Vegetable Gardening Beginners Guide

By James Paris

Vegetable Gardening Beginners Guide

With The World seemingly facing a global food and energy crises, the cost of living is on the rise - It's time to grow your own vegetables!

In this time of rising food prices and overall cost of living, the knowledge and ability to grow your own food takes on a whole new level of importance.
This book aims to give the beginner to vegetable gardening a real 'heads-up' into the world of the vegetable gardener and describes many of the issues faced for the beginner - without all the jargon!
Growing your own food gives you a real advantage when the food prices go up, or shortages hit the stores and fresh vegetables are hard to come by.
This is why many folks are now rushing to aquire the knowledge that will help feed the family - and satisfy that inner need to become more productive overall.

What you will find in this book...

• Introduction: A basic introduction to growing your own vegetables from home
• Most common mistake to avoid: Essential to avoid wasting time and money!
• Glossary of Gardening erms: Don't be confused by the gardening terms in common use, here they are explained.
• Growing Seedlings: How to start by growing your own seedlings
• Crop Rotation: The importance of proper crop rotation for best year-on-year results
• Composting. A knowledge of composting can not only save you money - but also m,ake good use of a natural by-product!
• Top Veggies For The Beginner. Over 1 dozen of the most popular vegetables for the beginner, or experianced gardener, to grow.
• Organic Pest Control: How to control pests without using chemical fertilizers, along with a list of the most common pests a gardener has to deal with.
• Companion Planting. Here is where you will find the best plants to grow alongside each other for mutaual benefit.

The time to learn the basic principles behind growing your own food and becoming more self-relient is NOW - just in case the unthinkable should happen and everyone faces food shortages that mean real hardship.

This book will give you an excellent insight to the skillset needed to grow your own fresh vegetables..

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Paris
• Release date: Feb 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201755096

James Paris

Born in to a family of nine children; Amazon Best Selling Author James Paris, was soon thrown into the deep end of providing 'value for money' for his parents by growing vegetables - along with keeping chickens, geese, turkeys and everything else associated with a small farm. He is a great enthusiast of Raised bed gardening, and growing fruit & vegetables in containers. A builder/joiner to trade, James also studied for the ministry through Bible College in England,and has been involved in "Christian things" for many years. Hobbies include Fly fishing, gardening, playing guitar and D.I.Y. Oh and of course,...writing! Writing has become his main passion these days,and he especially loves to write from his own experiences, that includes anything from gardening to building to Bible studies - The 'Spotlight on the Prophets' series, and The Bible Brief, a Bible Summary / study book, being two examples of the latter books.

Book preview

Introduction:

With food prices rising massively in 2022, along with energy prices and the and the general cost of living, the ability to grow your own food for many people, has become an essential skill set.

If you combine this with the rise in public awareness of environmental and health issues possibly associated with mass production food crops that use chemical fertilizers and pesticides...

It’s a no-brainer to grow at least some of your own food, if at all possible

This book is especially aimed at those who may be beginners or complete novices to growing vegetables but are enthusiastic to learn the skills needed to be more self-sufficient in food production.

A picture containing vegetable, bean, plant, fresh Description automatically generated

Never mind ‘Green Fingers’!

The whole myth surrounding the ‘green fingers’ idea that you must have some sort of inborn ability to grow anything, is just that – a Myth!

You will soon discover that plants only need 4 things to grow well.

The right amount of food, water, sunshine – and loving care.

Once these things are in their proper order then growing healthy plants is a foregone conclusion!

If green fingers is your ambition however, start by pulling up a few weeds with your bare hands – that’ll do it nicely.

As mentioned, there are only four things to get right when it comes to successful gardening – nothing complicated – Adequate heat/light, water, nutrients and care. That’s it – unless you add ‘air’ to the list of course!

Get these ingredients right and in the correct measure, then nature will reward you with a bountiful crop of prime vegetables. Of course if you want to compete in the local gardening competitions, then there is a bit more work to be done when specialising in particular vegetables to produce prize-winning examples; otherwise it’s all fairly straight-forward.

Limited Space to Grow?

This again need not be a major problem as there are many different ways to grow your own veggies such as..

Square Foot Gardening: This way you can grow abundant crops in an area only 4 foot by 4 foot. By rotating these crops properly you can produce food throughout the year.

Combine a few of these ‘boxes’ and you can produce enough food for the whole neighbourhood!

a picture of a typical 4 x 4 square foot garden

Container Gardening: This is a top choice for those with little or no space at all, but perhaps a small patio or balcony where they can put a few planters.

Containers are traditionally used to grow flowers and perhaps small shrubs. However they can also be used to grow many kinds of vegetables – especially tomatoes!

Straw Bales: Yes indeed you can even grow vegetables in bales of straw. This needs some preparation, ( cf planterspost.com/priming-a-straw-bale/ ) but is otherwise a good solution to a space or soil shortage.

Raised Beds: perhaps the most popular method for growing vegetables in limited space. The Raised Bed garden has many advantages over traditional row gardening methods – including the fact that you can grow lots of vegetables in a very limited space.

The Hugelkultur method is ideal for those with poor soil, but an abundance of free forest lumber. This takes up a little more space than the typical Raised Bed, an is quite labour-intensive to construct.

However at the end of it you will have the only self-irrigating vegetable patch in the neighbourhood!

Which is the best technique?

All of these techniques have their merits – Indeed I have written books about all of them!

However if I had to choose my favourite it would be the Raised Bed garden – either traditional 9x3 frame or the 4x4 Square Foot method.

This is for several reasons including the following...

When done correctly a raised bed needs little in the way of maintenance. This includes weeding especially – which is easier in loose compost mix.

No matter what the soil conditions around you, a raised bed is filled with a good mix (see later chapters) that offer the best chance of an excellent crop.

Raised beds are easier on the back, shoulders, and legs.

No heavy digging needed and no expensive garden tools to purchase. Simple hand tools are all that is needed.

Raised beds are easier to cover with polythene or netting, thereby protecting your plants from the ravages of weather or the dreaded butterfly moth or even carrot fly pests.

Raised beds also offer a longer growing season as they tend to be warmer that the ground around them. This means you can plant earlier and harvest later into the season.

They’re better to look at! Ok, this may be a little subjective, but the fact remains that there is something really neat about a row of raised beds with pathways between them that really appeals to me.

So that’s just a quick breakdown of the advantages Raised Bed gardens have over traditional row gardening methods.

This of course covers that popular gardening method ‘Square Foot Gardening’ which is basically the same idea but laid out in a 4 x 4 frame divided into 16 squares.

This is probably best described as the ultimate in Rotational Gardening techniques.

The Raised Bed Gardens:

A picture containing outdoor, plant, house, garden Description automatically generated