Planting a garden in the South has never been so easy! Whether you live on a lot of acreage or just have a small yard, you can still plant a garden and reap the benefits of fresh vegetables. If you are like a lot of people, you don’t have time to read a lot of gardening books to try and figure out when and how to plant common vegetables. It really doesn’t take a lot of research, and you don’t have to be a master gardener to grow a beautiful vegetable garden.
Depending on where in the South you live, you can begin planting some things in your garden in early spring. The first thing you need to do, however, is prepare your soil. Even if you’ve never planted a garden and the spot you want to plant is covered in grass, you can easily transform the area into a garden spot. If you don’t want to spend the money on a tiller, you should be able to rent one from a local rental store. You can also watch the classifieds for people who will come and till your soil. You can bust up the ground yourself, but in order to really be able to turn the dirt, you really need a tiller or tractor to do the job.
Once you have tilled your soil, you will need to remove as much of the grass clumps as possible. You can use a rake to remove a lot of the clumps, or you can simply pick them up by hand as you walk around your garden area. If it is possible, till or have someone else break up your garden, going over the ground once, then you will need to pick out the clumps of grass and weeds and spread a common fertilizer over the ground. You can check with your local co-op for information about which fertilizer is best for your area. After you have spread your fertilizer, you will need to till the ground again to mix the fertilizer with the soil.
If you will only be able to use the tiller to go over your garden area one time, then spread fertilizer on the ground before you till, so the fertilizer can be mixed with the soil. A good time to till and fertilize is right before a good rain. The rain will help to wash the fertilizer into the soil. This isn’t necessary though, and you don’t have to till and fertilize and wait for the rain before you plant.
Broccoli and cauliflower are cool weather plants, so if you want to add them, they should be set out while the weather is still cool. This may be as soon as late February or early March in some areas. They will be easier to grow if you buy the plants instead of the seeds. You will probably want to plant them on the edge of your garden, since they will be the first vegetables you plant. Once the weather heats up, these plants will not produce.
Corn, peas, squash, beans, radishes, carrots, and potatoes can all be planted in late spring as long as you aren’t getting a lot of below freezing weather. As the ground begins to warm, the seeds will start to sprout. If you get peas out early enough, you should have plenty of time for a second planting later in the summer. Do not plant corn in a single row. It needs to cross pollinate, so you need to have at least two rows planted side by side. Take a look at the shape of your garden. How do you want your rows to run? Decide where you will plant each vegetable. If you are planting vegetables with vines, such as squash, cucumber, watermelon, and cantaloupe, you will probably want to plant these on the outer edges of the garden, so the vines have plenty of room to run.
Once you have prepared your soil and are satisfied with the way it looks, take your hoe, and make a shallow ditch for each row. You can mark the rows with sticks if you like. When planting corn, peas, carrots, and beans, slowly walk along the row and drop your seeds. They don’t have to be spaced exactly the same. You may drop several together, but that is alright. Once your corn has started growing, you will thin it out by pulling the smaller stalks. You may have to do this several times until your larger corn stalks are about eight to twelve inches apart.
You won’t buy potatoes in seed packets. You need to ask for seed potatoes at your local vegetable store. Try to pick out potatoes with plenty of eyes. Cut your potatoes into several chunks. It is a good idea to make sure each chunk has at least one eye in it. To plant the potatoes, drop a chunk every six inches to eight inches or so in the ground. Many people like to make sure the eye is facing up when the drop the chunk of potato.
After you have dropped your seed, take your hoe and rake the ground from one side of your shallow ditch over the seed. You should see a mounded row when you have finished. Your seed should not be planted deeply in the ground, but you want to make sure the seed is covered. It needs the nutrients of the soil to help it grow, and you don’t want any birds, rabbit, or other animals to discover it.
When planting cucumbers, squash, watermelon, and cantaloupe, mound an area of dirt into a small hill, flatten the top of the hill, and poke your finger into the flattened area six or seven times. Now, drop two or three seeds into each hole and cover up the hole with dirt. You can plant as many hills of each vegetable as you want. Once the seeds start to sprout, thin out your hills to only five or six plants.
You do not want to plant tomatoes until the weather has warmed up and the chance of frost is gone. Buying and planting tomato plants are easier than trying to grow them from seeds. If you see that there is about to be a cold spell, you can cut out the bottom of a milk jug and place it over the plants to protect it at night. Be sure and take the milk jug off the plant during the day.
Now you are ready to sit back and watch your garden grow! If you don’t want to hunt for your vegetables in the weeds, you will need to continue to hoe the soil. Birds and other animals love to munch on the tender, new shoots. You can make the traditional scarecrow, or hang aluminum pie pans in your garden from poles.
As your tomatoes and cucumbers grow, you will probably want to set cages around them, so they can grow up the wire. This gets the vegetables off the ground and helps prevent them from rotting. It is pretty easy to see when most of your vegetables are ready to harvest. Carrots and radishes come up quickly, so you need to check them by pulling up a couple every day or so. Potatoes take a while to grow, but when you see the potato vines start to wither and die, your potatoes are probably ready to dig. You can pick some potatoes before this, however. Examine the ground close to the base of the plant. If you see cracks in the earth, this is a good sign that a mature potato is there ready to be picked. Planting a garden in the South can be fun and fairly easy to accomplish. Once you do, you can reap the benefits from your vegetables all year long.
