by Glenn Davis, UCCE Master Gardener, El Dorado County
originally published March 21, 2003
A
lot of vegetable gardeners are inspired by the perfect vegetable pictures they see
on seed packages and catalogs; these pictures are the result of great
photography, years of gardening and a large garden selection of vegetables from
which to choose. Great vegetables don’t always have to look great; they should
look good, be fresh and taste good. There are a lot of factors that influence
your vegetable crop: weather, location,
water, timing and soil. Most gardeners carefully select their vegetables and
plant them when they think the time is right; they put them in the correct
location and hope they will produce. To be on the safe side they frequently add
some fertilizer to the soil to make sure there is a full table when the
vegetables start to eat.
Vegetables don’t really
require a lot of nutrients; most of the vegetable mass is composed of water and
air; anyone who has dehydrated vegetables can attest to the difference in
weight between fresh vegetables and dehydrated vegetables. They do however take
some nutrients from the soil and if certain elements are missing it can affect
the vegetables development.
If
you are getting ready for a spring vegetable garden, in addition to choosing
your vegetables you might also consider getting your soil ready. At the present
time my vegetable garden has a few weeds in it and a layer of horse manure on
it waiting for me to start preparing it for this spring’s crop.
My
first chore is to turn the bed over to incorporate the weeds into the soil; I
have to do this before they start to seed and at least a month before I plant
any vegetables to do the soil any good. In the next couple of weeks I will also
add some good compost to insure that there are enough micronutrients in the
soil to meet the gardens need.
The
best thing you can do for your vegetable garden is to add some good compost.
Vegetables have an almost universal need for rich moist well-drained soil that
has a pH range between 6.2 sand 6.8. This is almost a description of good
compost. While there are a few variations most good gardeners create these
conditions for their vegetable gardens. Don’t try to fine tune your garden soil
to perfection, do what you can and let the soil work for you. Don’t get
fertilizers and amendments confused; fertilizers provide nutrients for the soil
while amendments change the soils structure. Give the soil critters something
to work with and they will build your soil for you by mixing the amendments and
fertilizers into a balanced total.
There
are a few things to consider when selecting vegetables for the garden in
relation to your soil. Plants take nutrients from the soil and if you plant the
same plant in the same area in succession these nutrients could be used up;
rotate plant families to different areas to insure no nutrient is exhausted.
Take a close look at the plant structure and its edible portions; it’s not good
to plant carrots in rocky soil if you want long straight carrot roots. If you
have a very shallow soil, unless you have a way of elevating the bed, tomatoes
with three feet deep root systems might not be a good idea. Think a little
about the plants nutrient production and the source of the plants nutrients; if
the plant produces a lot of greenery (chard, lettuce or spinach) you are going
to have to replace the nitrogen while the addition of nitrogen to the soil
might not be a good idea for tomatoes. Some plants are “heavy feeders” (corn,
potatoes, squash and tomatoes) while other are “light feeders” (carrots,
onions, peppers and radishes); try and rotate these heavy and light feeders in
your garden to keep from depleting soil nutrients.
Occasionally the soil is too cold for nutrients to kick in; if your vegetables seem to be standing still in the growth department consider a side dressing of fertilizer to stimulate growth. If you suspect a deficiency in micronutrients you might want to consider using an organic foliar spray; foliar sprays can be fast acting, a growth stimulate and a source of micronutrients. Be careful and judicious about using inorganic fertilizers they can quickly overpower the soil and its delicate organisms; vegetable gardens seem to do best when soil nutrients are derived from organic sources.