Fresh vegetables are never better than when they’re harvested right from your own backyard. Juicy tomatoes, snappy green beans, and crisp cucumbers are just some of the best vegetables to grow in your garden this year. Best of all, you don’t need a huge yard to learn how to start a vegetable garden! Containers on your patio, deck, or balcony are great homes for your plants too. If you’re feeling really ambitious, you can even grow seeds indoors a month or two before you plan on planting them in the ground to get a head start. Here are top five vegetables you can grow at home, according to pokies online real money Australia.
- Carrots
We’re including carrots only because they’re super easy to grow as long as they’re planted in loose, sandy soil during the cooler periods of the growing season—spring and fall (carrots can tolerate frost). Not all carrots are orange; varieties range in color from purple to white, and some are resistant to diseases and pests.
Many beginners find their carrots are short and deformed. This is typically due to poor, rocky soil, so it’s important to provide soft, loose soil that drains well. Mix in some sand and really loosen it up. Also, it is essential to THIN carrot seedlings to the proper spacing so that they’re not overcrowded. Be bold! Thin those seedlings if you want carrots to form properly.
- Radishes
Radishes can be harvested in as little as 24 days after planting, and can be inter-planted with slower-growing vegetables. You can plant radishes as soon as you can work the soil in the spring. Sow each seed 2 inches apart or more, or thin them to this spacing after they sprout. Cover the seeds with about half an inch of compost or soil.
- Peas
Plant peas as soon as the soil can be worked—2 weeks before the average last spring frost for your region, if possible. To harvest a continuous supply of peas during the summer, simultaneously sow varieties with different maturity dates. Then sow more seeds about 2 weeks later. Continue this pattern, sowing no later than mid-June. Be consistent like you’re with your games at real money online casino.
- Green Beans
Beans grow even in fairly poor soils, because they fix the nitrogen as they go! Bush varieties don’t require trellising, but pole varieties provide a more extended harvest. In cool areas, snap beans are easiest. In hot areas, lima beans, southern peas, and asparagus beans are also very easy to grow. All bean plants are fast growers and thrive in warm, moist soil.
- Lettuce
Lettuce can be sown directly in your garden bed, or started indoors for transplanting. It’s one of the few crops that can be grown all year in our climate, but in hot weather it should be shaded and harvested at smaller sizes. Lettuce growth slows in shade; it is also slower to go to seed, or “bolt,” which means that it can be harvested for longer.
An endless assortment of leaf shapes and shades of green and red means you’ll never get tired of growing new lettuce varieties. Leaf lettuces can be cut as they grow, and you can enjoy several harvests from the same plant by just snipping off what you need each time. If you want full heads of romaine and head lettuce to develop, thin them. Allow for 8 to 10 inches between plants. As you thin young plants, save the delicate small leaves for salads.