5 Easy Steps To Get Started
By Ava Green
There’s a common myth that you need a lot of space to grow vegetables, but whether you have a few containers, a small sunny corner, or a larger garden bed, there’s lots you can grow! Here in Norfolk County, which is Zone 6 in Southern Ontario, some vegetables can go in the ground as early as the beginning of May, while many others are usually safe to plant around the May 24th weekend, once the risk of frost has passed. Here are five simple steps to get you growing your own food this season if you’re new to vegetable gardening.
Step 1: Decide What You’d Love To Grow
Start with a list of the vegetables you actually want to eat. Coming into Eising Garden Centre with a list in hand makes choosing plants so much easier! When building your list, consider:
- Vegetables you love
- High-value vegetables, the ones that are expensive at the grocery store but easy and economical to grow yourself
- Anything that tastes better when it’s freshly picked, like tomatoes, cucumbers, and fresh herbs
Step 2: Make a Simple Plan
You don’t need an elaborate design; a rough sketch on a scrap of paper is just fine. The goal is simply to get a sense of your space and where things will go before you start digging. We recommend starting a garden notebook or journal to track what you plant each year and how it performs. It will be especially helpful next spring!! A few planning tips to keep in mind:
- Most heat-loving vegetables, such as tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, eggplant and beans, need at least six hours of sun per day
- Cool-weather and shade-tolerant crops like lettuce, chard, kale, radishes, and beets do well with just three to four hours of sun
- Spacing in a vegetable garden can be much tighter than in other types of gardens. Less empty space means fewer weeds and bigger harvests. Square foot gardening is an excellent method to explore
- Layer your garden beds with plants that are great companions. For example, basil and marigolds planted beside tomatoes are said to improve flavour and repel pests. Carrot and beet seeds tucked in beside and between your lettuce plants (which are a cool-weather crop) are a smart pairing; as your lettuce finishes in the summer heat, your carrots and beets will be sprouting up to take their place. This is referred to as succession planting and optimizes the space in your garden
- Make use of vertical space with poles or trellises for peas, pole beans and cucumbers
- Tuck herbs into any gaps between your vegetables; they’re useful, beautiful, and most pollinators love them
Step 3: Prepare Your Space
Once you’ve chosen a spot with enough light, it’s time to get the soil ready:
- Remove any sod or weeds before planting. If you’d rather not dig, the No Dig gardening method uses a layer of cardboard as the base for the new bed. This suppresses weeds naturally and breaks down into the soil over time
- Add a good-quality compost to your soil by either spreading a layer across the top of the garden bed or scooping some into each plant hole
- For container gardening, almost any container works, just make sure it’s deep and wide enough for the mature size of your plants. Also, drainage holes are a must! Fill containers with a soilless mix containing compost, peat moss or a peat alternative, and one of the following: sand, vermiculite, or perlite. Avoid using garden soil, triple mix, or topsoil in containers, as they compact easily and will restrict root growth. Learn more about soil mixes, amendments, and fertilizers here
Step 4: Water and Feed Consistently
Consistent watering and feeding are the foundation of a productive vegetable garden:
- Vegetables need regular, reliable watering. Inconsistent moisture leads to stressed plants and poor yields
- Always water the soil, not the leaves. Plant roots take in water, and wet foliage can invite disease. Water deeply so moisture reaches the roots. Use your fingers to check how far down the water has penetrated into the soil
- Containers dry out faster than garden beds and will need more frequent attention
- Morning is the best time to water. If your plants are struggling on a particularly hot afternoon, a second watering is fine. Just be sure to aim at the base of the plant and avoid the foliage, which can scorch in direct sun
- Feed with organic fertilizers throughout the season to keep your plants healthy and productive. Follow the package instructions for the product you choose
Step 5: Plant Flowers for Your Pollinators
A vegetable garden without pollinators is a garden that won’t reach its full potential. Attracting bees, butterflies and other beneficial insects to your garden is one of the best things you can do for your harvest. Some of our favourite pollinator-friendly flowers for the vegetable garden include marigold, calendula, nasturtium, borage, sunflowers and culinary lavender. As a bonus, most of these are edible, so they earn their space twice over.
