Posts Tagged ‘getting started’
Help for New Home Kitchen Gardens
While it can seem challenging to create a home kitchen garden, the basic principles of gardening are very simple. Consider: whole prairies, forests, and jungles, manage to maintain themselves without human intervention. They follow a natural cycle:
- Seeds fall on soil
- Moisture triggers germination
- Plants grow and produce fruit/seeds
- Seeds disperse and some fall on soil
- Plants die, eventually decomposing into soil
The challenge in growing a home kitchen garden is that you’re often trying to get plants to grow in soil or climate that doesn’t appeal to them… or that gives plant-eating insects and other pests an overwhelming advantage.
The Successful Home Kitchen Gardener
The simple secret for success with a home kitchen garden is in a single word: knowledge. The more you know about gardening, the more, better produce you can coax out of any garden. Fortunately, with almost no gardening knowledge or experience, a first-time grower can be satisfyingly successful. But any newcomer to gardening wanting to improve their results should embark on an adventure of discovery: find opportunities to learn, and take the knowledge with you into your garden.
Here are some suggestions for where to get started:
Get a mentor—I can’t emphasize this enough. Hang out in a home kitchen garden with someone who’s maintained one for ten or so years, and you’ll become savvy very quickly.
Contact your local Cooperative Extension office—Sounds a little stiff, but these folks live to promote agriculture and gardening (among other things). Many extension offices offer free seminars on planting, composting, and more. There’s a clickable map at their web site to help you find local extension offices and programs.
Read some good books—This is a very low-impact way to become an expert. There are hundreds of books about gardening, some even entertaining to read. Ideally, find books that are written specifically about the region where you’re growing a home kitchen garden. This book store offers many regionally-focused titles.
Peruse at least one seed/nursery catalog—These provide massive inspiration: I always want to expand my garden when I read catalogs. Also, most catalogs are goldmines of information about plants, planting, plant care, crop yields… nearly everything you need to be successful. If you don’t have a printed catalog, check out the Johnny’s Seeds catalog on line.
Follow some gardening blogs—With many blogs and gardening web sites from which to choose, you’ll find some whose approaches and instruction perfectly suit your sensibilities. When you find a blog you like, participate! Leave encouraging comments, ask questions, and buy stuff from advertisements on the pages; a gardener who’s blogging about it will be thrilled to help solve your gardening challenges. I’ve listed a few compelling sites you can explore in the box, Home Kitchen Garden Sites… and if you haven’t yet, hop over to this blog’s sister: Your Small Kitchen Garden.
Participate in gardening forums—Gardening forums abound on the internet, and some specifically focus on kitchen gardening. I’ve joined more than I’ve been able to keep up with, but there’s good information on all of them. Floating a question on a gardening forum quickly teaches you that there are no uniquely correct answers. Answering a question on such a forum can draw ire and admiration. In any case, you’ll learn. The box titled Home Kitchen Garden Forums lists several that I’ve joined. I’m most active in Yahoo’s Veggie Patch. Beware, I’ve seen unfathomably rude behavior on some forums.