Harvesting your own vegetables and herbs in your own garden? That has always been my dream: simply walking into the garden and coming back with a basket filled with fresh vegetables or herbs. This doesn't have to remain just a dream if you have your own garden; with a little planning and skill, you can soon be growing your own vegetables. Here are a few tips to ensure it really succeeds and you can soon enjoy fresh fruit and vegetables:
Planning
First, you need to consider whether you want a classic kitchen garden, where only fruit and vegetables are grown, or an ornamental and kitchen garden, where not everything is dedicated to fruit and vegetables. I decided on an ornamental and kitchen garden; I only have a vegetable patch with 3 bed sections in the back part of my garden.
Once you have decided, the layout of the bed comes next. It is best to have 2-3 areas in your bed that are supplied with different levels of nutrients. This is because the nutrient requirements of vegetables are usually different. Here, a distinction is made between heavy, medium, and light feeders:
- Heavy feeders: These varieties have a high nutrient requirement, such as: green, white, or red cabbage, Chinese cabbage, cucumbers, bell peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, pumpkin, leeks, chard, savoy cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, celery, leeks.
- Medium feeders: These varieties have a medium nutrient requirement, such as: carrots, beetroot, potatoes, fennel, onions, eggplant, radish, black salsify, kohlrabi, spinach, lamb's lettuce, head lettuce, chicory.
- Light feeders: These varieties have a low nutrient requirement, such as: culinary herbs, peas, beans, cress, radishes.
You should not grow the same type of vegetable in the same spot every year. The same vegetable should only return to this spot after at least 3 years. This is done so that the soil is not depleted one-sidedly and so that pests that have specialized in certain plants cannot spread. All types of cabbage, radishes, daikon radishes, and some green manure plants like yellow mustard and winter rapeseed are at risk here. The cabbage root fly or clubroot are feared diseases for these vegetables.
For Perennial cropssuch as strawberries, asparagus, or rhubarb should be planted in a separate bed, as they do not need to be included in this annual rotation.
Growing different types of vegetables
Vegetables can support each other if you know which ones should be combined and which ones should not. In addition to compatibility, you must also ensure that the vegetables do not compete above or below ground for light, water, and nutrients.
| Vegetables | Goes well with | Does not go well with |
| Beans | Savory: Carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, potatoes, cabbage, beetroot, spinach, celery, tomatoes, radishes, daikon radish, kohlrabi | Peas, garlic, fennel, onions, leeks |
| Peas | Cucumbers: Fennel, lettuce, zucchini, cabbage, kohlrabi, carrots, daikon radish, radishes | Onions, tomatoes, leeks, beans, potatoes |
| Fennel | Peas, lettuce | Beans, tomatoes |
| Cucumbers | Dill, onions, celery, lettuce, beetroot, leeks, cabbage, garlic, peas, beans | Potatoes, tomatoes, radishes, daikon radish |
| Potatoes | Beans, cabbage, kohlrabi, spinach | Tomatoes, cucumbers, beetroot, celery |
| Cabbage varieties | Dill, beans, peas, cucumbers, radishes, daikon radish, beetroot, lettuce, celery, spinach, tomatoes | Garlic, leeks, onions |
| Kohlrabi | Peas, potatoes, leeks, radishes, daikon radish, beetroot, black salsify, celery, spinach, lettuce | Cabbage |
| Leeks, garlic | Cucumbers, kohlrabi, carrots, black salsify, tomatoes, celery | Beans, peas, beetroot |
| Carrots | Peas, garlic, leeks, tomatoes, radishes, daikon radish, lettuce, black salsify, onions | Celery |
| Bell pepper | Cucumbers, kohlrabi, carrots, black salsify, tomatoes, celery | Beans, tomatoes |
| Radish/Daikon radish | Beans, peas, carrots, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes | Cucumbers, onions, cabbage |
| Beetroot | Beans, cucumbers, garlic, kohlrabi, lettuce, zucchini, onions | Potatoes, leeks, spinach |
| Salads | Peas, cucumbers, cabbage, kohlrabi, fennel, carrots, radishes, daikon radish, tomatoes, onions | Celery |
| Black salsify | Kohlrabi, carrots, leeks, onions | Salads |
| Celery | Beans, cucumbers, cabbage, kohlrabi, leeks, spinach, tomatoes | Carrots, potatoes, lettuce |
| Spinach | Beans, potatoes, cabbage, kohlrabi, radishes, celery, tomatoes | Beetroot |
| Tomatoes | Beans, garlic, leeks, carrots, radishes, daikon radish, celery, spinach, onions | Peas, cucumbers, potatoes, fennel, bell pepper |
| Zucchini | Beans, peas, beetroot, onions | Cucumbers |
| Onions | Cucumbers, carrots, beetroot, lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini | Beans, peas, cabbage, radishes, daikon radish |
The location
The location of the vegetable patch is important. It should be a fully sunny, sheltered spot. In addition, the bed should be easy to work on; there shouldn't be rose bushes or the children's slide right behind it.
