Gardening can be a great activity to share with your family. In fact, if you have a “plant your own vegetables” family day, not only can you spend quality time together, before long you’ll also have “fresh from your own garden” vegetables to enjoy and share with others. Maybe you’ve never gardened much; don’t let that stop you. With everyone in your family’s help, you can get a garden planned and planted.
If you’ve never gardened, there is quite a bit to learn before getting started. First, you’ll need to find out what planting zone you live in. This is easily done by asking at a nursery or by looking online. You’ll also want to know what type of soil you have in your yard. This will let you know what nutrients will need to be added before you can begin planting. You may want to visit someone who has been gardening for a while to learn from their experience in regard to how large a garden you need, what vegetables would be best to plant, and how many of each plant you’ll need to get the harvest you’d like.
Start with a plan. Vegetables won’t grow in the shade so you’ll need to seek out a place in the yard that gets full sunlight. When you have chosen the area, you get to pick out the vegetables you’ll plant. If this is your first garden, don’t go crazy. You may want to try spinach or lettuce, green beans, corn, and several varieties of tomatoes. For a family of four you would want to buy two packs of lettuce plants, two packs of green beans, a package of corn, and three to four tomato plants per variety.
There are two ways you can lay out a garden. You can plant everything in rows of a single vegetable per row. You can also create square foot gardens where you break the total size of the garden into squares of one foot or more. Find out more about this type of gardening by getting a book from the library or checking online.
For the number of vegetables you’ll be planting, an 8’ x 10’ or 8’ x 12’ garden would be perfect. You don’t want to make the garden so large that you’ll be frustrated caring for it, but you do want it to be large enough to accommodate the plants as they grow.
Spread the work out among each family member, keeping in mind each one’s abilities. One person can run the rototiller, another can pick up the rocks, and another can dig the holes for the plants, and another can water the plants in. The old saying “many hands makes light of work” can certainly pertain to a family working in a garden.
When you plant your own vegetable garden, be sure to have fun. Gardening doesn’t have to be a dreaded task that no one in the family wants to do. Encourage everyone to chip in and then the fruits of their labor at harvest time will taste all that much sweeter.
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