Instead of heading to the supermarket for the ingredients for your next salad or pie, why not pick them from your own garden?
Fruits and vegetables are most delicious when eaten within minutes after being picked. Anyone can grow a variety of fruits and vegetables in a small urban garden. Garden centers and on-line retailers offer a variety of dwarf and compact fruit trees and vegetables ideal for small spaces.
Plan the Garden Layout
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Take the time to plan the garden to maximize available space and sunlight. Determine which plants can be planted together; some plants make good garden companions and others do not. “Three Sisters” is a traditional Native American companion gardening practice.
Corn, squash and bean are planted in the same bed: The corn serves as a pole for the beans; the beans enrich the soil with nitrogen which enhances the corn’s growth and production; the squash serves as natural mulch, retaining soil moisture and suppressing weeds.
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The Complete Guide to Companion Planting: Everything You Need to Know to Make Your Garden Successful (Back-To-Basics Gardening by Dale Mayer is a compressive guide on how to use companion planting to maximize space, suppress pests and increase crop yield.
Kitchen Gardens: Beyond the Vegetable Patch from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is a guide to creating a garden that blends utility and aesthetics while feeding your family and your spirit. Also from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden website are several articles with design ideas for different types of kitchen gardens.
Soil Testing
Before planting edibles it is a good practice to have the soil tested. Soil tests can be performed using a home soil test kit (available at most garden centers) or by sending soil samples to a local land grant college. Cornell and Medgar Evers offer soil testing for the home gardener.
A basic soil test will determine the soil’s ph level and amount of vital the nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorous and potash in the soil. A comprehensive soil test will provide information on toxins present in the soil along with instructions on how to remediate soil conditions and balance PH and nutrient levels.
Preparing Planting Beds
Properly preparing the soil before planting will ensure healthier plants and greater yield. Remove large rocks (smaller rocks aid drainage), debris and weeds. Dig deeply when removing weeds to ensure the removal of all root systems. Do not till weeds into soil. Work recommended amendments into the soil to a depth of two feet. Rake the beds to level soil. Cover beds with landscape fabric to inhibit weed growth.
Raised Beds
There are many advantages to using raised beds: Raised beds allow for better control of soil conditions, as they can be customized to meet the soil type, ph levels and nutritional requirements for different plants. Raised beds extend the planting season, they warm earlier in the spring and can be easily converted to use a cold frame extending the growing season into the cooler months. If you are concerned about pesticides and chemical fertilizers, raised beds can be filled with organic soil and natural amendments like manure.
Compost
Soil is alive and needs to be fed. Compost is food for the soil. Compost makes soil more fertile, increases moisture retention and aeration and enhances delivery of nutrients to plants.
Compost can be purchased at garden centers. However, starting your own compost pile is cost-effective and great for the environment. Household waste such as vegetable scraps, bread, coffee grounds, egg shells, tea bags, nut shells, paper towels and shredded newspapers can be added to a compost pile reducing the volume of these materials in landfill where they take significantly longer to decompose.
The New York City Composting Project a program of the New York City Department of Sanitation offers discount compost bins, classes and online guides on composting. The project’s initiatives also include drop off and collection of compost materials and compost give-aways.
Save some money, save the environment, grow your own salad.
*Sources: The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Lowes, NYC Dept. of Sanitation.