Garden ✦ freedom

Garden 101

Gardening is all about finding the right combination of sunlight, fertile soil, and water to make your plants thrive. It's also about fulfilling your passion, creating your own food source and connecting with nature. Vegetable gardening consists of selecting a site, planning the garden, preparing the soil, choosing the seeds and plants, planting a crop, and nurturing the plants until they are ready for harvest. The end result is fresh produce to eat, share, or sell.
Anyone who is willing to invest some time every other day to nurture the plants can grow a vegetable garden successfully. with the right planning. gardening doesnt ake much money, time, or skills. However, as time goes on, you'll gain necessary skills as needed. Don’t be discouraged if the first attempt isn’t a huge success. Make every year a lesson for learning.
Growing vegetables takes some space, but not necessarily acres. A vegetable garden can be in the ground or in a garden bed, but it's up to the individual gardeners preferences. Many vegetables can be grown in containers which makes patio or porch gardening easy to do! Plants such as peppers, tomatoes, letuuce and spinach are great examples of container friendly plants Learn more about gardening here!

first 3 things to consider

Sunlight
Most vegetables need at least eight hours of direct sunlight. Plants including leafy greens such as lettuce, kale, chard, and spinach—and root crops such as radishes, turnips, and beets can be grown in as little as six hours of sunlight but thrive best in 8 hours of sunlight. Plants that we grow for their fruit like peppers, tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers, need at least eight but do best with 10 hours of sunlight. Choose a spot in the garden that works best for each type of plant.
Watering
One of the most important elements of gardening is water, which makes up 90 percent of a plant’s weight. Water is heavy and difficult to move, so locate the garden near a potable water supply, making it easy to water the garden properly. Rainwater collection tanks should be stored nearby the garden or have a spigot and hose closeby. On average, vegetables need one inch of water per week, and you need to provide only what is not supplied by rain. Make sure to water only the soil as best you can, not the plant. Many diseases are spread by water splashing on the leaves. Overwatering can also lead to insect and disease problems as well as washing nutrients away. Every plant will have their own water regimine.
Gardening Zone
In the United States, Gardeing zones, also known as plant hardiness zones are a way to categorize differenet geographical areas based on their annual minimum winter temperatures. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) created a map that represents each gardening zone in the US. There are 13 zones labeled '1-13' in the US with each zone representing a 10 degrees F difference in average minimum winter temps. Each zone is then further divided into two subzones labled 'a' and 'b'. Each letter represents a 5 degree window within the 10 degree zone. Knowing your gardening zone will benefit your garden greatly as some plants flourish better in certain zones. Not all plants can be grown in every garden zone. Access the USDA garden zone map here