Homegrown veggies...
...Bee shows you how
Story by Bee Fisher Kocher

     So you say you’re not a gardener. Compared to our grandparents most of us are not what most people think of when they think of vegetable
gardeners.

My Fisher grandparents (who happened to live next door to us) had a 100 foot long row of black raspberry bushes with four rows of strawberries beside them. And that’s just the fruit! I can’t remember how many tomato, cabbage, zucchini (Grandma Fisher made the best zucchini bread!), and pepper plants they also had! This was their “retirement from the farm” garden too.

Needless to say most of us are not on that level simply due to our backyards are smaller. However small your garden is you can still grow vegetables for you and your family if you follow some basic gardening rules.

1.Sunlight.
An absolute must for any vegetable garden to be successful is to have an area that gets at least six hours of sunlight each day — preferably the hotter afternoon sun. This is just a fact of life. If you have less sun then expect less results (i.e. less harvest, smaller size vegetables).

2. Preparing the bed.
Hey, I never said vegetable gardening is easy — it’s a lot of back breaking work to start with but oh, the results are worth it. Mix in some compost (dead plants, chopped up leaves, or farm animal manure) to help break up Ohio’s lovely clay soil before you even plant anything. The farther the roots can go into the ground the bigger the fruit or vegetable will become. Roots can’t penetrate very far into clay soil without your help of loosening things up for them.

3. Watering.
Make sure you have a water supply close by. Fruits and vegetables are mostly water so the more you water them the bigger your tomatoes or peppers or zucchini will become. An inch of water each week is a must during Ohio’s hot summers. Get a rain gauge or put in some soaker hoses so you know your garden is getting plenty of water.

4. Know your space.
Know that those cute little tomato plants eventually need about three feet of space in diameter, that zucchini plant needs space to spread out, and you’ll need more than two strawberry plants if you plan on making a pie. Your eyes will be bigger than your garden if you don’t plan ahead for space. Crowding will diminish harvest size as well. Don’t forget to leave space between all these plants so you can actually walk around them to harvest your goods too.

5. Feeding.
Yes, just like every growing being, vegetable plants need a food source. That compost you put down will get them off to a good start but a granular fertilizer (such as ferti-lome Tomato Tone or Garden Tone) applied periodically will also help with — you guessed it — harvest size.

What if you don’t have a large plot in the sun? Make one. No one said it has to be a 20 foot by 20 foot or even a 10 X 10 foot area. Seed producers are constantly coming up with new vegetables made especially for containers. Strawberry jars (the clay pots with the
holes on the sides) make great pots for — yes, strawberries, but also herbs too.

Just remember: Gardening is an experiment. What works for you might not work for me. The great thing about that is — you’re never wrong. You’re just eliminating problems..