Basic Garden Needs

From time to time, every gardener needs a little refresher to help their garden grow to the fullest of their abilities so that your garden will over flow with fresh vegetables. You should make it a common practice to test your garden soil every spring and every fall just to make sure that your soil is not being depleted of any one nutrient, and so that you can condition your soil for the next growing season over the winter months.

All of the different vegetables and the different crops you are going to grow in your vegetable garden will require different types of nutrients and different levels of these nutrients. This brief over view is to give you an idea about what your certain vegetables need in order for you to get the most from your garden.

Planting a winter crop to hold your soil will require fewer nutrients because they are a slow growing crop that does not produce vegetables. A winter crop you can grow in your garden that helps protect your soil include wheat, rye, or types of rye grasses which are then easily mulch into the soil when you turn over your garden in the spring months.

When you are first planting your garden using seeds, you should not add fertilizer of any type until these small fragile plants have become established or you could burn them off with fertilizer. As these young plants are starting to grow, your first fertilization should be watered down to protect your plants while you are feeding them at the same time.

If you are keeping some types of plants in containers around your garden for growing vegetables you will find that you will need to dilute the fertilizer as well because you are limited on the amount of soil that is actually holding the fertilizer and absorbing the nutrients needed for the plant to grow and to thrive.

When you are starting your garden and you are planting squash, cucumbers and different types of melons you will need to feed these plants and vegetables about 15 – 25 percent more nitrogen than the rest of your garden. These types of vegetables require more nitrogen to produce more vegetables in the long run.

No matter what you are planting in your garden, if you live in a higher temperature zone, where the heat is higher all the time, you will find that you have to fertilize and add nutrients to your garden more often in order to achieve the same results that a cooler grow zone would.

If you love to grow peas, beans and flowers in your gardens, you will most likely need less nitrogen and more phosphorus in your soil for these types of crops to be successful for you.

When planning your garden, keeping similar typed plants together will make your fertilizing tasks and chores so much easier. Simply planning out your garden on a sheet of paper before you start planting seeds or starter plants will help this process go much smoother for your enjoyment and for a very fruitful garden!

This article was published by: Garden Moose.

Garden Moose is a feature contributor to Greenhouses.com a leading internet destination for gardening and greenhouse information and ideas.

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