Anyone who grew up with a vegetable garden nearby can attest to the fact that there is nothing as delicious as a freshly-plucked cherry tomato that’s still warm with sunlight. A vegetable garden can not only leave you with the resources to make zucchini bread for months on end, but it can offer up the opportunity to experiment with vegetables you can’t find in your local produce section, like purple heirloom carrots or yellow tomatoes.
Now that it’s finally March, it’s the time to start sprouting your seeds or obtaining seedlings from local garden centers or farmers’ markets. From plunking a seed into a hole in the ground and using seed-starter lighting kits to your own miniature greenhouse, the amount of money invested in a vegetable garden is entirely up to you.
Planting approximately twice the seeds as plants you’d like to have will ensure you grow strong seedlings and provide a few extra just in case. Either way, it’s likely that friends and neighbours will be more than willing to eagerly take any extra vegetables off your hands.
Determine what types of veggies you’d like to grow (and eat) and make sure they’ll do fine in a Southern Ontario climate. You might not be able to grow bananas, but there’s a lot out there that you can grow, like asparagus, onions, peas, berries, corn, garlic, grapes, squash and peppers.
The location of the garden should be semi-sheltered from the wind and should receive whatever amount of sun allows for optimal growth, which differs from one variety of vegetable to the next. The garden can be planted after the last frost, depending on when the vegetables will be ready to harvest. Follow the directions on the seeds or seedlings with regards to spacing out the plants, and you’ll have a productive vegetable garden to enjoy in no time. Cooking is much less of a chore when you have your own home-grown ingredients to choose from.
