Start Planning a Vegetable Garden

Light Requirements

Vegetables, like many flowers, need lots of sunlight to thrive and produce tasty vegetables. Most vegetables need full sunlight, which gardeners define as six or more hours of sunlight per day. This direct sunlight stimulates the plant’s cells to produce the food it needs through photosynthesis to build a strong root system and produce fruit.

Many people are confused about what type of light they have in the garden. Try this simple test. Pick a day when you’re home and can observe the garden. Take a look at the garden area you want to grow vegetables in first thing in the morning, and write down whether or not the sun is actually touching the ground. Look for full, bright sun, not dappled sunlight filtering through tree leaves. Now set a kitchen timer or alarm clock and return to your observation once an hour or once every two hours until dinnertime, marking down how much light the spot in the garden receives. Then, add up all the times you saw direct light. This will give you an idea of whether you’re working with full sun, partial sun or shade.

While you can grow some vegetables in partial sun, most will struggle. If the entire yard gets only partial sun or shade due to immovable objects like garages, homes, or trees in neighbors’ yards, look for a place that gets bright direct sunlight and grow vegetables in pots instead.

Delicious Strawberries

Not many foods are as delicious as fresh strawberries, and most varieties are easy to grow–whether in a pot, in their own plot or as a groundcover in a flower bed.

Typically, strawberries are planted in late winter or early spring as soon as the ground warms up a bit. (Fall planting may be the best in the deep South.) Select the best variety for your area, and make sure you plant them in a spot that gets plenty of sun and has good drainage.

Strawberry Types

• Junebearers begin to bear fruit in June (or as early as April in Florida and California). Usually by the second year after planting, they produce a single large crop over a three-to four-week period. Junebearers also produce many runners and spread rapidly.
• Everbearers–as the name suggests–bear fruit the first year from June through August although the total harvest is typically less than that of Junebearers. They’re great for northern areas with long summer days, and they are easier to control because they produce fewer runners.
• Day-neutral strawberries are extremely productive and produce small but continuous harvests from June through October in northern climates and in January through August in milder climates. Day-neutrals are fragile and sensitive to heat, drought and competition from weeds.
• Alpine strawberries produce small but extremely tasty berries, and they are easy to control. The Alpine is one of the parent species of the other three strawberries.

Raspberries Season

For a raspberry trellis, you need less height and more depth. There are several ways to create the structure–placing one post in the middle with a cross arm or placing two posts about three feet apart (figure I). Raspberries are semi-erect, which means that as they get taller, they need support. Ingels uses four six-foot posts to form a six-foot-long rectangle. Lengthwise, each post is strung together with wire through the turnbuckle (figure J) so that the berries can neatly grow taller and wider. Black raspberries are another variety that’s gaining popularity; their growth habit is almost identical to the blackberry types that feature long, trailing shoots.

Planting

Once your trellis structure is built, you’re ready to plant. Generally, berries love organic matter mixed into the soil, but if you have only so-so soil, blackberries are your best bet. Remember to avoid planting too deep in the soil. Make sure you have a mound of soil so you’re planting on a slightly raised area. This way, water can drain away from the plant. “It’s really important that water doesn’t sit in a hole around your plants because they’ll rot,” warns Ingels. When planting, space raspberries about 2-1/2 to three feet apart.

Black Berries to the Fullest

There are two types of blackberries: the upright varieties grow vertically, and the trailing types send out horizontal runners . The trailing varieties like to set down roots and take off in the garden at the end of the growing season. In the fall, the terminal growth will grow into the soil and root to form a new plant, which may be a problem if you don’t want plants all over your yard. To prevent unwanted roaming, Ingels suggests creating a plant barrier. One such barrier is this in-ground device  that reaches about a foot deep into the soil. Barriers may be made of concrete, redwood, plastic, stainless steel, or pretty much anything that blocks meandering roots. However, most home gardeners opt for easier methods of keeping berries in check, such as diligent hoeing and a thick layer of mulch.

Managing where these plants grow is one thing, but managing how they grow is another. Most varieties of blackberries bear fruit on two-year-old shoots called floricanes. Next year, this year’s floricanes will be replaced by new shoots, primocanes. After they’ve fruited, the canes die back and should be cut down to make room for the new primocanes. While that may sound complicated, it’s easy to tell the difference between the old growththat requires pruning out, and the new growth  that bears next year’s berries. There is an exception to pruning brambleberries: for everbearing or fall-bearing types, cut those to the ground every winter.

An Apple a Day keeps the Doctor Away

Apples are an autumn classic, and at the Pine Tree Apple Orchard in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, harvesting apples is not only a tradition, it’s a family affair. The Jacobson family has owned and operated the orchard since the 1950s. They not only grow and harvest their own apples, they make mouth-watering treats all in the name of fresh fruit. The secret to their success? Dividing dut

ies between family members.John, one of the brothers, says the best time to plant a tree is when frost disappears in spring. He digs a fairly deep hole– about 1-1/2 to 2 feet deep. He looks for the bud union on the tree and plants it an inch or two above the soil. And he says most homeowners really shouldn’t hav

e to worry about amending the soil if they’ve been fertilizing their yard.

As for pruning, John likes to create two layers of branches; the lower level is about 2-1/2 to 3 feet off the ground, then a two-foot area that has no branches, then another level of branches above that. The key is to open the tree up to sunshine.

John was able to solve a little mystery: sometimes a tree is loaded with fruit one year, and the next year hardly any. John explained that the tree sets up so many fruit in the first year that it takes too much out of the system; the tree doesn’t produce any fruit spurs during that year. So when the following year comes along, there are no fruit spurs, so the tree has to regenerate the spurs. To break the cycle, John recommends a little pruning: when the apples start to form and are 10 mm in size, or maybe even a little bit bigger, use scissors to remove excess fruit. Leave an apple every 8 to 10 to 12 inches on the branch.

Lovely Peach and Plum

The homeowners would like to add more variety in their garden and have chosen to plant a peach tree. The peach tree Dawson chose is a self-fruiting variety, so it doesn’t need another tree for cross-pollination. Peach trees can be planted in Zones 5 and warmer. Plum trees are equally hardy to Zone 5. Check with your local nursery to find the best varieties for your area.

Dawson is planting a bareroot tree, which is harder to find than container trees. However, bareroot trees begin to arrive in nurseries in January and are significantly less expensive, often offering a greater variety of choice. They need to be planted while in their dormant stage–from December through February. Container trees can be planted anytime the soil is workable, except in extreme heat.

A healthy tree has fresh, plump, flexible roots. Try to plant the tree within two days of purchase. Soak the roots in a bucket of water for a few hours before planting and trim any broken or damaged roots. If you can’t plant within two days, keep the roots moist in damp soil and protected from frost until planting time.