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.

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.