Veggies from home: Growing one's own food is a challenging, nourishing thing to do

Whether driven by the economy, the desire for fresh and untainted food, or the need to minimize your environmental footprint, beginning a vegetable garden can be a daunting task.

What starts as a simple act can become overwhelmingly complicated as you read about pH levels, nitrogen-carbon ratios and the relative merits of beneficial insects.

A life in the garden is one in which learning will never end, experience is the best teacher, and next year will always be better. It is full of rewards and disappointments -- and a kind of satisfaction that is felt deep within your body, from the labor expended, the nourishment of the food you grow, and the spiritual reward of feeding yourself off your own little plot of land.

I don't believe I've ever met two gardeners who do the same thing the same way. There is plenty of advice out there, perhaps too much.

Every region has its own soil, climate, seasons and pests that influence how to go about things.

Here is my attempt to weed through the excess, to toss the rest on the compost, and come away with a workable plan to help a beginning gardener on the path to happy harvests.

Assess your situation: Sun, soil, space and water are the important issues. There are a lot of remedies for problem garden spots, but if the intended space doesn't get at least six hours of sun a day, you do not have a lot of options. Little that is edible will grow without at least six hours of sun.

A soil test is mandatory: North Carolina is one of the few places in the country that still offers free soil testing. You can pick up your kit at the Forsyth County Cooperative Extension Office, 1450 Fairchild Road, Winston Salem, 336-703-2850. Then you simply send off little boxes of soil with your intentions. The results will come back with recommendations. Your agricultural-extension agent can assist with the interpretation. The most important issue is the soil's pH, a measure of how acidic or alkaline it is. Without a proper pH balance, plants will not be able to absorb nutrients from the soil. A soil test will help determine whether you need to add lime to get a balance range of pH 6.0 to 6.5.

Our soil is often clay: Clay tends to be dense and hard to work. When it's wet, it is sticky; when it's dry, it turns to stone. People moving from the North are often horrified by our soil. Clay is especially hard for seeds. But clay is not all bad. It is full of valuable minerals and holds moisture well.

The remedy is organic matter: This means compost and mulch forever and ever. Amen. Soil, with its many microorganisms, eats organic matter. Beginning gardeners are often surprised how fast their hard work seems to disappear. Whether you supply organic matter from your own compost, buy it bagged or have trucked in, it is an essential piece of the successful garden.

Drainage and aeration: These are two essential qualities of soil. A raised bed can go a long way toward accomplishing both tasks. I make it a rule never to step into a bed unless I have to, always working backward when turning the soil so that I raise what my feet have just compacted. All those roots and microorganisms need air to do their thing. A raised bed does not necessarily need to be contained by wood or stone sides, but it can make things easier to maintain. When designing a bed, I like to measure my reach and then double it. Then I can reach from either side to the middle without stepping in the bed. Though ideally the space available can accommodate a square bed, try to think outside this box. It is easiest for the beginner to work a square space for planning's sake, but all kinds of areas can accommodate vegetables, from foundation plantings to containers.

Water: Make sure that you will be able to get water to your garden. Vegetable gardens generally require an inch of rain a week. If the sky doesn't provide it, it's up to you. Mulching and collecting rain water are other ways you should consider keeping the garden irrigated.

Know your seasons: Just because the tomatoes have arrived at the big-box store doesn't mean that it's time to plant them. They come from Florida. It's been spring there since January.

The last frost date here is mid-April, and the first frost date is mid-October. But these are averages. Sometimes it's earlier or much later. Experienced gardeners play with these dates to get the earliest and latest crops possible. Gaining an understanding of the conditions and the lifespan of your garden plants is crucial. There are both warm and cool-season crops. Lettuce, for example, is a cool-season crop. Once the weather gets warm, lettuce goes to seed and turns bitter. Gardeners call this bolting. Tomatoes are a warm-season crop. Once the weather gets too cool they stop producing and eventually succumb to frost. Each vegetable variety needs a period of time to develop, referred to as "days to maturity." An experienced gardener is able to take advantage of these windows to maximize the harvest.

