Discovering your green thumb
Plant a perfect
vegetable garden
by Teresa Bjork
Your backyard may be buried under a mountain of snow, but it’s never too early to start planning the summer vegetable garden of your mid-winter dreams.
Garden centers and discount stores have already stocked their shelves with seeds and supplies to help Iowans get a jump start on their garden planning.
“Winter is a good time to start thinking about your garden,” says Cindy Haynes, an Iowa State University horticulturalist and coordinator of the Master Gardener program. “Most gardeners, if they wait until spring, find that they have too much to do at once.”
Haynes says the popularity of gardening has grown over the past few years, particularly among gardeners who want to grow their own vegetables.
Even people who have never planted a garden before are growing tomatoes in their yards or in pots as a way to save money on their grocery bills, Haynes says.
And as locally grown foods have become a hot trend, more foodies want to get their fruits and vegetables from the most local source available—their own backyards.
“When you grow it yourself, you know it’s incredibly fresh, and you know you harvested it this morning,” Haynes says. “And a packet of seed might cost $1 to $2, but you’ll have enough sweet corn to eat for a week or two. So that’s a significant savings.”
If you are new to gardening, or you are just looking to improve on last year’s garden, Haynes offers helpful tips for planting a productive vegetable garden.
First, try to keep it simple. Beginners should avoid the temptation to plant a huge garden, Haynes says. Bigger gardens require a serious time commitment to maintain throughout the growing season.
Plus, your family could quickly become overwhelmed by the garden’s bounty. One healthy tomato plant can yield 40 pounds of fruit over the course of a summer, so it’s best to start out with just a few plants, Haynes says.
Gardeners should also stick to vegetable varieties that they know their family will eat, Haynes says.
Good vegetables for Iowa gardens include tomatoes, lettuces, peppers, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, string beans, beets and snow peas, just to name a few.
Haynes recommends that gardeners choose vegetable varieties that are suitable for the amount of growing space in their yards.
Vine crops, such as melons, pumpkins and sweet corn need plenty of room to grow. When space is limited, gardeners can plant compact or “bush” varieties of popular vegetables, including beans and cucumbers, she says.
“You don’t have to try everything the first year,” Haynes says. “A vegetable garden can be a lot of maintenance. To start it and start it well, it does take a bit of work. So starting small and having small successes will then inspire you to do more next year and the next year.”
Choosing the right location is critical to a garden’s success, Haynes says. Vegetable plants perform best in sunny, well-drained spots.
For convenience, it’s a good idea to plant your vegetable or herb garden close to your kitchen, she adds.
“If you come home from work, one of the last things you are going to want to do is walk half an acre out to the vegetable garden and pick vegetables for supper,” Haynes says. “(My garden) is just outside my garage door. So if I need chives, I just walk into the garden and cut off some chives. It’s 20 steps there.”
Another option for gardeners with limited space, or no space if they live in an apartment, is growing vegetables in pots or containers.
Shelley Lande, a Polk County master gardener from Ankeny, grows lettuces, tomatoes, herbs and baby melons in containers. Her kitchen garden, modeled after the backyard potager gardens in France, is both decorative and functional.
Lande says container gardening is a simple and inexpensive way to start growing your own vegetables.
“All you need is a 5-gallon bucket,” Lande says. “If you have five buckets, you can have a salad. You can plant carrots in one, green peppers in another, a bit of lettuce in one, a tomato in one and a bush cucumber in the other one. It’s easy to take care of.”
When choosing vegetable seeds, be sure to look on the back of seed packets before buying to find the best varieties for your garden type, Haynes says.
The seed packets will explain how much space and light each plant needs, when to plant and how many days it takes to produce a crop.
Cool season crops, such as lettuce, radishes and carrots, can be planted in early spring, Haynes says. But it’s best to wait until after the average last frost date for your area to plant tomatoes, peppers and other warm season crops.
(See http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/2005/5-4-2005/iowafrostdates.html for a table of average frost dates in Iowa.)
And remember, your work in the garden doesn’t end once the plants are in the ground. A healthy, productive garden requires routine weeding, watering and monitoring for any insect or disease problems, Haynes says.
“I always say one of the best things a gardener can do is to make sure your shadow is in the garden often,” Haynes says. “So you are weeding and watering when needed, you are training the tomatoes up so they are not lying on the ground, you are looking for insects or disease problems, those kinds of things.”
Home gardeners can send insect, plant or soil samples to the Iowa State University (ISU) Extension Plant and Insect Diagnostic Clinic to find solutions to their gardening problems.
Iowans can also call the ISU Hortline at 515-294-3109 for answers to gardening question.
In addition, ISU Extension offers several publications with tips on planting and caring for vegetables that are well-suited to Iowa gardens. Visit ISU Extension's Yard and Garden Online Web site, www.yardandgarden.extension.iastate.edu/ for links to the publications.