Roots N Boots

This was my first year with a real vegetable garden, so I figured I would share some lessons I learned with you all.

1. Don’t get greedy with how many vegetables you plant

So, we didn’t start off with this problem. I feel like we were quite organized and controlled when buying our plants. I believe we bought 8 cherry tomato plants, 8 regular tomato, 4 zuccini, 4 bell pepper, 4 snow peas, and 2 pepperoncini’s. We did expect to lose some plants, but over all, I think it was a decent amount. Where we got in to trouble is when we di some work for a customer that owns a florist, and he grows vegetable plants. He had thrown out a ton of tomato plants, and he always lets us take whatever we want from his trash plant pile. Well, we loaded up the back of our truck with lots of tomatoes, as well as a cucumber plant, and several bell peppers. These plants thrived amazingly, once they recovered from the shock of being thrown out and settled down. But our garden was stuffed, and we had way more tomatoes than we knew what to do with. I think next year, if we salvage more trash plants, I am going to give them to my neighbors and friends.

2. Research your plants before you plant them.

This was one of my most sad mistakes. I was so excited to find some pepperoncini plants for my husband. I measured the spacing, planted them with the others, watered them daily with the garden, and eagerly waited to see some peppers bloom. All I ended up seeing was the plants wilting, after about the third week of being planted. That was when I researched those plants and discovered that they do best in well draining soil, and only being watered once a week. Once I had discovered that, I transplanted them in to their own individual pots, but it was too late, as they completely died a few days later. I will absolutely be trying to grown them again next year, but now I have a better idea of their ideal planting conditions.

3. Be cognoscente of the weather before you plant the babies in the ground.

I spent all morning prepping the garden, measuring and pulling string lines so that the vegetables were planted in an organized fashion. I followed all the measuring guides for each plant, and made sure I had room to walk between them once they grew larger. I then spent several hours actually planting, making sure everything was perfect. I then watered liberally in the evening and let them be. What I didn’t do was consider that the following day was going to be the hottest day of the year, and by that evening, my snap pea plants and several pepper plants had shriveled up and died. I spent an hour that evening watering everything, praying that they would live. Everything else actually bounced back, shockingly, but I was very sad that I lost several and didn’t have any pea harvest this year.

4. Buy a sprinkler

This was the smartest thing I did for the garden. I spent the first few weeks with my hose, watering every individual plant. Eventually, it was taking up too much time, so I went to Walmart and invested $10 in a sprinkler. I set it up in the center of my garden, and it made watering so easy! I would turn it on in the morning, go feed my animals, and after about 30 minutes, I shut it off and it was ready and waiting for the next watering session.

5. Zucchini plants versus seeds

My first batch of Zucchini plants I bought as already started plants. But then a friend of mine offered me a packet of seeds she had extra, and suggested I plant 4 seeds each month so that there was always a harvest ready. The Zucchini plants grown from the seeds were just as happy and fruitful as the ones I bought as small plants at the beginning. It wasn’t anything special, I literally just stuck the seeds in the ground and kept water the garden as normal. It was so easy!