Raising your own veggies is a wonderful way to eat healthier and to save money. Home-grown veggies are fresher and taste better than those that are available at your local supermarket. Many people have limited traditional gardening space. An ideal solution is to plant a street-side veggie patch. This innovative gardening method puts the unused space between your house and the kerb to work.
Contents
A 5m² patch will produce approximately 75 kilos of food a year. You can plant any veggie in your street-side veggie patch. Some people have small veggie patches to grow a few veggies for their favourite recipes. Other people use their veggie patches to significantly reduce or eliminate their supermarket produce bill. Your street-side veggie patch can deliver nutritious veggies just steps from your front door.
Planning Your Street-Side Veggie Patch
Before you grab your spade and start planting seedlings, there are some things you should consider. The dimensions of your patch can affect the quantity and type of veggies you can grow. By incorporating the following techniques, you can make your street-side veggie patch more efficient and include veggies that normally need lots of space.
Succession Planting
This method of planting extends your harvest by staggering the planting of crops or planting varieties that have different maturing dates. There are four basic ways increase your street-side veggie patch harvest during a growing season. You can plant:
- The same veggie every 2 to 4 weeks: As you plant one crop, you can harvest another one
- Different veggies in succession: This works well for veggies with short growing seasons
- Two veggies that have different maturity dates: Climbing plants are often used to shelter cool weather plants from the summer heat
- Different varieties of the same veggie: This method helps your street-side veggie patch produce corn, squash and other veggies throughout the growing season
Crop Rotation
Street-side veggie patch gardeners can rotate crops to improve their soil’s fertility, control diseases and pesky insects. This reduces your reliance on fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides. It makes gardening easier and improves the yield of your veggie patch. Beans fix nitrogen in their roots and enrich the soil with nitrates for corn. You can rotate your bean and corn crops in the same plot. Tomatoes are an exception to the crop rotation rule. You can grow tomatoes in the same location without depleting the soil or encouraging disease or insect problems. Crop rotation charts are a great tool for planning your veggie patch.
Raised Garden Beds
A raised garden bed can make your street-side veggie patch healthier, easier to maintain and more productive. The narrow width of raised beds allows you to work your veggie patch without walking on the soil. This reduces soil compaction and allows the roots to breathe. The design also makes it easier for elderly and disabled people to work in their veggie patch without bending over. Raised beds use less water, fertilizer and compost than regular veggie garden beds. Many studies have shown that raised garden beds can double the production of veggies. Retailers sell raised garden beds in various materials, depths and elevations. You can also construct a raised bed using a kit. Once your raised bed is in place, fill it with soil and plant your seedlings.
Grow Vertically
Latticework, nylon netting and climbing frames helps squash, melons, tomatoes, beans, cucumbers and other climbing plants grow vertically. This technique conserves space, provides better sunlight and improves air circulation. Your veggies are more resistant to mildew diseases and are easier to harvest. You’ll need to position your supports near the veggies. They will send out tendrils that grasp the support and wrap around it. If you are growing heavy veggies, you need to use supports with sturdy posts.
Street-side veggie patches are an ideal way to increase your gardening space, grow healthy veggies and save money.
