Greens!

Tips and Techniques for Growing Your Own Vegetables

Karin Eliasson

• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781510720244
• Topic: Ciencias biológicas
• Subtopic: Horticultura

Gardening is on the rise as the desire for fresh, delicious homegrown vegetables grows. Growing your own vegetables is an easy hobby for a variety of lifestyles, as it doesn't take a large amount of space to yield nutritious carrots or lettuce. All it takes is a bit of passion, care, and knowledge, and the rewards are soon there to enjoy.Both down-to-earth and inspirational, Swedish gardener Karin Eliasson describes the charm of growing your own vegetables. Karin runs a kitchen garden and guesthouse in Spain, but her tips are adapted to suit most climates and soil types. In this gardening guide, she gives advice on how to grow, harvest, and store over 100 different vegetable varieties and suggests easy recipes you can use in your own kitchen. With instructive and beautiful photographs, she explains the step-by-step principles of organic gardening—soil, plant feeding, digging, hoeing, and watering—and shows how to combine blooming flowers and vegetables in attractive, colorful mixes to attract garden-friendly insects.This book will not only arm you with the knowledge you need to get started, but also provide experienced and budding gardeners alike with a source for inspiration while they enjoy the beautiful photographs and tips on garden design.

GET STARTED!

HARVESTING VEGETABLES REQUIRES a variety of preparations and effort, from digging and fertilizing to tying it all together. In this section, I will go through all the practicalities of cultivating, step by step, as well as why we need to do it and the easiest way to attack the tasks at hand. It is intended to be used as a guide and is a blend of science, tried experiences from generations of cultivators, and my own personal advice and tips. And where should this practical journey begin if not in the soil?

SOIL

Working with soil is a rewarding part of gardening work, as every minute you invest will be repaid. It can be heavy, tiring, and unbelievable bothersome—but also unbelievably meaningful. This is where you lay the groundwork for all the nice things to come.

Good soil is a basic requirement for a successful harvest. How much energy you put into buying seeds, sowing, and other preparations won’t matter if you ultimately do not have well-functioning and healthy soil to set the plants in. When a plant is allowed to develop fine roots, not only will it give a nice crop, it will also manage stress better, including drought, diseases, and hard weather. Good soil makes strong plants.

SOIL GOOD FOR CULTIVATION

Underneath the surface of the ground there is a whole world, a mini-universe, of various materials, elements, and organisms that we gardeners need to make use of and work with. The first step is to understand that dirt is more than the strip of grime left under your fingernails after a days work.

All dirt consists of minerals and humus, in various proportions. Minerals are nothing but broken-down stone and we usually see it in the form of clay, sand, or gravel. Humus is broken-down organic material like animal waste, bones, hair, leaves, grass, and branches. Minerals and humus make a framework in the ground that becomes the home of many microorganisms and fungi that contributes to a constant decomposition of organic material and transport of nutritious elements.

Good soil can vary in appearance, it may contain much or little sand and clay, be reddish-brown or greyish-brown, have a compost fragrance or a more metallic one. However, all good soil has certain characteristics in common: they are airy and permeable, nutrient-rich, moist, and rich in microlife.

To create soil with these characteristics, you need to put in hard work. Few earth patches are perfect to begin with. But they can all become good. It just demands patience and the knowledge of how to proceed.

How to make the perfect cultivation soil depends on what you have to work with. The following is a description of the three most common earth-types that you find in a typical Swedish garden, how you recognize them, and how you go about improving them.

MUDDY SOILS

Muddy soil is usually heavy and wet, dense, and hard to work with. If you roll a moist piece of soil in your hand you will get a sticky ball that is smooth and even. The clay particles are tiny and hold together tightly. They give lots and lots of nourishment and they have a great ability to hold water, which are good traits. But if the soil consists only of clay, the water-containing trait will soon become a problem for the plants, as they also need acid for their root systems.

Muddy soils need to be aired out. If you imagine the clay soil as a dough—compact, sticky, and heavy, we need to add something that has the function of yeast, something that forces air particles in between the clay particles and makes the earth rise and dry a little. Humus serves this purpose. The humus will push clay particles apart and create pockets of air in the soil, and as a result, the soil will also heat up and the root systems will establish more easily. I give examples of various humus materials below.

SANDY SOILS

Sandy soil is in many ways the opposite of muddy soil. The sand grains are too large to stick together, the soil feels gritty, and when you attempt to roll a ball it will fall apart. This kind of soil has trouble holding water and nutriments. Everything just runs off of the sand grains. There is, however, a lot of air, which makes the soil light and easy to work with. You will need to add something that will help bind the sand grains together and that will work as putty in the soil.

Humus is best for this soil as well. The humus has a spongy way of holding water and can also store nutriments. In sandy soil the humus will fill the large air pockets between the grains, and make sure that the pockets are filled with nutrients and water.

Finely ground stone dust may also be added to sandy soils to contribute with smaller mineral particles with the traits of clay. The easiest way is to blend the stone dust and humus together and then add it to the soil.

HUMUS SOILS

Certain soils contain more humus than minerals, although they are not as common. This is often old peat land that has been plowed up and used. They can be good growth soils, nutritious and humectant, but they will often have an excessive capacity to hold water. You should therefore be very meticulous about draining so that extra water will seep out of the crop. If you experience that the Humus soil is too spongy, you can add stone dust or rough sand to the soil to create a better texture. Soils that are rich in peat should be kept medium moist at all times; if it dries out it may be hard to make it humid all the way through again. You therefore need to be meticulous about watering the soil during dry periods if you are dealing with this kind of soil.

