Why Plant a Vegetable Garden?

There are many reasons for planting a vegetable garden. The first would be the satisfaction of growing your own food.

Working outdoors and getting much needed excercise is also a big plus. With a minimal effort you can produce enough vegetables to make a significant dent in your grocery bill. Still others garden just for the fun of it. Whatever your reason for starting a vegetable garden, you’ll soon realize that gardening is easy, enjoyable and a great learning experience . A vegetable garden quickly becomes more than just something to tinker with, it becomes a way of life.

When you raise food crops, you tend to follow the weather a lot more so that you can plan planting, maintenance, watering and enjoyment of your growing vegetable garden. You also tend to take more attention of the condition of your soil. Whatever the weather you have to adjust to what you are dealt with to produce your nutritious vegetables.

 During the season as you start to harvest your vegetables that’s when you get to appreciate the fruits or should I say vegetables of your labour. Nothing beats the taste of freshly picked vegetables right out of the garden, it beats anything you can buy from your supermarket.

You’re bound to have some occasional disappointments, but on the whole, you’ll get full-size, well formed, tasty vegetables you’ll be proud to feed your family and friends. If you get a good crop you may also have enough to be able to store as well as freeze and can for latter use. During the dead of winter it’s always a treat to be able to serve those great tasting vegetables that you were able to store fresh. Other vegetables that must be frozen or canned are also wonderful to get into when fresh vegetables are unavailable.

Fighting Plant Enemies

(1) those used to afford mechanical protection to the plants;

(2) those used to apply Insecticides and Fungicides.

Of the first the most useful is the covered frame. It consists usually of a wooden box, some eighteen inches to two feet square and about eight high, covered with glass, protecting cloth, mosquito netting or mosquito wire. The first two coverings have, of course, the additional advantage of retaining heat and protecting from cold, making it possible by their use to plant earlier than is otherwise safe. They are used extensively in getting an extra early and safe start with cucumbers, melons and the other vine vegetables.

Simpler devices for protecting newly-set plants, such as tomatoes or cabbage, from the cut-worm, are stiff, tin, cardboard or tar paper collars, which are made several inches high and large enough to be put around the stem and penetrate an inch or so into the soil.

For applying Insecticides and fungicides, the home gardener should use a spray bottle for small gardens. For larger gardens get a small tank sprayer, as this throws a continuous stream or spray and holds a much larger amount of the spraying solution. Whatever type you use, they do succumbs very quickly to corroding action so do rinse them out after each use.