Easy Steps to Building a Vegetable Garden

Hello again,

I came across this article at MuddyFingernail, one of many sites we follow at www.twitter.com/skillins. MuddyFingernail is often a great place to find easy to read and follow articles about gardening. This one fits the bill and is called Easy Steps to Building a Vegetable Garden. The writer is Natasha Gibson. I have included a few comments in italics.

Thankfully Spring is finally upon us, and what better way is there to celebrate then creating your very own veggie garden! I took to this task this past weekend and figured I would post some of the useful tips I found when conducting my own research.


1. Go to your local gardening centre to pick up supplies, here's a list of what you need to get started:

- seeds

- top soil

- a good fertilizer- we recommend Garden Tone by Espoma or Plant Booster Plus by Organica

- a trellis (if your growing peas, or pickling cukes or beans in a few weeks)

- gardening gloves

- a shovel- if you don't already have one

2. Once you have all your gear your going to want to pick a space in your yard that gets lots of sunshine, mark off a section no more than 8X10 feet for beginners. If the spot is part of your lawn your going to want to dig up your grass to uncover the dirt underneath. Its a good idea if you can manage building a raised border out of wood to box in your garden.

3. Next you're going to mix your fertilizer and top soil then pour it on top of the dirt that you dug up.

4. You're going to want to plant your veggies according to the package directions, planting cool weather veggies first such as lettuce, spinach and peas. Once the ground temperature warms you can start about adding more veggies (again they vary so look to your package)--also consult us at Skillin's. Warmer weather crops like tomatoes, peppers, and vine crops are planted close to the end of May or first part of June.

5. You will want to create labels for the veggies so you know what is where, the easiest way to do this is by taking the actual seed packages (when you open them be careful to just cut off a tiny sliver from the top so you don't wreck the picture) Then poke to a tiny whole at the top and bottom of the package to slide the stake through, and voila you have a cute rustic label

6. You may want to consider getting some wired garden fencing to keep cats and other wild life out, to keep slugs out you can use copper wiring to border your garden as a natural pesticide.

Most seeds take 8-10 weeks to yield their first crop, but you can continue adding to your garden every 2 weeks so that you maintain a continuous supply of fresh produce.

Mike Skillin
Skillin's Greenhouses
March 31, 2010