YOUR OWN VEGETABLE GARDEN
A couple of weeks ago I posted Start Your Own Herb Garden. Yet, that’s only a start. How about growing your own vegetables in your own garden?
You might already be a seasoned gardener, so you need read no further. But if you don’t yet have a garden, now is a perfect time: We still have months of growing season coming up between now and fall; You’ll actually produce something you can personally control (unlike much of the rest of our lives these days); You get to exercise outdoors (social distancing included). And best of all, it will give you the satisfaction of raising your own nutritious and delicious food!
If you haven’t gardened before or if it’s been years, you might want to research some online suggestions, including finding out about the tools you’ll need.
Here are a few considerations:
Start out small, maybe just a 10’ x 10’ space. This can be in some spare area of your backyard. You can dig out a “sunken” garden, build a raised bed garden or even plant in large containers.- Most vegetables need lots of sun. Pick an area that has at least 6 hours of direct sunlight daily.
- If you decide on a sunken garden, place a narrow path down the middle so you can easily plant, water and harvest your “crops.”
- Make certain you loosen the soil and add compost and amendments before you plant. (Most nurseries plus Home Depot & Lowe’s are still open. You can also get the tools you’ll need at these stores.)
- Make sure you have easy access to water. You can either water by hand or install a simple drip system.
What to Plant?
I just finished planting my garden this past week. (That’s how I got the idea for this post.) I admit, that I’m a bit late this year—I usually have everything in by early spring—but I think most of my vegetables will still make it. I planted several kinds of tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, zucchini, eggplant, carrots, beets, radishes, lettuce and snap peas (which will grow up a trellis I pounded in) plus sunflowers and poppies for color.
All of the above are super easy to grow! So you might want to try some of these you’ll later enjoy eating. You could also choose kale, arugula, different types of beans and different kinds of squash. Radishes are super swift to pop out of the ground. Lettuce, beets & carrots are also reasonably quick.
I bought all of my veggies at a local nursery. Most were already small plants in recyclable containers that I could easily lift out and transplant. The radishes, carrots, beets, snap peas, sunflowers and poppies were all seeds.
Lots of folks had victory gardens back during WW I and WW II. So, I guess it’s not surprising that folks are now again using the idea of victory gardens in our war against the virus.
Have fun with your garden!
NEWS I’ve begun making a series of YouTube videos. My channel name is Generation Fit! Senior Fitness and I’ll be covering the same topics as this Generation Fit blog. My first attempt is titled Senior Fitness in Coronavirus Time which is pretty much a video version of my March 19th blog post Exercising in the Time of Coronavirus. My second segment is Overcome Your Stumbling Blocks to Getting Fit Later this week I’ll add a third: Yes, You Can Lose Weight AND Keep it Off Check it out!