SOIL IMPROVEMENT

Once you know what kind of soil you have in your garden or in your allotment and you know which traits you need to improve, it is time to choose the improvement material. Here I describe the most common materials that are the easiest to find and that I like to work with. They are all completely natural and are either humus-based or rich in minerals.

HUMUS

Humus is magical! Something you may have realized by now. Humus provides soil with many beneficial traits, such as the ability to hold moisture, elasticity, airiness, nutrients, and food for microorganisms. If you have muddy or sandy soil to begin with, you can never really add too much humus. But it can be a good idea to vary the kind of humus you use, just to make the soil as healthy as possible.

Certain soil-improvement agents are very nutritious, whereas others will only give structure. You need to take this into consideration to make sure that the soil is not overly fertilized. Feel free to blend nutrient-rich humus with something else to create balance, such as manure and bark humus.

Bark humus

Is composted bark. Dark brown humus works well in all kinds of soil, but is especially good for muddy soil.

Peat humus

Is clean peat from bogs. It is a finite natural resource that should be used with care. It has a natural low pH level and holds moisture well, although it will reject water if it is completely dry. It is important to work it deep in with the soil so that it doesn’t end up on the surface and dries out. It works best with sandy soils.

Compost

Is blended decomposed organic material. It may be the best soil enhancer there is and definitely the least expensive. It adds microorganisms and balances out the pH level in the soil. Compost also works as a light fertilizer.

Leaf compost

Is leaves that are decomposed into humus. A cheap and great soil enhancer for all kinds of soils.

Manure

Usually consists of cow and horse manure. It has to be composted at least a year before you use it. Burnt manure is the same as composted. It is great for the soil, but very rich in nutriments and should be used with this in mind.

Straw

First and foremost, decomposed straw makes a fine and nutritious soil enhancer. It is very good for muddy soils and great for the bugs in the soil.

MINERALS

Minerals of various kinds may be from a stone-crusher. You can also request the exact size (fraction) you wish to receive. You may also buy stone dust in bags at specialty trade farms.

Rough sand

Is a good addition to muddy soil in order to make it airier and increase its elasticity and firmness. Use size 0–8 mm or larger. When you add sand to muddy soil, you need to mix the sand with a soil enhancer, such as bark humus, before you add it to the soil. This makes it easier to work it in with the soil.

Stone dust

Adds minerals to the soil, creates airiness and increases its ability to bind water. It works well to enhance the structure of all kinds of soils. If you wish to improve muddy soil, you should use a stone dust with fraction 0–11 mm, or bigger. If you are working with sandy soil you should instead add a finely grained stone dust. Humus soils benefit from both.

SOIL IN A BAG

We are often advised to buy soil. This may be for the purposes of planting in large pots or balcony cases. There is a wealth of various soil brands on the market, as well as many specialty soils. I recognize that in certain situations there is indeed reason to buy a specialty soil. This is first and foremost true for sowing, and for soil that is meant for larger growing cases.

A sowing soil should be clean, lean, and airy. These are the basics in order for the seeds to grow and for the roots to establish. If you don’t have the option of blending a good soil, then buying might be a good choice.

If you grow in large pots or other kinds of cases, the demands of the soil are especially high. It should be able to maintain an airy and fine structure all through summer, as well as hold nutrients and water efficiently. Cheap planting soils, which are mostly a combination of chopped peat and sand, do not have any of these qualities and they will collapse after just a few weeks. A successful potted crop is worth investing in soil that is well-made and suited for growing in larger cases. Ask at the market-garden what they offer.

WORKING THE SOIL—DIGGING, TILLING, AIRING, FORKING, OR JUST LET IT BE

Mechanically working with the soil is another way to give it structure. With a shovel, garden fork, hoe, and rake we can open the soil surface, finely spread lumps, turn layers of soil, and blend in soil enhancers. The choice of tools and various techniques will yield different results depending on the soil.

DIGGING

Digging is a powerful way of breaking the soil up. The goal is to create air pockets, which will make it easier to add soil enhancers. Digging has no value in itself; it is rather something we do if the soil is unable to stay loose and airy on its own.

Heavier soils with a lot of clay are usually in need of digging. It is best to dig these in the fall. The winter frost will later break the clay particles so that they collapse and create a lovely crumbly loam when they thaw, which makes it easy to mull manure in with the soil.

You should always keep in mind that digging is a rather brutal way of treating soil, you turn the soil-life upside down. This is no great concern in spring or summer, but in the fall, you should remember that many of the organisms move to the lower layers of the soil to stay away from the cold. Dig your vegetable garden before the cold...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Thank you!
• Copyright
• Contents
• Grow Your Own Vegetables
• Plan Your Crop
• A Living Vegetable Garden
• Get Started!
• 80 Vegetables
• Lettuce and Chicory
• Mixed Leaves
• Good Stalks
• Tomato
• Chili and Bell Peppers
• Eggplant
• Squash and Pumpkin
• Cucumber
• Corn
• Beans and Peas
• Edible Thistles
• Onion Plants
• Potatoes
• Root Vegetables
• Kale/Cabbage Growths
• Problems That May Arise When Cultivating
• The Small Pharmacy
• Recommended Reading
• Tips for Dark Winter Days