Soil is Messy
Friday
became a day for me to prepare and set up our garden. I end up doing a lot more physical work today
and my son enjoyed the nice weather. The
lesson for the day is learning about some factors to a successful gardening
experience. There are some major and
minor factors that can make a big difference in your gardening adventure. The location of your garden is one of these
factors. Depending on your needs or
wants, there are many ways to determine where you want your garden and what
size of a garden you will need. In Las
Vegas, we live in a desert terrain. The
housing communities, for a majority of the city, had little to no backyard.
Space for a garden may seem like a problem, however this should not stop you,
as there are many alternatives to gardening in tight spaces. If having limited space is an issue for you,
I recommend using pots or even a 3-tiered planter box that has levels. The planter boxes can be a little expensive,
but a cheap pot can still provide the opportunity for you to sprout your own
vegetables and fruits. You can place
these planter boxes on balconies or patios and still have garden success. If you choose to do a traditional garden, I
want to remind you now that you should contact your local utility companies to
have them mark any pipes underground.
You do not want to cause a gas leak or break a water pipe from
digging. We have the room for a garden,
but did not want to do a traditional garden in the ground. We decided to make a raised garden bed
instead. I highly recommend this for
anyone because it is much easier on your back and allows excess water to drain
more easily.
The second factor you should consider when determining the
location of your garden is how much sun is being provided to the location. Some plants require sun all day and others do
better with little sun. Make sure
adequate sunlight is given to the garden for successful growing. Most seed packets will display how much
sunlight is needed for each type of vegetable or fruit. On our carrot seed packet, it recommended 6-8
hours of direct sunlight. The bell
pepper plant requires at least 8 hours of direct sunlight, so we wanted to make
sure that our garden was facing the sun for a majority of the day.
The last
and most important factor to have a successful garden is the soil. This is the “fun” part of the day for my
son. I think most children love playing
in the dirt, and my child is no exception.
The soil is messy and your child will get messy, so avoid wearing new
clothing. Vegetables and fruits will not
be healthy or thrive without a decent soil.
Because we used a raised garden, we did not have to spend so much time
on working with the dirt already there.
If you decided to stick with a traditional garden, it is probably best
if you spend a few weeks on working the soil properly. We were able to pick up packages of vegetable
garden soil at our local home improvement store. For compost, my son had been collecting our
old coffee grounds as well as grass clippings from the lawn for weeks. We mixed some of the compost into the soil
and saved the rest for when we start planting the seeds. This was our messy lesson and we continued to
work on the soil during the weekend. The
weekend we had bought a bag of organic vegetable fertilizer and started to mix
that in with the soil as well. If you have the time I recommend spending a few
weeks on the soil, although we were not patient enough.