Get the Most from your Garden!
Love to garden? We know the feeling. Our expert growers, Mark and Christa, have put together 5 quick tips for maximizing your garden this season.
1. Supplement the soil, but first SOIL TEST!
Soil testing is easy and the most important thing you can do for your soil and plant health. It’s cheap ($14) and easy! Just download the form you need from UVM Soil Lab here: http://pss.uvm.edu/ag_testing/?Page=soils.html
You’ll get your results back in two weeks and can use them to guide how much compost, manure, or other organic fertilizers your plants may need. Most gardens benefit from adding organic compost or aged manure before planting, and then following up with a little extra nitrogen when the plants are about to set fruit (like a tomato plant) or bulk up their roots (like a beet plant). One of the best way to provide this extra nitrogen is with an organic fertilizer blend. Again, this is the most important thing you can do for your garden – and you can do it today.
2. Planning for Succession Planting
Make the best use of your space by planting early crops now (peas, lettuce, radishes) and when they're done in June plant something else (squash, zucchini, more lettuce). Planting lettuce once per month provides young tasty greens all summer. Same with cilantro and dill, if you love these herbs plant them often, as they will always bolt trying to set seed. Leave in the older plants if you have the space and harvest the seed.
3. Space it out
It's tempting to cram it all in and over crowd your garden, but if you give plants enough room they'll actually grow better because they're not competing for light, water, and soil nutrients.
4. Weed it Often
No one really likes to weed, but it's important or your garden can become overrun with unwanted plants that out compete the plants you do want. Our motto is early and often - if you weed the plants out when they're young it's quick and easy and can usually be done with a hoe standing upright, verses down on your knees yanking out weed “trees”.
5. Involve the Whole Family
It's fun to watch plants grow and there's so much to discover in a garden. Kids love checking in on "their" plants, counting the earthworms, and reaping the harvest – harvesting carrots and potatoes is particularly magical for kids, it’s like finding buried treasure! And they love eating “their” vegetables. Even if you don’t have room for a garden, a cherry tomato plant on the porch is irresistible to all who pass by.