Mar 18, 2009: Beginner Veggie Gardeners, Part 1

My daughter Lynde, my friend Sharon, and I decided to cultivate a vegetable garden this spring. Our combined expertise consists of some half-remembered gardens from many years ago. We hope our veggie adventures will encourage fellow gardening newbies to give it a try. Experienced gardeners, try not to laugh too hard.

Local horticulturalist, nursery owner, and author Charles Pollard gave us some much-needed advice. A general 13-13-13 fertilizer is the best for vegetable garden preparation. The first 13 is the amount of nitrogen, which is like sugar for plants, instant energy. The second 13 is phosphorus and the third is potash. The nitrogen only lasts 60 to 90 days, so you need to reapply ammonium nitrate about every 30 days. For organic growers, you can compost all winter, save your cow manure, or buy mushroom manure by the bag at Lowe’s.

Without a soil sample test, you can still make a pretty good guesstimate of how much fertilizer to put down, about 1 pound per 100 square feet. Our plot is 15 feet by 25 feet, which is 375 square feet (multiple the numbers together), so we needed about 4 pounds of fertilizer. Enough calculating. Let’s get our hands dirty!

A wonderful neighbor, Danny, loaned us his rototiller. After we pulled out the most obvious weeds, Lynde, the sturdiest among us, grabbed the handles and dug in. Rototilling is like a wrestling match. Sometimes you’re winning, and sometimes you’re not. Sharon and I followed along behind, raking and pulling more weeds. Danny’s advice is to make several passes, rather than trying to dig all the way down on the first run. After a couple of hours, we had our 15 by 25 foot patch churned up and mostly weeded.

Then we added the fertilizer using a hand crank spreader. We kind of guessed on the amount, not quite one hopper-full. One more pass to till the fertilizer in, and we were ready to fence. Last summer my dog Gemma lay under a tomato bush and ate a tomato like a Roman emperor eating grapes. She eats every blueberry she can reach. She cracks pecans and picks out the nutmeats. At our house, a sturdy garden fence is essential. We sledge hammered in metal posts and wired on three foot tall welded wire fencing, strong enough to support climbing peas and beans.

In four hours, we had a plot tilled, weeded, fenced, and ready to plant. Sharon, Lynde, and I were dirty and grinning as we high-fived.

So far, I’ve planted English peas and marigolds. An old tale is that marigolds repel bugs. Whether it’s true or not, they are sturdy and colorful. I’ll keep you up to date on our progress as the weeks go by.