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Imagine stepping out the door and picking your own peppers, tomatoes and zucchini when it's time to cook dinner.
Like your red beets small and tender and your green beans so fresh they snap with the smallest pressure? That's what having your own garden can do for you.
However, if you haven't gardened in a long time or have never broken clumps of soil with your fingers, you might benefit from a few tips from local gardeners.
Don't worry that it's too late to start a garden this year, the gardeners said. You may have missed the early lettuces, spinach and sugar peas, but there are many more vegetables you can enjoy.
Start by thinking about location, Val Albright, a master gardener with Penn State Cooperative Extension, said. Ideally, you want an area that gets about six hours of sun and where the soil is not soggy. It should be near a water source, so you can water the garden easily if rain doesn't cooperate.
The garden does not need to be big to be productive, Natasha Herr, co-owner of Homegrown Edible Landscaping company, said. She and her husband, Wilson Alvarez, make gardens with and for their clients. They'll even tend the garden for you if you want.
"You can grow so much in a small space if you take care of your soil," Herr said. Adding compost every year is one of the best ways to keep the soil healthy.
Once you know where you want the garden, the easiest way to create one is by making a raised bed, said Schirlyn Kamara of the Threshold Foundation.
A frame for the raised bed can be formed with lumber, bricks, logs, blocks, whatever you can find that will create a frame to hold dirt. To grow root crops, like potatoes, you'll need 12-18 inches of tillable soil, Albright said.
To keep rabbits out without fencing, the bed should be 2 to 3 feet high, Alvarez said. You can also plant mint, which deters rabbits.
If you are putting the garden where grass is growing, Herr and Alvarez recommend mowing the grass as low as possible, then covering the area with old newspaper or a thickness of cardboard. Water it to kill the grass.
The four-corner frame can be filled entirely with compost, often available free at municipal recycling centers or for a cost at garden centers, Herr said. You can also mix in grass clippings, manure or mushroom soil and topsoil. Avoid peat moss and perlite, Herr said.
There's no need for fertilizer, Kamara said, if you are using compost.
Once the frame is filled with dirt, Kamara recommends marking off 12-inch by 12-inch squares with string, so it's easy to figure how many plants to put in each section and to keep track of where different plants grew. (That will help next year when you need to rotate them, but don't worry about that now.)
At this time of year, you can plant cucumber, tomatoes, eggplant, leeks, melons, okra, onion, peanuts, sweet peppers, pole beans, potatoes, pumpkins, squash, red beets, sweet potatoes, Swiss chard and watermelon, Kamara said.
Perhaps the easiest way to get your garden growing is to purchase plants from a nursery. Growing vegetables from seed, especially beans and peas, is cheaper, but pay attention to instructions on the package.
Kamara keeps a notebook with the date that she plants the seeds and when they are supposed to mature. The system can help beginners have a better idea of when their vegetables are ready to pick.
Potatoes can be started by buying organic potatoes and letting them sprout, Herr said. Organic is important, she said, because most other potatoes are sprayed so they won't sprout.
Once the potatoes have sprouted they can be planted. Always plant potatoes that are blemish-free, she said.
Seeds and plants should be watered when they are put in the ground, Herr said, but not with chlorinated water. If you don't have an option for attaching a hose to unchlorinated water, Herr recommends a rain barrel.
Kamara also recommends putting grass clippings, mulch or straw around the plantings to keep the moisture in the ground. Water the garden about three times a week, she said.
Once the plants start producing, harvest regularly so vegetables keep producing.
You probably will have to battle the bugs and plant diseases. Both Kamara and Herr prefer natural ways of fighting pests. Pesticides, said Kamara, kill helpful bugs as well as the bad ones.
Herr recommends companion planting, which works by growing a plant that repels bugs beside one that is attractive to those bugs.
Kamara recommends combating pests by ordering "good" bugs, such as aphids and grubs, through the mail.
Building a garden is only the first step. Each year after that, you'll need to pay attention to rotating crops, so you don't plant zucchini or tomatoes in the same place every year. You will learn which vegetables you really like and which grow best for you.
To get the most profit from your garden, learn how to freeze or preserve your food if you can't eat it all.
Containers + dirt + plants = easy small space garden
For novice gardeners, raising vegetables in containers is an easy way to start the hobby.
Tomatoes and peppers are among the easiest plants to grow in containers. Even potatoes are easy to grow in a 5-gallon bucket, Herr said.
Herr and Alvarez, help people build their completely organic and edible vegetable and flower gardens. On their Lancaster city front porch, beets are growing in an old rice bag. The flowers and herbs growing in containers are completely edible.
To make your own container garden, get a container that has several holes in the bottom for drainage. If the container is very large, put a layer of wood chips or small stones on the bottom to allow for better drainage.
Fill the container with quality organic compost, then plant — almost anything, Herr said.
"There are some great varieties of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and herbs which are specially made for containers," Herr wrote in an e-mail. "Bush cucumbers, patio tomatoes, 'Waltham' butternut squash, and others are all excellent container varieties. Herbs do very well in containers, as do lettuces, onions, peas, beans etc.
"Even trees and shrubs can thrive in pots, as long as the pots are large enough. Truly, you could have an entire garden growing in pots complete with apple (and) peach trees and grape vines!"
Companion planting
Tomatoes and peppers love cosmos, because the flowers attract praying mantis and lady bugs that eat pests bothering the vegetables.
So why not plant some colorful cosmos in your vegetable garden? Not only will the blooms add beauty, they also can prevent or limit the need for pesticides.
The concept is called companion planting — partnering plants that support each other in one way or another.
Onions keep pests away; flowers bring in insects, like bees needed for pollination.
Plants like pole beans and bush beans take nitrogen from the air and put it into the soil where it nurtures corn, a heavy nitrogen feeder, Herr said.
She and Alvarez use companion planting when they help people establish gardens.
Try some of the following companions in your garden:
• Plant basil near tomatoes to repel bugs and improve the flavor of the tomatoes.
• Potatoes and bush beans repel each other's pests, and the potatoes will get bigger because the beans collect nitrogen.
• Nasturtium repels woolly aphids, whiteflies, squash bug, cucumber beetles and other pests.
Resources
• Homegrown Edible Landscaping
homegrownediblelandscapingcompany.blogspot.com
951-5984
• Threshold Foundation
www.thresholdpa.org
481-8734
• Penn State Master Gardeners
Available mornings for phone consultations
lancaster.extension.psu.edu
394-6851
E-mail: lespenshade@lnpnews.com
