Advice For Growing A Home Garden

Berni Kurz
Berni Kurz

Thirty years ago, as a young County Agent, when I made my rounds to visit farms, it seemed like everyone had a home garden. Having a garden was part of living on a farm.

As we all know, garden plots are not a common site as they once were. Within the last couple of years, I am seeing a renewed interest in not only rural gardens but in towns as well.

Not only are many of us trying our hands at growing vegetables again, we are seeing an interest in community gardens. Community gardens are garden plots where more than one family is involved with.

One such garden can be found now in Lincoln. The Lincoln community garden is being spearheaded by Coach Jim Sposato.

Coach as he is called by all in Lincoln, is working with community leaders, businesses, and numerous volunteers to bring this garden to fruition in its first year.

For a garden to be successful, many hours go into planning. If one does not plan ahead, a new garden will sure to fail.

A well planned garden offers a continuous supply of nutritious vegetables. As we become health and nutritious conscious, gardening is one of the best ways of introducing the family to better eating habits.

Many factors should be considered when selecting the garden site. The size of the garden is determined by the number of family members.

Plan on 200 square feet of garden space per person to provide enough vegetables to use fresh, canned and frozen. Sunlight is essential with the minimum of eight hours of direct sunlight during the day. Adjacent large trees could become problematic, by shading as well as consuming valuable moisture and nutrients.

Do not locate your garden plot in a low wet area and on the flip side, you do not want to locate your garden on a ridge which has shallow erodible soil.

Identify soil nutrient needs by having your soil tested by the Extension Service. A soil test will determine fertility levels as well as lime needs.

Select vegetable varieties which have known resistance to diseases and then plant types of vegetables in the season that they would perform best in.

Some vegetables require a cool growing season and must be planted early enough to mature before hot weather or late enough to mature in the cooler fall months. Others require warmer or even hot weather and longer periods to reach maturity.

You can contact the County Extension office for gardening advice and problem solving, 479-444-1755. You can also email questions or pictures for problem identifications to [email protected].

BERNI KURZ, COUNTY EXTENSION AGENT STAFF CHAIR, UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE.

General News on 05/20/2015