Vegetable Gardening

Vegetable plants like everything else need to be feed in order to grow, be healthy and produce a good crop. When we talk about feeding plants we’re speaking of using fertilizer. For plants to be healthy they need certain nutrients like carbon, hydrogen and oxygen that they get from the atmosphere or water. But that’s only part of their needs and why we must use fertilizer on them; so the can get the other nutrients the must have like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium and sulfur. These nutrients are supplied by the mineral portion of the soil and used in rather large amounts by the plants. There are other trace elements taken in smaller amounts from the soil such as molybdenum, chlorine, copper, manganese, zinc, iron and boron. All of these elements are necessary for the plants to be healthy and productive. A deficiency in any of these can cause trouble for the plant. Since our vegetable plants use these elements from the soil, it’s a good idea to replace them; don’t you agree? That’s where the fertilizer comes in! Depending on what the plant is producing, it will use more or less of each of the elements available to it. This means that you must know what every plant needs to produce the best crop possible. For example, lettuce is green leaves and uses lots of nitrogen.

Something else that is important to the well being of your plants is the pH level of the soil they live in. Most vegetables prefer a slightly acidic soil somewhere between 5.7 and 6.8. How well the plant uses the available nutrients depends a lot on the pH of the soil. If the pH is outside of the range required by the plant, the nutrients may be unavailable to the plant. You can raise the pH level of your soil making it more alkaline by applying lime. And it can be made more acidic by applying sulfur, either in its elemental form or as a component of types of fertilizers.

Having healthy and productive vegetable plants in your garden requires your attention to many details, fertilization being just one. Some of the other details you will need to attend to are soil structure, water needs, pH levels, weather conditions, diseases and insects. Lets look at some of these things; like soil structure, yours may need the addition of sand and organic material to make it more friable, if it’s a clay based soil. Some plants require more water to produce a good crop while others need less. Healthy plants are less susceptible to diseases and insect damage, however, it’s smarter to do regular spraying for both problems. Happy Gardening.