Beginner's guide: Grow your own vegetable garden
BY: ROBERT N. BREWER, JR. Extension Service Agent UGA

Crimson melon has firm, fine textured flesh.

As spring creeps in every year, garden beginners can anticipate their first vegetable gardens with a critical first step: plan ahead.

Georgia's veteran gardeners await warm afternoons of clearing winter debris to ready their garden beds.

Long, hot summers, miserable to most Georgians, offer an excellent growing season for summer vegetables. A vegetable garden of any size needs full sunlight, access to water and adequate drainage.

Another tip: put the garden near an outside door of your home. That way, when you walk out the door, you see your plants and you're more likely to weed and water.

Getting started

To be successful, smaller is better for beginners, even if it's just a few potted plants. But like most hobbies, gardening can be as elaborate or as simple as you want.

When you prepare the soil before planting, for instance, you can start a small garden by simply turning up the soil with a trowel. Or you can have the soil analyzed for a slight fee and then add any nutrients the soil lacks. At this time soil samples are $8.00. Call you local Extension office, which in Hiawassee is 706-896- 2024.

Giant Pumpkin. The present world record is over 1,400 pounds.

There are two ways to start the plants in your garden. The first and most successful for a beginner is to buy established plants from a local nursery, hardware store and transplant them into the garden soil.

The other way is to start your garden from seeds, if you choose to do that, growing large-seed vegetables such as melons, pumpkins and beans, which have fairly resilient seeds.

But the most important thing about choosing what to plant is to decide what vegetables you intend to eat. Some that grow particularly well in Georgia include tomatoes, bush beans, southern peas, squash, zucchini and, surprisingly, eggplant.

When to plant

Plan to plant your vegetable garden in early spring "when there's no threat of frost.

Try using 10-10-10 fertilizer, among other nutrients, 10-10-10 contains equal amounts of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, the three nutrients most crucial to plant development. "Salt and pepper" the ground with fertilizer before you plant, and then again once the plants are well-established. Watering your garden is critical, especially in the dry Georgia summers. But a word of caution: "Don't spoil your plants." If you water too often, your plants get used to all that water and will need a lot to look healthy. You need to water 1 inch weekly. Get a rain gauge to put out in your garden. As a guideline, 30 to 40 minutes of water from a sprinkler twice a week or so should give the plants an inch of water a week.

Guidelines aside, ultimately, gardening is a bit of trial-anderror. So prepare to dig in.

Some basic tools for gardening beginners:

Trowels are scoop-shaped hand instruments that many gardeners use every day for digging up or planting small plants. Shovels are spades in many sizes and shapes that handle many garden jobs.

Weeders are variously shaped tools for removing unwanted plants.Garden forks with heavy tines can break up compacted soil. Finer-tined versions are better for handling mulch.Shears, heavy scissors or pocketknives can cut your harvest off the vine without ripping the plant.Tomato cages support tomato plants. Garden hoses meet one of the garden's greatest needs. Jersey gloves, a wide-brim hat and maybe a kneeling pad will come in handy.