Vegetable gardens require the right timing, location and soil.
Spring plantings lead to summer and fall vegetable gardens and incorporate well-known fruits and vegetables like pumpkins, squash, tomatoes and lettuce. Although these warm-season crops do best with spring plantings for a long summer season, gardeners walk a fine line in regards to their timing. As summertime plants, these are sensitive seedlings that cannot take frost. In areas like North Carolina's Zones 6 to 8, where winter temperatures sometimes last into late May, gardeners must plant their gardens based on their frost dates rather than the month. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
1. Plant your spring vegetable garden only after the frost has left the ground. The date may come as early as mid-April in Morehead City or as late as May 21 in Waynseville. Allow the soil to warm for a week, then begin your plantings.
2. Use your established vegetable garden or choose a site that gets full sun for eight hours every day, with full drainage. Vegetable plants will grow in shade but won't bloom or bear their fruit, and will die in standing water. Rake the area before you start to get rid of old weeds or foliage and any rocks.
3. Mix a combination of half quick-draining soil and half organic compost into the top 4 inches of garden soil to provide quick drainage and organic nutrition for your plants. If your site doesn't get good drainage, lay a 5-inch layer of this mixture on top of the site to build a raised bed. Add starter or 10-10-10 fertilizer to the top inch of soil. If you want to grow your vegetables organically, use organic fertilizer, fish emulsion or blood or bone meal instead of synthetic fertilizer.
4. Plant slightly hardier vegetables like broccoli, peas, endives, onions, beets, carrots, Swiss chard and lettuce first. These vegetables will stand up to lower temperatures without damage. Plant the more sensitive seedlings--tomatoes, beans, peppers, corn, cantaloupe, cucumbers, eggplants--up to a week later to garner more protection. Plant each seedling according to its spacing requirements, and fill in the spaces between tall plants like tomatoes with smaller plants like endives and carrots, for efficient growing.
5. Water the vegetables with 2 inches of water, and spread 2 to 3 inches of organic mulch over the soil. Maintain this mulch layer through the summer to keep the soil warm and moist, and discourage weeds, diseases and pests.
Tags: North Carolina, plants like, soil warm, vegetable garden, vegetables like
