Design

Ed, from Slow Cook , asked bloggers to post about starting a vegetable garden recently, in a post forwarded to me by a gardening friend (CEN). This is a topic I'm totally keen on . At the Garden where I work, we're having an event next weekend to promote vegetable gardening, with the tagline of 'Building Community, Growing Vegetables.' Those of us who enjoy growing vegetables know the joy of harvesting and eating from the garden, whether it's a couple of tomato plants or a series of raised beds or an expansive 'kitchen garden' -- and we're keen on promoting it to others. The first season in my 'main' vegetable garden My first vegetable garden as an 'adult' was modest. We'd just put in a fence (for our old boy, our dog Chessie), who wasn't prone to roam, anyway, but we sprung for picket fence in the most visible areas. I planted snow peas -- and this was just the beginning. My previous forays involved trying to plant onions in ...

A question in a recent kitchen gardening program has had me thinking about nutrients and vegetables again. Vegetables are so much more nutrient-intensive than perennials, shrubs, trees, or any 'landscape' plants, it's hard to realize sometimes how much they appreciate excellent, fertile soil to grow in. The person who asked the question wondered why her vegetables just seemed average, in their compost-enriched raised beds (but with no added fertilizer). Her soil test was 'fine' for vegetables, according to our state Ag Services Lab. But another participant had just told us about her two Early Girl tomato plants last season that produced so many tomatoes that she was giving them away to her friends, neighbors, people at her church, etc. But she was fertilizing her plants. Hmm. Most of my vegetable plants are a lot more in the average category - nice and productive, but nothing overwhelming. But I don't fertilize much either, after adding compost at each rot...