How to choose what to grow in your garden

Many of you may be wondering how to choose what to grow in your garden this year.  I'm here to help.  There are many factors on determining what to grow.  First, is what do you like?  I would suggest staying away from things you wouldn't eat, you are just wasting your time.  Second is size.  How big is your garden?  Do you have unlimited room or are you using a small 8 foot by 8 foot square?
If you have unlimited space, I suggest you plant first the vegetables you enjoy to eat and second some you might want to try and experiment with.  Different varieties or different crops all together.  The choice is yours.  You could also get into the berry business.  This is much easier than you might believe.  I have planted in my back yard, 3 rows of strawberries, 1 row of raspberries and a row of blueberries.  These are so fun to take care of and it sure beats paying 4 dollars a quart for strawberries at the supermarket.

Those of you with limited space, wondering how to choose what to grow in your garden, I suggest you do the following.  You should not plant any vine crops.  these tend to travel and suffocate other crops in small quarters.  The only vine crop I would allow are cucumbers only becasue you can put them on the side and trellis them with netting to keep from the other crops.  Some other plantings I might suggest would be beans, any root crop such as radishes, carrots, and beets, any lettuce, onions, peppers and tomatoes, and summer squash if you like it.  This would give you a well rounded supply of vegetables throughout the summer and fall.

That is my advice for now.  Check out my 2011 seed list for what I will be planting and feel free to take my ideas.  When the time comes, I will post a picture of my garden plan as to where I intend to put the different crops this year.  Enjoy the winter and stay warm!

Hooray For Leaves

Leaves offer some good fun and benefits to everyone. First and foremost, the kids love when mom and dad rake them into huge piles and the kids get to jump in joy, this has always a great time of year for my sister and I. It offered fun and enjoyment but then we had to re-rake them so it taught us the importance between work and fun as well.

Now we get to the gardening section of this post. Leaves provide a great number of nutrients when they begin to break down. They are a great way to begin a compost pile since there is always and abundance of leaves everywhere you look. You can take a few loads and dump them into your compost pile, or take my method which works great for me.

I rake all my leaves from the front and back yard into my freshly tilled garden. When they are all on top of my garden, I try to spread them out evenly over the entire plot. I have a fairly good sized garden so I have room for all my leaves. If you don’t have a big garden, just use enough to cover the entire garden with an inch or two. This is the easiest part. Just leave the leaves all winter on top of your garden. They will begin to compost themselves. Also, over the winter earthworms come to the surface and eat the leaves which then turn into waste and nutrients put back into to soil. It’s a natural way of composting.

When spring comes and you can work the soil, just till the remaining leaves into your garden and keep tilling until your soil is worked enough to plant.

This is a great way to dispose of your fall time menace and put them to good use. There is nothing better than recycling and there is nothing better than free!