There will be weeds: Weeds undo more gardeners than anything else. The more effort you put into controlling weeds, the better off you will be. Anytime new ground is broken, weed seeds are waiting to germinate. The soil has an inexhaustible supply. The solution is to keep the ground covered. On paths, this means using mulch, bricks or gravel. In beds, weeds can be controlled by regular hoeing, mulching and planting intensively. In an intensively-planted bed there is little room for weeds, the plants are nearly touching and form a sort of living mulch. Using a hand hoe to gently cut weed seedlings just below the surface is another excellent control method. Once weeds become established, reproducing plants are hard to kill. If you don't let them get to this point, your gardening experience will be far more rewarding.

Know your friends and enemies: Bugs and plants were doing their thing long before you came along -- and they won't give up any time soon. Some plants have pest relationships that are almost certain to occur in your new garden. Cucumbers get cucumber beetles; squash, squash bugs; eggplants, flea beetles; cabbage, cabbage worms. It's as if they come together in the seed packet. Expecting pests and keeping a sharp eye out for them is the best way to be prepared and take the proper measures. A good insect guide will help you figure who is eating what -- or whom. We invite nature into our yards when we plant a garden, and we should take every measure to protect it. You will find that you have both friends and enemies. A heavy-handed approach that kills them all is not beneficial. If you want pesticides and chemicals on your food, you can go to the grocery store. But there are organic or botanically-based pesticides that address all of our pest problems now. Many of these are less harmful to non-target creatures and do not persist in the environment. Choosing less-harmful pesticides is only one step in a pest-management strategy. Other techniques include rotating crops, planting to attract beneficial insects and interplanting to confuse pests.

Then there are the higher pests like rabbits, voles and deer. Again, it is better to plan for the worst than to suddenly have your garden wiped out in a few days. Fencing and repellents are important strategies to consider.

Start from seed: Beginners are often thwarted by seed starting. It can be tricky and is certainly time-consuming. The first-time gardener may want to start with transplants the first year. Your ultimate goal should be to raise your plants from seed. Seed starting will open up a world of vegetable varieties that you will never know by purchasing plants at the store. There are thousands of plant varieties out there to try, and the stores don't even hint at the number available. Seed catalogs are the way to go. Where else are you going to find Nepalese bell peppers and Green sausage tomatoes if you don't start with your own seed? How else can you get that great sense of reward when you bring in that first tomato that you knew when it was only a little dried up embryo on the end of your finger. Seed starting is a miracle, and it still amazes me every spring.

Grow up: No matter how small your space, you can increase your harvest by putting up a trellis. Cucumbers, peas, tomatoes, winter squash, watermelons and beans will not only take up less space, they will be healthier. This is because you increase air circulation and reduce the incidence of diseases when you get plants off the ground. Both crops and bugs are easier to see, and there is not as much bending and stooping at harvest time. Heavy fruits like melons will need the additional support of a nylon stocking or other "sling" to keep their weight from pulling the vine off the trellis.

Start small: Many a vegetable garden has started as a wonderful new project and become an overbearing burden. It is far too easy to let enthusiasm carry you away in the spring. A lot of food can come out of a small, well- managed plot. Include a couple of caged tomatoes, some lettuce, a few peppers, a few bush beans, radishes and carrots. One or two zucchini plants can have you knee deep in squash before you know it. Use your tomato cages to support a crop of peas the following spring. Avoid the giant crops like corn, winter squash and pumpkins unless you have a lot of room. You can always expand. Two or three raised beds that are 10 feet long by 3 feet wide will bring in lots of produce.

Slow down: A garden sets its own pace. In the age of instant everything, a garden quickly becomes a slower place. Adjust to the natural rhythm of growing things. Remember, there is more to harvest in the garden than produce.