Gardening vegetables is considered an exciting hobby that takes time, effort, and ounces of patience. In current scenarios, vegetable gardening is a sustainable organic farming model that people in small communities can sustain themselves. In many places, it has gained popularity as kitchen gardening.
. Vegetables grown on your own have nutrients and a flavour compared to the unflavored from supermarkets.
A vegetable garden needs time and resources, but here are some tips which you can follow to make you get higher yields of vegetables.
Let us take a deeper look into these tips
Lighting should be there
Any plant will need an adequate amount of exposure to sunlight for its growth. Before gardening the vegetables, know how much sunlight it requires, then map out the areas of your garden accordingly. Vegetables such as tomatoes and cucumbers need at least 8 hrs of daylight, whereas spinach and lettuce need less than that.
Good Soil Quality
If this step is skipped out, then the yield of vegetables will be poor. Soil quality is essential for vegetables to derive nutrients and have a better taste. Before starting, it is imperative to get your soil test. It will help you know about its fertility and pH level. With these insights, you can decide how to improve your soil fertility. Using organic fertiliser and composting is a suitable way to keep the soil fertile.
Harvest on high-yields
For fruitful and productive gardening, it is better to harvest plants that will give a high yield. Crops such as onions, tomatoes, spinach take less time to grow and offer high returns in quantity.
Small is better
Growing a kitchen garden does need maintenance. Hence, it is preferred not to plant everything. Cramming up all types of vegetation together will not yield you a significant amount of harvest. For the first few years, stick to growing a minimum of four types of vegetables on a small plot. In case you are tempted for varieties, succession planting will be helpful. E.g., after growing spinach, you can sow melons. It extends the harvesting period.
Allow pollination
To boost your crop harvest and fertility, allow bugs and butterflies into your garden. It will enable crop pollination to occur. Also, inserting insect-friendly plants like sunflower between the vegetables will be beneficial.
Water it well
Watering your vegetable garden is an obvious thing to do, but knowing the amount of water required might be a tricky task. Little water might not give you any yield, and excess water might damage the fruit as the roots get submerged.
Newly sown seeds need a consistent watering schedule, while grown vegetation requires two inches of watering weekly.
Using a nozzle for watering at the ground level delivers adequate moisture towards the roots. One can also benefit by setting their hosepipes to a timer to automate this process on time
Wedding and feeding
For the healthy growth of vegetables, weeding out the garden is also essential. Many gardeners prefer to mulch their soil with shredded leaves and strands of straw. Mulching also helps in conserving water. The soil food depends on the type of vegetable that is growing. Tomatoes and brinjal are long-term vegetables that get boosted during the harvest season; hence it will require organic fertilisers that are water-soluble. On the other hand, spinach and lettuce will not require fertilising supplements if cultivated on fertile soil as they have fast growth.
Know the right time
Vegetable in the supermarkets are chemically cultivated; hence they lack an earthy taste. Vegetables should be grown at the right time for better taste. Some vegetables are grown in warm weather; others prefer cool temperature. If you want to reap tomatoes, you cannot plant them during autumn; it will spoil the taste.
Defend your garden
Your hard work of gardening will get spoilt if not protected. Pests and wild animals can destroy the vegetation. Pests can rob the nutrition of the soil and the vegetables, leaving them weak. Strays and wild animals can also wreak havoc by uprooting vegetation. To ward of animals, you can use electric fencing. Combating pests to save the soil can be done through organic pesticides like applying neem oil on the nodules or using floating row covers and slug trap. These are healthy alternatives to chemical pesticides that make the soil saline.
Gardening during the winter
Although considered an off-season for harvesting vegetables, winter can be beneficial to improve the garden area by de-weeding the garden and improving soil fertility until the arrival of the next sowing season. This little winter preparation will keep the soil ready for spring and summer. In return, the soil will have regained its nutrients to give a great boost of vegetation in the next harvest season
We hope these tips help you in starting your vegetable garden. With these tips and consistent efforts, your vegetable garden will give you a high yield.
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