Vegetable Gardening

Well it's that time of year again.  The vegetable seeds are beckoning us to buy them and they are very hard to resist.  My father in law told me yesterday that he is ordering his this week and my daughter has already gotten hers.  

I have many gardeners in my family, and most of us have gardened in some form or another all of our lives. It is very rewarding now to see my grown up children starting to continue the tradition with their own children. 

Growing vegetables is something so rewarding it makes me wonder why I don’t do more of it.  When I was growing up we always had a vegetable garden, and when my children were small I always had one too. Over the years though, my vegetable garden has gotten smaller and smaller as my perennials took up more of my valuable space.  

In fact,a few years ago,the whole vegetable garden consisted of two pots of cherry tomatoes on the patio, but now the vegetable garden is being revived, and last year it produced lettuce, onions, kale, a few peppers, and tomatoes. This year it will probably be a little bigger, but I haven't quite decided what I'll be planting yet.  

My father in law and my daughter both have large gardens, as does my next door neighbor, and several friends and both of my sons (which is why I don't need a huge garden.)  I am the grateful beneficiary of all their excess produce.

I love seeing beautiful gardens with nice straight rows of radishes and onions, tomatoes in their little cages and beans climbing up their poles and trellises, but I’ve realized that I’d rather have flowers to look at, cut, and smell.

If I had more space I would have both, and if I had small children I would definitely find a place for vegetables. Since many vegetables grow readily from seeds, it is very rewarding for children to grow a vegetable garden, but the further north you live, the shorter the growing season and starting your garden from seeds can be frustrating if you’re not patient enough.

If you want to start tomatoes from seed in Wisconsin you really need to start them inside sometime in March to really take advantage of them most of the summer. Otherwise, they don’t start to really produce until late August or September and then you start risking early frosts.

Most vegetables need several hours of sunlight a day which is another reason I don’t have a big vegetable garden.  The trees in my yard do not give me a lot of continual sunlight all day and the vegetables I can buy at local markets are so nice.  Mine weren’t always so beautiful.

Some other advantages of buying plants instead of starting from seed are you can buy several varieties of the same vegetable.  You will probably buy a reasonable number of plants instead of trying to plant all 25 seedlings that might come up.  When you’re putting plants in the garden you will automatically give them more space than you would if you planted seeds and you can start out with appropriate cages and stakes.

Vegetables grow quickly and it is better to start out with appropriate supports because the alternative is trying to tie up unruly plants that are crawling all over their neighbors and turning your nice neat rows into chaos.

Weeding, mulch, and water are all critical to a good vegetable garden, but even when neglected you’ll probably be rewarded with veggies if the weather is co- operative.

My father in law loves to garden and every winter he studies the seed catalogs and orders some really cool vegetables.  He starts his seeds in plant trays and labels everything with awesome little handmade stakes.  He always starts way too many seeds and he takes orders from all his grandchildren and then gives them their seedlings later in the spring.  

When it’s finally planting time his garden is glorious.  Again everything is labeled and he usually has invented some awesome contraption for his peas and beans to grow on and special cages and supports for all of his tomatoes.

I’ve noticed though that this might be the extent of his passion.  After all the love and attention he’s lavished on his seedlings, once they’re in the garden they’re on their own. 

Fortunately, my mother in law likes to harvest the garden.  Every year she makes pickles, cans beets, and tries to distribute excess produce to people like me that are more than happy to take some off her hands, but it wasn’t always that way.

I remember one year in particular when my children were quite young.  My father in law asked me if I wanted any tomatoes to can and I did. I was shocked though when I got to the garden.  There were tomatoes everywhere.  I picked up almost a bushel off the ground. I took as many as I could and I canned for two days, but there were probably still that many rotting on the ground.  So you see why I don’t need to have my own vegetable garden.

It is easy to have a vegetable garden even in limited space.  Training beans and peas to grow up is helpful.  Staggering your planting extends the life of your garden and growing lettuce as a border to other gardens can be quite attractive.  Growing herbs and tomatoes in big pots is also very doable, and vegetables can even be grown on balconies or in narrow strips of land next to the foundation of the house or garage. 

If you have the bug for buying seeds or having a vegetable garden this year I've included links to my daughter's garden and two sources for quality seeds and garden supplies.  Happy reading and researching!

https://goatlessgulchparenting.wordpress.com/2015/02/22/the-vegetable-garden-begins/

http://www.gardeners.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-Gardeners-Site/default/Page-KitchenGardenDesigner


   http://www.seedsavers.org