Do you want to try your hand at creating a vegetable garden? Then arm yourself with work gloves, shovel and rake because the work to be done is long: from soil preparation to fertilizer, from sowing to final harvest, your efforts will be rewarded by the vegetables you bring to the table!
You too have been conquered by food products at km 0. So you decided to make your own plot of land and carve out a vegetable garden so that you could watch your vegetables grow, so that you could pick them and bring your produce to the table. Where to start? The first step is dedicated to soil preparation (and perhaps the most exhausting!). You need work gloves to prevent blisters on your hands, a shovel, a rake, a pickaxe, a shovel, and fertilizer.
If you’re a beginner, don’t be afraid. Follow the step-by-step instructions and maybe ask someone more experienced than you for advice, or read some books on the subject. And then remember that you only learn by doing, so don’t worry about making so many mistakes, especially in the beginning. If you’re a horticulture professional, you may still have a trick that escapes you or some plants that you haven’t dared to grow yet. This might be the right time.
Soil Preparation
Contrary to what you might think, the soil should be prepared at the beginning of winter. The soil, in fact, must be moved, fertilized and must rest before sowing in spring.
At this point it’s time to roll up your sleeves. First you have to dig the soil, turn the soil where you will make your garden and remove the roots of the weeds and weeds. Also remove as many stones as you can, so that working the soil later is easier.
Feed the soil with fertilizer: the best is equine, but it is also the most expensive; Otherwise, use compost, perfect for fertilization because it makes the soil very friable.
Chop the larger clods, helping you with the pickaxe and rake, and finally mix well with the fertilizer added to the soil. In the end, the floor surface will need to be as even and level as possible.
Before sowing
The efforts did not end here. The soil in the garden should be worked again just before planting. Weeds and weeds should be removed if they are still present, as well as large and medium-sized stones should be removed.
Work the soil until it is crumbly and well level. At this point you can organize your vegetable garden. Think about what produce you’ll want to grow and divide the land into areas of different sizes; Seedlings and seeds should be placed in separate furrows and made crosswise with respect to the slope that the water flow will follow. How is the distance of the slots decided? Simply by imagining what vegetables you will grow and how much most of the plants grown will be just before harvest.
Another important aspect is how to place the seedlings in the furrows: if they are spring or summer products, you should insert the seedlings in the furrows, to prevent water from dispersing; For winter products, on the other hand, you have to place them on top of the mountains of earth that you will have prepared in the furrows, this to avoid possible water stagnation.
What to grow
There are vegetables that are easy to grow and others that are more challenging. If you’re a beginner with shovel and rake, it’s best to focus on the simplest ones.
The tomato is one of them. It needs good sun exposure and soil acidity between pH6 and pH7. Dig a hole for each seed and space the holes made at least 30 cm apart. It is a climbing plant, so it gets a structure that supports its growth.
Zucchini should be sown in spring, in the period from March to May. Place two or three seeds for each hole and space the holes between them by at least one meter. Zucchini needs a lot of water, so water every day and in a couple of weeks you will see the first sprouts.
