Simple Steps to Gardening

By John O. Manry

As the title suggests this book covers steps to make it simpler for a home gardener to successfully grow the vegetables they can enjoy. Starting with soil preparation and understanding of PH value of the soil, fertilizing, methods of mulching, cultivating, and watering will provide the steps to have that perfect growing condition. Then off to getting ready to plant your vegetables that will consist of planting methods, tools, and preparing for pest and plague control so your garden will grow in a clean, orderly, and prosperous manner. Now that we are ready to plant, you will be able to start seeds indoors early. Along with special growing tips, you will be ready to plant both plants and seeds in the garden and assist them to grow to maturity. Now you will soon be ready to enjoy your fresh vegetables ready to harvest for the table or to store for later.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642982855

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Simple Steps to Gardening

John Manry

Copyright © 2018 John Manry

All rights reserved

First Edition

Page Publishing, Inc

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-64298-284-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64298-285-5 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 1

Soil Preparation

Know Your Soil

Our sustenance is derived from the top few inches of the earth’s surface called soil or topsoil. Your garden plot can be as fertile as loam, helping you to raise an abundance of food in a natural way with very little costly outside supplies. In attaining a fertile soil, organically you can achieve a lower cost without human intervention. It will not be easy at first. You will need all the motivation you can get.

Resources are unlimited, and you can show aptitude of wisdom through wise use. Nitrogen is a by-product of the fossil fuel industry. Mineral sources of phosphorus and potash are ample but not unlimited. Phosphoric acid is derived from animal bones. It is a renewable source, but a meager one. Small amounts of potash occur in many plant fibers, especially wood and also in manures. It also occurs in some organic mineralized deposits but should be used as sparingly as well as phosphate rock deposits.

Home gardeners have become independent and have received an economic savings as well as satisfaction from raising their own food. It is worth the energies expended to accomplish this rewarding task. One-third acre or more and knowledge is all any homeowner needs. Here are a few soil tips:

Soil appearance is not a reliable source of value. Even a gravelly soil can be very productive.

Red soil can be as fertile as black or brown soil. Color does not dictate fertility.

Poor soil is costly and time consuming. Places where good gardens have already existed are good places to garden.

Erosion of soil is America’s most costly pollutant.

Soil can be loamy, gravelly, clayey, mucky, or sandy, with varying combinations. All tilth is governed by organic matter. The more organic matter, the better the tilth. Soil can have a pH as low as 3 (very acid) to as much as 10 (very alkaline). The amount of acidity determines what you can or can’t grow in a soil. Plants ability to use the nutrients in the soil is determined by the pH of the soil. A pH of 6.5 to 7.0 is ideal for most vegetable gardens. Acids, bacteria, and microorganisms, chemically turn nitrogen, potash, and phosphoric acid from the minerals and organic matter into food for plants.

A deep silt loam of good tilth is the kind of soil gardeners’ hope for. It should have adequate drainage but not so quick that drying out is a constant worry and contains 5% humus, 25% water, and 45% minerals with good aeration of 25% air to soil. Add a couple of tons of rock phosphate to the soil, two years ago, and fertilized with about fifteen tons of matured manure per acre. Get it to a pH value of 6.5 to 6.8 then you would have the perfect soil.

Soil appearance is not a sure proposition. The important part of evaluating a scrupulous soil is in assessing the cost of producing a good crop on it, both in time and money. You should proceed as follows to pass judgement:

Observe what is growing on top of the soil. Cattails could tell you the soil is wet and marshy with nearly no gardening potential.

Look at the soil’s characteristics under the surface. Several feet of core sample will reveal the soil layers.

Analyze the soil for nutrient content, rich or poor soil.

Check out the surrounding area. Look at the terrain for good drainage after a heavy rain, a septic tank leach bed problem or is it in a flood area.

Clay, sand, and silt, in varying proportions, determine the texture of soil. Sand is grainy; silt is fine, like graphite powder; clay is oily when wet, hard when dry. Sandy soil is a good planting medium. It can drain quickly and can be worked early, but nutrients and moisture seep out too fast. Clay soil forms a hard clod when dry. Somewhere between sand and clay is loam, the most sought-after soil as to texture, contains 40% sand, 40% silt, and 20% clay. Any kind of soil can and should be improved or revitalized by replenishing the amount of organic matter yearly and correcting the soil’s acidity level.

