Getting ready for spring – preparing a vegetable patch
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It’s better to have a small vegetable patch that is well maintained then a large one that is overrun with weeds. An area two or three metres long by a metre wide is a good size for a novice gardener to start. As you get more experienced you can expand to suit, or if you find that other activities mean you now no longer have as much time for growing vegetables, you can comfortably reduce the number of beds.
Sunlight - position bed to allow sunlight to reach behind taller vegetables. By laying your beds North to South you allow full sunlight to strike the entire length of the beds. Of course, with limited garden space, it is not always possible to have a vegetable bed in full sunlight throughout the year. If part of your bed is shaded during the winter months, when the sun is low in the sky, it is best only used for summer crops such as salad vegetables
Location – the vegetables should not be too far away from the kitchen as it is important to be able to get to the bed easily for planting, weeding and harvesting. Generally the further away a vegetable patch is from the kitchen back door the more likely it is to be neglected and the produce left to go to waste. In addition, your vegetable beds should be relatively close to your compost bins to allow you to move compost to them without too much toil.
Pests - if possible try not to place your vegetable areas close to anything that offers good cover for snails and slugs. While small slugs will happily live in your vegetable patch, especially if you mulch heavily, large snails and slugs generally have to travel to it from nearby cover to feed each night, returning to their hiding places before dawn – to limit the effects of their depredations, don’t site vegetables near shrubs, small trees, rock gardens and long grass against fences because these make ideal cover for pests. If possible use features such as concrete paths and brick walls as borders to your vegetable patch. As well as offering little cover for snails and slugs they also act as heat banks, which will raise the temperature of your vegetable beds.
Vegetable garden photograph by jefield, used under a creative commons attribution licence
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