds). It's about connecting with your neighbors and community as you experiment with ethnic dishes using exotic ingredients grown in your not-so-exotic backyard. It's about reducing pollution by not buying produce that's shipped hundreds (or thousands!) of miles to your local grocery store. Finally it's about reclaiming your ability to grow some of your own food, even if it's just a container of basil, to have a little more control in your life. If you're interested in finding out more about the popularity and benefits of vegetable gardening, be sure to check out Chapter 2.

Planning a Veggie Garden

When's the best time to start vegetable gardening? Right now! Here are the basics on how to decide where to grow yours:

• Find a spot close to the house that you walk by daily so you don't forget about your project.
• Find a spot that gets at least 6 hours of direct sun a day.
• Find a spot that has great soil.

Don't bite off more than you can chew! Keep your new garden small. You can be just as productive in a small raised-bed garden, container, or small kitchen garden as you would be if you tilled up your whole backyard. Start small, be successful, and then get bigger (if you want).

What should you put in your new garden? Well, you have many vegetable options when it comes to deciding what you can grow, so it's going to be tough deciding which ones to plant. The most important rule I can tell you is to grow what you like to eat. Yes, folks, this is all about taste. So no matter what people say about how easy beans are to grow, don't grow them if you hate to eat them. (Of course, after tasting fresh green beans from the garden, you may change your tune.) Grow a mix of varieties of favorite vegetables that you and your family will love. Also, try a few different ones to stretch your imagination. Chapter 3 has plenty of pointers to help you plan your garden wisely.

Growing a Cornucopia of Vegetables

You can grow many different types of veggies in your yard - and not just in the backyard. These days they're pretty enough to be front and center. The following sections describe some of the most popular to get you started.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes are by far the most popular vegetable grown - and for good reason. The difference between a vine-ripened fruit and one picked green, gassed, and shipped hundreds of miles to your grocery store is incomparable. You can choose from container varieties that produce fruit the size of a pea and giant plants that grow to the height of a garage and produce fruits the size of a softball! You can even grow varieties of tomatoes with fruits every color of the rainbow except blue (however, I wouldn't be surprised to see that color someday either).

Tomatoes love the heat and sun and require fertile soil and support. Unless you're growing the dwarf varieties, stakes, cages, trellises, teepees, and arbors are essential for keeping plants growing upright and strong. You only need a few plants to keep your family in tomatoes most of the summer. Chapter 4 has the full scoop on growing tomatoes.

Peppers and eggplants

Peppers and eggplants are related to tomatoes, but they're a little more homogeneous in their plant size. However, what they lack in plant variety, they make up in fruit uniqueness. Pepper fruits come shaped as bells or as long and thin tubular shapes. Some are as sweet as candy and others are hot enough to burn your mouth.

Pepper fruits mostly start green and end up red, but where they go, colorwise, in between is amazing. You can experiment with chocolate-, yellow-, ivory-, purple-, lavender-, and orange-colored fruits that can be eaten raw or used in a multitude of cooked dishes. Eggplants also have burst onto the scene with varieties that produce unique-colored fruits, including white, purple, striped, and even orange.

If you can grow a tomato, you can grow peppers and eggplants. They need similar growing conditions. Plus, I love them as ornamental edibles. Not only do they look good in flower beds and containers, but you can eat them too! Chapter 5 has more on peppers and eggplants.

Carrots, onions, and potatoes

Get to the root of the matter by growing carrots, onions, and potatoes. (I know, I couldn't resist the play on words!) Carrots, onions, and potatoes love cool soil and cool-weather conditions. Start them in spring for an early summer crop or in summer to mature in fall. Here are a few fun facts on each group (Chapter 6 has more information):

• Carrots: Carrot varieties are either short and squat or long and thin. You can even get colors other than orange, including red, purple, yellow, and white. Because their seeds are so small and take a while to germinate, carrots can be difficult to get started. But once they're growing you'll soon be munching on roots.
• Onions: Depending on the variety, most bulbing onions are day-length sensitive and individually adapted to form bulbs in either the northern or southern parts of the country. Intermediate-day varieties do exist that develop bulbs in most locations, and non-bulbing bunching type green onions also can be grown anywhere. Some are sweet and can be eaten out of hand, whereas others are pungent and best for cooking and storing in winter. You can grow onions from seed, sets (bulbs), or plants.
• Potatoes: Potatoes are an easy cool-season crop to grow because you plant part of the potato to get new plants. If you cover the tubers with soil, hill them up, and keep them watered, you'll be rolling in spuds come summer.

Peas and beans

Peas and beans are like cousins. They're in the same family and share traits, but in other ways they're different!

• Peas are cool-season-loving crops that produce either plump or flat pods depending on the variety. With some pea varieties you eat pods and all. With others you eat just the peas inside.
• Beans love the heat. They're one of the easiest vegetables to grow. They come in bush and twining or pole bean forms.

Both are great vegetables in the garden because they require little to no fertilizer and care once they're up and running. Chapter 7 has details.

Cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and squash

I affectionately call cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and squash the "viners." They love to ramble about the garden, taking up space and producing loads of fruit. But even if you're a small-space gardener, you can still grow these space hogs. Newer varieties of cucumbers, squash, and melons can fit in a small raised bed or even a container.

One common trait of these vegetables is that they need heat, water, fertility, and bees. Bees? Yes, bees. Most of these squash family crops need to be cross-pollinated to produce fruit, so bees are critical to success. If you're growing other vegetables, flowers, and herbs, you're sure to have some bees flying about to do the hard work.

Some members of this veggie family can be prolific, so unless you're planting to preserve your harvest, don't plant lots of zucchinis, cucumbers, and pumpkins. Then again, if you really want to share the harvest you can plant a bunch to give away! Head to Chapter...