Tomatoes: Tomatoes need lots of sun, good drainage and fertile soil. Add rock phosphate or bone meal to the bottom of the hole at planting time to supply this plants love for phosphorus. Or else, one tablespoon of epsom salts in a cup of bone meal per tomato plant will have the same effect. Or you can buy a ready made fertilizer that accomplishes the same and is available at many garden centers.
Bury your transplants up to half their stem length and plant at a 45 degree angle, let them lean. This will make the growing plant stronger. Be careful not to overwater your tomatoe plants as this will make the fruit crack as they develop.
Beans: Soak your bean seeds in warm water for 24 hours before planting, changing the soak water once during this time. Soaking large seeds before planting will speed germination of peas, corn, eggplant, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins and squash - as well as seeds with hard outer shells such as celery and parsley.
Don't plant beans in cold soil. Invest is a soil thermometer. This expenditure will prevent many failures from planting before the ground temperature is 65 degrees. Beans planted in cold soil may rot before the root.
Keep beans picked to prolong the harvest. When leaves of pole beans start to fall off, strip off all the leaves, loosen the soil around the plant's base and add compost as a side dressing. Water heavily and new blossoms will appear shortly giving a bonus crop!
Corn: As with the bean seeds, soak your corn seeds for 24 hours before planting. Plant in blocks instead of a single row, or plant at least 4 rows to ensure pollination. Bad pollination causes cobs with missing kernels that do not fill to the tip of the cob.
Cucumbers: Wild variations in temperatures hold cucumbers back, so keep established plants mulched with straw to stabilize soil temps and retain moisture. Cucumbers need plenty of water. Water your cucumbers with warm water and you will notice a huge difference in growth.
Peas: Again, soak your pea seeds for 24 hours before planting. Peas benefit from compost - aged manure. Plant pea seeds as early in Spring as you can walk in the garden. Plant 3-4 inches apart. Peas do well in resisting freezing.
Lettuce: Chill the seeds of lettuce in the refrigerator if you want faster germination. Lettuce seeds must have light and moisture for germination, so don't cover them with soil. Plant early for tender lettuce. Once the season gets hot, it's the end of your lettuce.
Radishes: Interplant with lettuce for extra tender radishes. Radishes are a must around cucumbers and squash to repel beetles. Plant early, give compost, water and sun. Sow thinlu. Don't add high nitrogen fertilizer or the growth will go into the leaves.
Squash: Once again, soaking the seeds for 24 hours in warm water for best results.
Melons: Mulch with straw to act as a bruise barrier or cushion and avoid fruit rot when plants are established. To develop sweetness hold back on the water once melons begin to ripen.
Beets: In early spring, add wood ashes or potash to soil where beets are to be planted. Beets are heavy feeders and benefit from compost as well.
RUNNER UPS
Onions: Planting onion sets (dime size onions) in the spring is easy. Just poke them into the ground 4 inches apart. After harvest, onions can be stored at room temperature.
Peppers: Grow some hot AND sweet. Plant 12-18 inches apart. Peppers need warmth even more so than tomatoes.
Carrots: Sow carrots in stone free soil. Harvest throughout the summer, fa;; and even winter. Grow both early and late crops, spacing rows 6 inches apart and plants 2 inches apart.
SOIL:
The first step in creating a productive vegetable garden is preparing the soil. Almost any soil can be made fit for growing if you work into it enough organic matter in the form of decayed leaves, compost, peat moss, sawdust, ground bark or manure. All of these add body to light sandy soils, giving them the needed capacity to hold moisture and nutrients; they also loosen heavy clay soils so that air and water can penetrate.
COMPOST
A compost pile can be built in any number of ways. However, the simplest is to drive 4 stakes into the ground about a foot or so deep and then wrap chicken wire around them to create an enclosure. You will want your compost pile to be about 3 feet high. Besides leaves and lawn clippings (only if not exposed to fertilized or weed killers recently), you can throw in dead plant stems, the cut off portions of beets, carrots, potato peels etc. On top of every 4-6 inches of compost sprinkle about a pint of 5-10-5 fertilizer and a dusting of ground limestone, then cover with a 2 inch layer of soil. Indent the center slightly to create a bowl that will hold rain water longer. If rainfall is scarce wet your compost once in a while. Turn your compost pile over every 4-6 weeks so that the material on the outside of the pile gets into the center where the "brewing" is occurring. The compost will be ready to use when it is dark and crumbly, in about 3-6 months. a 2 inch application each Spring - worked into the soil of your garden - before planting, will make your garden hugely productive.
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