It doesn’t matter if you are single or you have a large family, saving money is something that we all strive to. Therefore, finding ways to cut down on the day-to-day costs is always a good thing. One of the best ways you can save money is by growing your own vegetables. As we all know, food is an unavoidable expense and being a healthy person is, unfortunately, a very expensive privilege that not a lot of people have. The best option is to simply start a vegetable garden in your own backyard. It will not only be more nutritious, but it will save you money and it will save the environment.
Choose The Right Place In Your Yard
The first thing that you need to know is that your vegetables will need about six to eight hours of direct sunlight every day. But this is a general statement, not all of them will have the same requirements. There are two groups of vegetables. There are heat-loving and cool-loving vegetables. heat-loving vegetables are ones like peppers, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers as well as beans. That means that they are ready once it gets warm. They like as much sun as possible, so the warmer the better they will turn out. On the other hand, you have cold-loving veggies such as different types of cabbage, radishes, lettuce, kale and so on. They all like to be in shade. They are amazing for making cool-season crops as when it is too warm, they tend to bold. As we all know, the sung angles change throughout the season and the best thing that you can do is use a sun calculator to provide your plants with the best spaces in your yard.
Grow What You Love to Eat
The most important question that you need to ask yourself is what vegetables do you and your family like to eat. Depending on what the answer is you will choose what to plant in your garden. But something that you need to do before you just go out and buy what you like is read the seed packets and labels because there are so many different types of one vegetable.
Another important thing that you need to do is think about how much you will be able to eat and what you will do with potential excess vegetables. Don’t make the beginner’s mistake and plant way too many vegetables. Think about how many times during a season the vegetables that you are choosing can be harvested.
Prepare Your Soil
The first thing that you need to know about your soil is that there are three types of it. Sand, silt and clay. Sandy soil will drain the water way too fast and it will make it very hard for the plants to soak up the water they need. On the other hand, clay holds on to too much moisture and will drown your vegetables. The perfect soil will contain a mix of all three types of soil. But very few yards will have a perfect mix, so you are most likely going to have to make your own mix. After you have made the perfect mix for your veggies you will need to find a location where it has enough water and light. Make sure that you either have a water source near you or that you have a quality garden hose reel that can reach all the way to your garden.
Be Ready for Pests and Diseases
When you are growing your own vegetables, you have to accept that there will be issues down the road. The first thing that you have to be ready to encounter are weeds. Because you are feeding your vegetables nutrients and water and they have a lot of light because they need to thrive, you will get unwanted visitors like weeds. Weeds will steal all the nutrients which will cause your veggies to die. That is why you need to keep them to a minimum. Another thing that you need to worry about are animals as well as insects. When you are growing vegetables you will become the favourite place for rabbits, deer and other critters. That is why you need to ensure that your garden is fenced in. But when it comes to keeping the bugs away, you need to make sure that you are not drowning your plants in chemicals, so the best option is the insecticidal soap spray. But that is not all, you will also face some fungal diseases. In order to fight off any diseases from attacking your vegetables, you should water them early in the morning so the soil is dry by nighttime. If you see that one plant is prone to disease and it keeps spreading diseases to others make sure that you throw it away.
Grow Vegetables from Scraps
There are a lot of beginners that don’t know that you sometimes don’t need a seed to grow a vegetable. Many plants have secondary methods of reproduction, basically anywhere that you see a sprout emerging a new plant is able to grow. You can even plant grocery store trimmings and have a garden. One of the best things that you can plant from sprouts are potatoes, but you can also do it with vegetables like onions, lettuce, celery and all the plants that will sprout in your drawer. All you need to do is keep the bottom two inches of the plant completely intact and keep the lower part of it submerged in water. After a few days you will be able to see some growth. The scraps that you don’t end up using or sprouting you can turn into natural fertilizers for your garden.
The most important thing is that you are working along with nature and not against it. If it’s giving you lemons, make lemonade don’t fight it. Listen to what it’s saying to you and aid its needs. The more love you are giving it, the better your vegetables will taste.
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