How to Create a Delightful, Magnificent Garden

My Patriot Supply – by Matt Redhawk

The visual feast of a well-rounded garden is truly a remarkable sight.

Nurturing a garden until it bursts with tantalizing juicy vegetables is one of life’s greatest pleasures. It’s your reward for a great deal of hard work.

To reach that point, though, requires some planning. Once you choose the right location for your garden, the next step is to decide what you want to plant.  

To fill your table and pantry with delicious farm-fresh food, you should include a variety of plants. Determine what you and your family enjoy eating. Choose the kind of fruit and vegetables that you know you’ll put to good use.

A Glorious Bouquet of Vegetables

When you think of growing your own vegetables, one of the most common types that comes to mind is tomatoes.

They’re a fantastic vegetable. Tomatoes are an excellent source of vitamins. In addition, they have antioxidants, which keep your body’s cells healthy. For even more antioxidant power, consider pairing tomatoes in your dishes with broccoli.

Broccoli is full of beta-carotene and anti-inflammatory and detoxification agents. Together with tomatoes, broccoli gives the body a potent mix of nutrition.

If you’re just starting out, you want to avoid growing exotic vegetables like bok choy or hard to grow vegetables like celery or eggplant.

Here are 12 easy to grow vegetables:

• Bush beans (also called green beans or string beans)
• Beets
• Carrots
• Cucumbers
• Romaine lettuce
• Snap peas
• Radishes
• Spinach
• Tomatoes
• Bell peppers
• Butternut squash
• Zucchini

These vegetables can be added to your recipes for flavorful summertime meals. In addition, you can savor them throughout the year if you preserve them through canning. You can also plant many of these vegetables throughout the growing season. Enjoy them raw, or include them in a recipe. No matter how you consume your homegrown produce, you’ll know your family will be receiving a bushel full of healthy nutrition!

Plan for a Multi-harvest Season

Enjoy an ongoing crop of produce throughout the year by planning your garden. Gardeners should plan the planting schedule to accommodate cold-sensitive and heat-sensitive plants so that each crop gets the type of weather it prefers.

Here is one way to create a multi-season harvest:

Mid-spring: plant beets, lettuce, snap peas, broccoli, radishes, spinach and carrots

Late-spring: plant tomatoes, peppers, butternut squash, zucchini, cucumbers, beans

Midsummer: plant kale, arugula

Late summer: plant lettuce, turnips, carrots, mixed cover crop of bush beans, peas

Late fall: plant garlic

You can check with your nearby Cooperative Extension Office to learn about your growing seasons. In most cases, the gardening season starts in late spring and continues until early fall. You can plant some vegetables, like zucchini, a week after the last frost date of the season. Some plants can survive exposure toward the colder months of autumn, but you’d need to check your zone to be certain.

Also, remember that the weather differs slightly from one year to the next. You can get an early start – even plant two or three rounds of crops – if your growing period is lengthy and warm. You might have to contend with summertime’s hot weather, which can be hard on a number of vegetable plants, so plan to provide them more mulch and water.

At the end, your hard work will pay off in such a delicious way. To say it’s rewarding would be an understatement. It’s life changing!

Stay healthy!

In Liberty,

Matt Redhawk

Owner, My Patriot Supply

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