How to Grow a Vegetable Garden & Guide for Beginners: Sunita Badola's Passion for Gardening
“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. ” (Cicero). Today’s woman dreamer, Sunita Badola, shares her passion for gardening, and the beauty behind growing a vegetable garden. Interested in growing a garden, but not sure where to start? Live in a colder, winter climate like in New England, From gardening tools, planting essentials to seasonal vegetables, Sunita shares must know home gardening tips for beginners.
1. What got you interested in gardening?
I always enjoyed gardening as I grew up with the vegetable garden. My mom and grandmother were avid gardeners. It took me sometime to figure out how to garden in the New England area. It does require time commitment. My husband got into indoor plants and he became very interested in growing micro greens, indoor plants and propagating them. So, we decided to setup raised beds a few years back and started with a few vegetables and two beds. Then, we expanded to 4 raised beds and are planning to expand it further to 6 raised beds.
“I love gardening as I find it very meditative and relaxing. Gardening teaches you many of the important life skills, such as, patience, acceptance and dedication. ”
2. What vegetables do you grow in your garden and what are the best vegetables to grown in the New England region?
Initially we focused on the locally grown vegetables, zucchini, tomatoes, acorn squash, peppers. Then we expanded to Okra, Mustard greens, Radish, Kale, Swiss chard, Bottle gourd, Ridge gourd, Armenian cucumbers. We read a lot about the right temperature for each of these vegetables and thus started many of these at home in March. We brought all of the plants out in the garden outside when the temperature became more stable and above 65F. In New England area this temperature can be achieved early-mid May.
3. What advice or recommendations do you have for people just starting a garden?
Starter Plants from seeds: Start the seeds in March at home. It can take few weeks for the seedlings to come out and it needs to be at least 4-6 inches tall before planting them out. It takes 7-10 days for starter plants to adjust to the new soil condition. It needs lot of care at that time.
Prefer local farms for plants: Buy many of the vegetable plants from local farm. Local farm grows the variety that is more suitable for your weather and environment. Direct sunlight and regular watering are the key to successful gardening. There is one more technique we learnt regarding the watering that you should always avoid watering in the shower mode rather just soak the soil without wetting the leaves. This will help the plants to avoid fungal growth. We also pulled most of the plants to grow upright rather than on the ground. This helped avoid the slugs getting into the hollow stems of zucchini.
Fertilizer: Once the plan is adjusted to new soil environment, we added fertilizer to give it a boost. Pruning and aeration of roots: We also did constant pruning of leaves to avoid overcrowding and allow sun to access the soil. We also did constant aeration of roots by weeding and digging around the root areas.
Hand pollination: We also learnt that for some of the gourds you must do hand pollination as there were not enough bees to pollinate the female flowers. Gardening requires lot of patience, care and love. Plants are living beings and I feel that they can sense our love and passion. We utilized all the extra time we had during the pandemic into our garden and it brightened up difficult times.