It’s Time
Starting a vegetable garden is one of the most rewarding things you can do with an outdoor space. There’s a quiet satisfaction in growing something from seed or a seedling and bringing it to your own table.
Start simple, grow what you love and don’t be afraid to learn as you go.
The team at Eising Garden Centre is always happy to help you choose the right plants for your space and answer any questions along the way. This could be the season that changes the way you think about your garden!
Resources:
Why Use a Garden Journal?: https://eising.ca/why-use-a-garden-journal/
Square Foot Gardening: https://www.almanac.com/planning-square-foot-garden-grow-more-less-space
Fertilizers & Soil Amendments: https://eising.ca/fertilizers-soil-amendments/
Companion Planting: https://eising.ca/companion-planting-with-herbs/ and https://eising.ca/incorporating-vegetables-into-your-garden/
Optimizing the Gardening Season: https://eising.ca/optimizing-the-gardening-season/
No Dig Gardening Method: https://charlesdowding.co.uk/blogs/no-dig-resources/beginners-guide
Reading Plant Tags: https://eising.ca/full-sun-part-shade-what-do-plant-tags-actually-mean/
Growing Vegetables in Pots: https://eising.ca/planters-are-for-more-than-flowers/
By: Dave Zeldon and Ely Schweyer
Most experts agree that we shouldn't bother bringing in our favourite summer potted plants for the winter and that we should buy new again the next season. But this seems to go against our sensibilities after paying good money earlier in the season. Why not try to save that bay tree, those Rosemary, and French Tarragon containers, as well as expensive Phormium, Mandeville, Passionflower, and Jasmine plants?
The secret to indoor survival for summer plants is to slow down their growth during the winter, so they’re ready to be put outside again once all the danger of frost has passed. How? A few weeks before fall frosts are expected, gradually introduce plants to life indoors by moving them inside (to a quarantined spot*) for half a day, working up to a full day over a week or so. Don't wait until nighttime temperatures are only slightly above freezing as the plants may go into shock and drop leaves!
How to Keep These Guys Comfy During the Winter Months?
- It is suggested that you should prune back excessive growth and re-pot with new lighter growing media.
- Place them in the sunniest location you have and then water sparingly but regularly over the Winter.
- Raising humidity by using a humidifier helps too.
- Resist the urge to fertilize these plants until just before you reintroduce them to outdoor living.
- Perhaps just for fun, you could repot them into the appropriate seasonal pots and planters!
It Seems They Brought Others in With Them - And They're Not Nice House Guests
*Before long, you may notice some unwanted guests, such as thrips and spider mites, on and around your precious plants as their natural predators are no longer present to keep their populations at bay. In many cases, it may be too late, and your plants may have to be discarded before the Holidays, but that’s not always the case!
Common problems that make themselves apparent indoors would be the brown soft scale insect, whiteflies, mealybugs, aphids, spider mites and most often, fungus gnats (those pesky little black flies).
Fungus gnats are considered to be the most common nuisance in houseplants. Sometimes their sheer numbers just hovering around an attractive plant take away from its appeal.
Basic Fungus Gnat Control Measures:
The fastest and easiest method of control is to catch the flying adults with yellow sticky cards. The large cards can be cut into little strips and mounted onto little wooden splints (popsicle sticks) then placed around the base of the plant out of the line of sight.
The chances are that the adults have already deposited eggs in the growing media (soil) of the plant as it is rich in organic matter, so we can disrupt its life cycle by:
- Subirrigation - water your potted plant from the bottom by adding water to the saucer it is sitting in. This will dry out the soil surface making it uninhabitable for the hatching larvae.
- Trapping larvae - If the surface soil it already very wet, try placing a few potato discs or slices on the surface of the soil. This will attract the larvae as they migrate to the potato to feed. Simply replace the discs every five days or so with fresh slices to eliminate the next generation of adults.
- Inoculating the soil with beneficial nematodes. Most garden centres will carry the Guardian line of beneficial nematode products.
We hope this helps your plants enjoy your winter abode as much as you do this season, for more information - and plants – visit Eising Greenhouse and Garden Centre!