Cultivating Vegetable Gardens
Methods for Cultivating Vegetable Gardens
The purpose of Cultivating Vegetable Gardens is to get rid of weeds, and to stimulate growth by
(1) letting air into the soil and freeing unavailable plant food, and
(2) by conserving moisture.
As to weeds, experienced gardeners know the importance of keeping their crops clean. They knows that one or two days' growth followed by a day or so of rain, may easily double or treble the work of cleaning a patch of onions or carrots. Frequently Cultivating Vegetable Gardens not only breaks the soil up mechanically, but will also let in essential air, moisture and heat. Important as air is, water ranks just as high.
Water stored in the soil after rain, will immediately begin to escape back into the atmosphere. Surface water will evaporate first, and water that has been soaked into the ground will then begin to soak its way back up to the surface and also evaporate. All this moisture is leaving your garden via millions of 'soil tubes'. By frequently cultivating the surface soil only one or two inches deep for most small vegetables the soil tubes are kept broken, and a mulch of dust is maintained. Try to get over every part of your garden, especially where it is not shaded, once in every ten days or two weeks. Does that seem like too much work? You can push your wheel hoe through, and keep the dust mulch as a constant protection, as fast as you can walk. If you wait for the weeds, you will nearly have to crawl through, doing more or less harm by disturbing your growing plants, losing all the plant food that the weeds have consumed, and actually putting in more hours of infinitely more disagreeable work.
Having given so much space to the reason for constant care in this matter, the question of methods naturally follows. Get a wheel hoe. The simplest sorts will not only save you an infinite amount of time and work, but do the work better, very much better than it can be done by hand. You can grow good vegetables, especially if your garden is a very small one, without one of these labor-savers, but I can assure you that you will never regret the small investment of purchasing a good wheel hoe. The work of preserving the soil mulch becomes very simple using a wheel hoe. For small areas try a scuffle hoe. The matter of keeping weeds cleaned out of the rows and between the plants in the rows is not so quickly accomplished. Here are a few practical suggestions that will reduce this work to a minimum, (1) Get at this work while the ground is soft; as soon as the soil begins to dry out after a rain is the best time. Under such conditions the weeds will pull out by the roots, without breaking off.
(2) Immediately before weeding, go over the rows with a wheel hoe, cutting shallow, but just as close as possible, leaving a narrow, plainly visible strip which must be hand- weeded. The best tool for this purpose is the double wheel hoe with disc attachment, or hoes for large plants.
(3) See to it that not only the weeds are pulled but that every inch of soil surface is broken up. It is important that the weeds just sprouting also be destroyed.
(4) Use one of the small hand-weeders until you become skilled with it. Not only may more work be done but the fingers will be saved unnecessary wear.
The skilful use of the wheel hoe can be acquired through practice only. The first thing to learn is that it is necessary to watch the wheels only: the blades, disc or rakes will take care of themselves. The operation of "hilling" consists in drawing up the soil about the stems of growing plants, usually at the time of second or third hoeing. It used to be the practice to hill everything that could be hilled "up to the eyebrows," but it has gradually been discarded for what is termed "level culture"; and you will readily see the reason, from what has been said about the escape of moisture from the surface of the soil; for of course the two upper sides of the hill, which may be represented by an equilateral triangle with one side horizontal, give more exposed surface than the level surface represented by the base. In wet seasons hilling may be advisable, but very seldom otherwise, it has the additional disadvantage of making it difficult to maintain the soil mulch which is so desirable. Rotation of crops. ------------------ There is another thing to be considered in making each vegetable do its best, and that is crop rotation. With some vegetables, such as cabbage, crop rotation, is almost imperative. Basic rules of crop rotation: (1) Crops of the same vegetable, or vegetables of the same family (such as turnips and cabbage) should not follow each other. (2) Vegetables that feed near the surface, like corn, should follow deep-rooting crops. (3) Vines or leaf crops should follow root crops. (4) Quick-growing crops should follow those occupying the land all season. With the above suggestions in mind, and put to use , it will not be difficult to give the crops those special attentions which are needed to make them do their very best. | |||
|
FREE Gardening Ebook for our Newsletter Subscribers - Subscribe here>>>
HOME Contact Us Newsletter Subscribe
www.newbiesgardeningtips.com (c) 2007 Shauna's Online Marketing