Here's how to start a vegetable garden - Huron Daily Tribune

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MANISTEE COUNTY — With inflation making a trip to the grocery store a costly endeavor, now might be the time to start up a little vegetable garden of your own.

To help those interested in developing a green thumb, the News Advocate reached out to Lorraine and Mark Schwendner, who have been members of the Spirit of the Woods Garden Club for 13 years, for advice on how one can get started growing their own produce.

MANISTEE NEWS ADVOCATE: Is there any special equipment someone would need to start their own vegetable garden?

LORRAINE: The first thing you probably would need is a tiller — something to get the soil turned over.

MNA: Does it make a difference if you plant vegetables in the ground or use raised garden beds?

LORRAINE: Because we're seniors and we don't bend over so well, raised beds have really been a blessing for us. If they're about 2 feet tall, you don't have to bend so much or get on your knees. But then you want to make sure you can reach the middle of the bed from the sides, so the widest you would want it is about 4 feet wide.

MNA: When it comes to choosing a spot for your garden, do you just make sure it will get a lot of sun or are there other things to consider?

LORRAINE: You definitely want as much sun on it as you can get — put it away from your trees. And then you also have to have a source of water. You want to have a spot where you can water it fairly easily, because they take a lot of water. Especially the raised beds — if they get dried out, you'll lose your plants, so you have to make sure they get water.

MNA: Are there certain vegetables you would recommend to a beginner?

LORRAINE: Zucchini is always a good one to start with, especially because they tend to produce so prolifically. It really gets you excited about growing vegetables. Potatoes are good. Again, very prolific producers, and they're fun to dig up in the fall. Green beans are always a staple. They give you a lot of produce, and you can do those either as a bush or where they climb up a trellis or a string.

MNA: When is the best time to plant your vegetables?

MARK: You never know around here — I've seen a hard freeze in the first week of June. Usually, if June rolls around, I just take my chances and start planting stuff.

Some things won't really germinate unless the ground is warm enough — like corn, or even beans. It's kind of a waste of time.You can put it in the ground and it just rots in there. But, you can always start stuff inside where it's nice and warm and then you know it's going to sprout. Then you put it in the garden after it's sprouting.

LORRAINE: There are some vegetables that really like cooler weather, like lettuce. You can plant some lettuce and spinach in your bed in the late spring, and when they're done growing — because they'll stop after a while if it gets too warm — you can replace them with a plant that needs warmer weather, like maybe a green pepper or a tomato.

MNA: What can you do to protect your garden from animals, bugs and other pests?

LORRAINE: Of course, in Michigan, your biggest pest is really going to be the deer. The only thing we find that keeps the deer out is an electric fence, or a 6-foot fence. They really don't want to jump. They will if they get really hungry or you've got something in there they really want, but they don't like to jump, so a 6-foot fence usually keeps them out.

For bugs, you really just have to watch — especially the potatoes. You have to pick the bugs off of the plants when you see them on there. If you don't, you'll get grubs and the grubs get down in there and eat the potatoes.

MARK: You can also purchase online praying mantis egg cases. If you plant them in your garden, praying mantis prey on all sorts of bugs. And I would put a bluebird house near your garden, because bluebirds are very voracious bug-eaters. Even if you don't get bluebirds in the house, you'll probably get tree swallows or wrens, and both of those are big-time bug-eaters.

LORRAINE: We do like to avoid chemicals if possible. Chemicals also hurt the birds and the good bugs.

MNA: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

LORRAINE: It's always fun to grow a vegetable and then eat it after you've done it yourself. If you've got kids, it's a great learning experience. They can see that you don't just go to the grocery store to buy your vegetables; you can grow them right in your own yard.

MARK: Somebody starting a garden right where they have grass growing now, you can put newspapers with rocks to hold them down to kill the grass, but I've had pretty good luck just renting a rototiller to just till up the grass. The roots aren't that deep, and I never had the grass grow in the garden site that I put in that way.

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Here's how to start a vegetable garden - Huron Daily Tribune

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