Hit the Dirt; Vegetable Gardening

Been thinking about the produce at the grocery stores not liking it so much when you want to start your own gardens. It's not too late at this time. You can still be planting lettuces and certain greens but working on your soils would be a great item right now to get ready for next year. You could be planning on a cover crop to improve the soils and in the fall you could be thinking about planting items like spinach I'm talking late fall just before the snows and before the ground freezes planting spinach is lettuce carrots. This way they'll pop up in the spring time and you'll be quite surprised how vigorous they'll be in their growth. I was a little worried this past winter when we had so much freezing and thawing but discovered that everything came out quite well I garden both in Vermont in Maine and in both locations we had a lot of warm

weather and it was scary. I was wondering what was going to happen with the the garlic and and with the carrots but it all came up and I'm planning on doing a lot more of that this coming year. I've had three different plots going with parsley where I've used a cover known as Rimi and that's come up well but still the items I planted last fall have come up real good and real strong and looks like it will beat the summer heat because it's already a good size. There's lots of different greens there's Japanese varieties bok choy rays Taso your pepper crest real spicy It's nice to add a little to salads. 14 varieties a lot is more. So there's a lot there that you can do with salad greens. One way you can help beat the summer heat and still have lettuce is through the hot spells is by using eye shade nets. This works really

well. So you can have greens right on through and then in the fall you can do it. I don't known as a row cover crop with slitted plastic which will help extend you read into past the frost. So you could be eating fresh greens a good part of the year with ception of the January February and December time. It's not too late to be thinking about a real strong fall garden with peas broccoli brussel sprouts kale. So if you get that garden started now and get the soils work to use even newer seaweed just improve the health of the soil. You still have time possibly you could buy some already started seedlings in like the Brussels sprouts and broccoli cauliflower and you'll have a nice healthy crop in the fall. Right now with our heat spell here in the area it's really

important to get out and mulch your gardens to conserve water. I've been using older hay and actually just taken a pair of scissors and chopping it up to make it a little finer. Some people have little problems with potential grass seeds growing from the hay. I use what I can and it seems to work well the hay when it comes to conserving water it's really important the plants really appreciate that moist soil in this area on the coast. One great item that a lot of gardeners know but if you're just starting out is that you can be taking seaweed and putting in a jar with some water and let it sit out for a few days and this will create a seaweed tea and you can take the tea and dilute it with some water and feed it to the plant to the base of the plant and they'll just really appreciate it a lot. You may be thinking you don't have enough time right now to be working your gardens because your your life is your lifestyle this isn't geared toward the garden

but give it some thought that you can get out there and do some soil preparation work now because in a few years down the road will make a world of difference in the quality of your produce and you may feel real strong about having your own food and helping out with the ecology in the sense of not having food trucked all over the country and it be great if you like to get your kids involved in the gardens they are great with a package of ratty seeds these just put them right out there and let them throw the seeds out. And in 25 days you have some real nice radishes and they just really appreciate seeing where food is coming from.