Easy Vegetable Gardening Really Is Possible - Learn How( home and garden )

By Colin Stride
Have you wondered what the secret is to easy vegetable gardening? Or perhaps like many you follow traditional methods of growing vegetables but find it too tiring or time consuming or are beset with weeds. Perhaps you find it hard to bend or do physical activity for long, or perhaps you feel frustrated by lack of time.
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There are many ways to make vegetable gardening easier and more rewarding for you. Here are a few good ones.

Good planning and vegetable garden design are the best place to start. Ascertain your own needs and what space and time you have available. Will your vegetable plot be part of your main garden, or at an allotment, or just in a set of containers? What you want to grow even has a bearing.

Use some of these labour saving techniques to help you;

Minimise the amount of digging by getting your soil in to good condition. Avoid inverting the soil and only dig deep when necessary.

Consider the vegetable bed system which has less need for digging as you never walk on the soil so there is little or no compaction. If you choose raised bed vegetable gardening then access is even easier and you could even adopt a no-dig approach.

Knowing your vegetable garden soil and its care allows easier soil preparation and maximises vegetable production. There are many ways to prepare a seedbed, but each must ensure good soil conditions and be appropriate to the crop planned to ensure best crop growth. In particular soil must be free from compaction
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Regular addition of organic matter, feeding soil organisms, improves soil structure and ensures a healthy soil, good for plant growth and easier to care for. To this end making good garden compost with a good mix of green and brown materials well aerated is well worth learning. It is easy to make plenty of rich crumbly compost, but, get it wrong and the heap can be wet and smelly and useless!

Knowing when and how to plant vegetables is important as they prefer different conditions and need different periods to mature. Seed packets are a good source of such information. Start with growing easy vegetables like carrots, beetroot, lettuce, radishes or even courgettes, outdoor ridge cucumbers, French beans, or even potatoes in a bag of compost. Then as your confidence and knowledge grows more on to other vegetables that you enjoy.

Once your vegetables are sown or planted they will need some care. This needn't be time consuming, but can be as your nice seedbed well fed and watered suits weeds too! However, you can master weed control with shading through closer planting and mulches or membrane and through regular weeding to prevent seeding. Watering vegetables with a hose may seem easy, but it rarely delivers enough water for your crops - just wetting the surface, but encourages a mega flush of weeds across the plot. The easier ways, which conserve water, include 'point' watering what needs watering, watering in the evening, and using cover to aid retention.

Vegetable gardening should be easy, fun and include the incredible satisfaction of growing your own tasty vegetables all through the year. However, get it wrong and it can be hard and unrewarding.

One last trick that makes all the difference - 'little and often wins the day'. Rather than digging/ weeding/ planting or watering for hours on end in one session - spread the load and you will find it takes less time, is more enjoyable and more successful particularly as you build in the easy vegetable gardening techniques.

A regular 0.5-1 hour slot every day, or on alternate days, allows you to know what needs doing, keep on top of weeds, keep a regular supply of tasty young produce and of course is easier on your back.

I hope you can enjoy your vegetable gardening like I do.

Happy gardening - fun, great exercise, satisfying with wonderful produce to eat!

©Copyright Colin Stride 2008, All Rights Reserved.

For a wealth of information on easy vegetable gardening based on my experiences over 5 years, together with professional knowledge, visit my web site http://www.easy-vegetable-gardening.com/
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To get free monthy vegetable gardening tips to help you practice easy vegetable gardening sign-up at; http://www.easy-vegetable-gardening.com/vegetable-gardening-tip.html

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