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Vegetable Gardening
What You Need to Know
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Requirements for a Garden
• Sun – 6 or more
hrs/day
• Water – close source
• Level land
• Well drained
• Uncontaminated
• Good Soil
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Preparing a New Site
• Soil Test
• Kill existing foliage
• Mow
• Till, remove rocks and debris
• Add fertilizer/additives (per soil test)
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Vegetable Selection
• Personal preferences
• Days to maturity
– Short – 30-60 days – most vegetables
– Long – 60 -120 days – watermelons,
pumpkin, eggplant, corn, winter squash,
carrots, tomatoes, peppers
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When to Plant?
Frost Date for Northeastern Ohio is May 20th
Warm weather crops can be planted:
Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, beans, squash, melons, cucumbers, corn, pumpkins, okra
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Cool season crops:
– Must be started in cool soil (April)
– Tolerates some frost
– Intolerant of summer heat (replant in late
summer)
– Bolt – go to seed
– Cabbage, kale, broccoli, turnips, rutabaga,
cauliflower, turnips, kohlrabi, radishes,
spinach, celery, lettuce and peas
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Early Starts and Long Seasons:
• Cloches and row covers-
• Succession Planting
• Start seeds indoors
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Varieties of Vegetables – Some
Terms
• Heirlooms – old varieties that are noted for their unique form and taste (often are not resistant to disease)
• Hybrids – Vigorous, disease resistant, early, or long producing, specialty varieties
• Determinate - Plant produces all fruits at the same time (good for preserving)
• Indeterminate - Keeps fruiting over a period of time.
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Garden Layout
How should I organize my
planting?
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Traditional Planting vs Space
Saving Techniques
• Rows
• Hills
• Wide Rows
• Raised Beds
• Vertical Space
• Inter-planting/Inter-
cropping
• Space Saving
Varieties
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Plan Your garden on paper
• Graph paper is useful
• Spacing between plants and between
rows is essential
• Crop rotation (see handout)
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Cultural Practices
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Planting
• When?
– Cold weather vegetables –April:
Lettuce, spinach, cabbage broccoli, Brussels sprouts,
carrot beets, radishes, chard, mustard greens,
onions, leeks, garlic, shallots, peas.
– Warm weather vegetables- May 20th Frost Date
Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, pumpkins, squash,
gourds, okra, melons, beans.
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How to tell if the soil is dry enough for
planting?
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Soil Preparation
• Tilling or digging the soil 6-8inches
• Till in fertilizer or 2 or 3 inches of organic
material
– Well-rotted manure
– Compost
• Rake it free of stones, twigs and clods
• Rake it smooth and even.
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Transplanting
• Cloudy day or late
afternoon
• Dig hole wide enough
and deep enough to
contain the roots
• Water plants well both
before and after
• Remove any flowers
or small fruits.
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Direct Seeding
• Small seeds –sow thickly, thin later
• See packages for depth and spacing
• Water immediately upon planting.
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Fertilizing
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Fertilizer
• Comes in different forms:
– Organic – made from plant or animal
materials (such as manure)
– Inorganic – Made from minerals
• Granular – form for most inorganic fertilizers
• Liquid – Usually a concentrate that has have water
added
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Never apply a high
nitrogen fertilizer to
fruiting plants
(Especially Tomatoes)
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– Each year before garden season starts
(March or April)
• Add 2-3 inches of organic material
• Add 2 lbs of a balanced fertilizer for a 10x10 ft plot
(broadcast on the whole plot
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Other Times to fertilize:
-When transplanting use starter fertilizer
-Half way through the growing season –give a boost
Ways to fertilize:
-Side Dressing: sprinkle around the plant, no closer to stem than 6” and dig in 2-3”
deep.
-Row or Band Fertilizing – sprinkle 3 inches along side, work in 2-3”
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After applying fertilizer,
always water the plants
thoroughly.
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Watering
• Deep watering once a week is better than frequent shallow watering.
-Water in the morning
-Keep water off of leaves at night
-Watering methods
-Hose by hand – small garden – water
soil not plant.
-Oscillating sprinklers
-Drip irrigation, soaker hoses
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Weed Control
• Cultivation – pull or dig up
• Herbicides –
– Some granular varieties prevent seeds from sprouting
– Liquids sprayed on kill living plants
• Mulching
– Organic- improves soil quality
– Inorganic – plastic can get too hot
*Do not apply mulch until the soil is warm in June
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Insect/Animal Control
• Organic Options/Mechanical Options– Row Covers
– Collars- cutworms
– Traps and Lures
– Organic Insecticides Safety
– Fences and sprays –deer, rabbits, raccoons
• Chemical Control – Insecticides– Identify Insect
– Choose appropriate insecticide
– Follow directions Safety
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Disease Control
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Disease Prevention
• Good garden hygiene
• Crop Rotation
• Plant disease resistant varieties
(catalogues will indicated them)
• Fungicides:
-use when disease first spotted
-read labels and apply correctly
-reapply every 7-14 days
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Harvesting
• Young vegetables
• Just prior to use for peas and corn
• With some vegetables (pole beans,
zucchinis some tomatoes and cucumbers)
continued picking prolongs fruiting!
• Vegetables to winter-over: carrots,
spinach, onions, kale, and garlic.
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Fall Cleanup
• Remove all stakes, string, containers, etc.
• Remove all diseased or pest infested plants. Dispose of these.
• Chop and turn under dead leaves and plants
• Add compost, manures, leaf humus
• Plant a cover crop (adds nitrogen to the soil): late August through September (annual rye, hairy vetch) **Optional
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