Eat, Save, and Be Healthy

If you’ve been following our green gardening series, you know that I’ve chosen which vegetables to plant in my backyard garden and have started seeds for some of them indoors. The next step in my gardening adventure was getting everything planted in the garden! This year, due to more motivation from the blog, good weather, or unseen magical forces we can’t explain, my husband and I got our garden in weeks before we normally do. Here’s the layout of what I planted in early May:

As you can tell, we have a pretty decently sized garden for living in town – and we try to take full advantage of it! The perimeter of the garden is fenced, thus the peas, cucumbers, beans, and tomato locations. Growing close to a fence will allow them to climb and produce more yummy vegetables! (Peas and beans especially.) The corn was planted in double rows to allow for cross-pollination (a must for producing corn, read more about that here).

The tomatoes and peppers were started from seed indoors and moved out to the garden just this past week to allow plenty of time for them to become hardy enough to plant outdoors.

Below are the steps I took to plant seeds in the garden:

1. If you haven’t already done so, map out what you will plant where. Take into consideration if the plant(s) need to climb or can grow on the ground, how much space they need to grow, and if they need to be planted in double rows to allow for cross-pollination (such as corn and peas).

2.  Till up the dirt in the garden before planting using a gas or electric-powered tiller for large gardens, or simply a shovel. This gets the dirt nice and loose and ready for seed growth – if the dirt is too packed down it will be much more difficult for seeds to grow and reach the surface where the all-important sunshine is!

4. Mark rows using biodegradable twine or other string and dowel rods or something similar. Here’s an example in my finished garden, do you notice the rows of string?:row, move on to the next. (Psst…. this is a great task for your kids to help with!)

5.  Water the entire garden until the dirt is good and saturated. Make sure to water at least every three days, or even every day if the weather is sunny and hot, to promote seed growth.

It really is easy, and planting the seeds and plants in the garden is perhaps one of my kids’ favorite gardening activities! They can get as dirty and as wet as they want! After a few weeks of planting and caring for your garden, this is hopefully what it will look like:

If you would like more in-depth information on growing each of these vegetables in your home garden, OSU Extension has many very helpful fact sheets available on a variety of fruits, vegetables, and herbs.

Happy Gardening! How is your garden coming along? What have you planted and are you already harvesting your fruits and vegetables?

This series is authored by Jamie Seger, Ohio State University Extension Family & Consumer Sciences Program Coordinator.

Other posts in this series:

Green Gardening Series: Join Us!

Ladies and Gentleman – Start Your Seeds!