Fertilizing

The main reason for a soil test, besides your pH, is to message the nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potash (K) content of your soil. These three elements are so important to plant life that your gardening efforts are to no avail without sufficient amounts of them.

All fertilizers have a three-number notation. It refers to the percentages of (N), (P), and (K) respectively in the fertilizer. For example, 15-10-5 is 15% nitrogen, 10% phosphorus, and 5% potash. The remaining 70% of the material is filler. Slow release fertilizers are chemically identical to the granular fertilizers, but they are coated with a water-permeable material so that the nutrients are released more slowly. Foliar fertilizers are meant to be mixed with water for such uses as transplant solution or on plants that need more help. As a general rule, fertilizers should be applied sparingly rather than generously. It is possible to over fertilize plants, causing mostly leafy growth with low fruit production.

Nitrogen

Nitrogen is responsible for rapid growth, dark green leaves, and is produced during decomposition of organic matter. Soils rich in organic matter are seldom deficient in nitrogen. The amount of nitrogen might not be adequate to produce top yields. Legumes will put additional nitrogen in the soil by the action of bacteria living on the legume roots and should be planted periodically. Rotating crops is one way of accomplishing this feat. With organic help, the natural process which takes years to restore a soil’s fertility can be quickened. You should put back as much as you take out of the soil, so you are not losing ground.

Plants cannot use nitrogen in its raw form. Acids in the soil must change it to a nitrate form first then the roots then consume it. Plant cells combine the nitrate salts they converted to amino acids to form protein. This process can be upset by either providing too little or too much. Too little makes plants spindly and yellowish, too much and they become rank, producing little fruit and lots of foliage.

Nitrogen Deficiency

You can likely spot nitrogen deficiency by color. Vegetable plants with adequate nitrogen are a rich, dark green, and grow fast in warm, humid weather. A plant is most likely short on nitrogen when growth is slow, and plant color is yellowish-green. The leaves yellow first then the stems. A tomato plant lacking nitrogen grows much slower. The younger leaves on the top of the plant will not reach full size. They will begin to yellow, and flower buds will shed. Yellowing of leaves can occur for other reasons on ground with improper drainage. Yellowing can occur if nitrogen is not available to the plant because of the excessive moisture and lack of aeration.

Nitrogen Surplus

In a pasture where domestic animals feed, you can often see grass grow lush and heavy around manure droppings. Cows will seldom eat this grass even though it looks very appetizing. Excessive amounts of nitrates from the manure have been taken up by the grass, creating the possibility of nitrate poisoning. The cow knows she doesn’t like the taste of that grass. In the same manner, nitrogen can build in certain amount of bug resistance to a plant; although, it has the opposite effect in regard to fungal diseases.

Long-lasting, slow-release nitrogen is so good. It goes on working in the fall when you would just as soon it did not. Bush fruits, like raspberries, will continue to grow vigorously in the fall and become susceptible to winter-kill. Apply these fertilizers to such plants in the spring or early summer.

Nitrogen Sources

Organic methods can be a better way to handle the soil than with a bag of chemicals. As to which kind of soil, chemically treated or organically handled, produces the tastier vegetables and fruits. Too much nitrogen, especially if accompanied by lots of water and not enough potassium, produces less tasty vegetables, especially corn and melons. This is particularly true if the water is from irrigation rather than rain, and the nitrogen comes from a bag of chemicals.

Although manures can’t function as complete fertilizers—since they do not contain enough nitrogen, phosphorus, or potassium—animal manures do remain the best all-around organic fertilizer. They are available in quantity in many areas, and they build organic matter content at a faster rate; although they are not as high in nitrogen, than most other organic fertilizers. Nitrogen content will vary in manures: rabbit contains 2.5 % and poultry, 1.5 %. Cow and hog manure have the lowest content of nitrogen. For this reason, they are rarely used in hot beds. The preferred hot bed manure is horse manure.

Manure productiveness will depend on its handling. If piled out under the weather with no protection, the manure loses nutrients that leach away in the rain. Rotted manure kept indoors contains less water, is more compact, and is richer than fresh manure. Nitrogen in fresh or green manure is more available than rotted manure; therefore, it will burn plants if applied too close.

The amount of bedding mixed into the manure usually increases its value because the bedding absorbs the animal urine. Urine has a higher content of nitrogen and potash than the solid wastes, and straw has a trace of phosphorus plus about one-half percent each of nitrogen and potash.

Don’t spread manure on ground that is frozen since a rain or a quick thaw may wash the nutrients away rather than into the soil.