Do you want to provide the bed area with a border planting? The vegetable patch can be edged with boxwood or alpine strawberries. It looks beautiful with parsley and chives because they bloom wonderfully. If you have decided on a larger kitchen garden, you can also edge the bed with fruit trees, berry bushes, cut flowers, or herbs.
Designing the vegetable patch
There are also some considerations for the design of the bed. Depending on the growth and leaf shapes, as well as color combinations, you can arrange the different types of vegetables. Here are a few examples:
- Tomatoes, which grow very tall, can grow over low-growing lettuce and parsley
- Slender blue-green leeks/onions together with broad, spreading, beautiful green head lettuce
- Large-leaved chard together with fine carrot foliage
You can also combine colors beautifully here. Nowadays, there are many great varieties available to buy, such as tomatoes, which come in colors from yellow to the classic red, to black and green. Lettuce can have red or green leaves.
To get an even more colorful bed, you can add annual flowers, such as marigolds, tagetes, nasturtiums, or, as I did, nasturtiums. This also provides beautiful splashes of color in your vegetable patch.
Great eye-catchers are vegetable varieties that are grown up on trellises, such as peas, pole beans, or standard trees of currants, raspberries, or gooseberries.
Preparing the bed
The soil is very important for the vegetable patch. There should be deep, humus-rich, loose, and nutrient-rich soil.
- Preparation for heavy and medium feeders: use plenty of compost or aged stable manure as a base fertilizer in spring and autumn. Loosen the soil and rake it smooth before planting or sowing.
- Preparation for light feeders: if the soil was fertilized for heavy feeders the year before, just spread some compost and loosen it well.
- Preparation for perennial crops: Depending on the plant species, use the normal base fertilization.
Planting
Every vegetable has a different growing season; those who take this into account can make optimal use of their bed and sometimes even harvest up to 4 times in a row.
Here, a distinction is made between main, intermediate, pre-, post-, and perennial crops:
- Main crops: These vegetable varieties occupy the bed for the entire growing season, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, or cabbage
- Intermediate crops: are vegetable varieties with a short growing season, such as lettuce or kohlrabi. These can be planted at the same time as the main crops. However, since they ripen and can be harvested earlier, they contribute to better land use.
- Pre-crop: Very fast-growing vegetables like radishes and spinach are suitable here
- Post-crop: Vegetable varieties that can still be planted in late summer because they are hardy, such as endive, spinach, leeks, and lamb's lettuce, are suitable as post-crops.
- Perennial crops: These vegetable varieties remain in the same bed for several years, such as asparagus, artichokes, strawberries, rhubarb.
Extra tip: Planting vegetables in a truly colorful way – that is the best prevention against diseases and pests!
Proper fertilizing
Medium and heavy feeders should receive one or more additional top dressings during the growing season. Light feeders receive no fertilization. To ensure the soil is not over-fertilized, you should have a soil analysis of the vegetable beds carried out every 3 years.
Care
Vegetables love it when they are really pampered; the effort is rewarded with a really great and delicious harvest.
- Do not let the soil dry out: If it is very dry, water regularly – especially if you have planted tomatoes, cucumbers, or zucchini.
- Mulch the soil: Always mulch the soil between the vegetable plants.
- Remove weeds from the soil: Regularly remove weeds between the plants and loosen the soil.
- Tomato shoots: Repeatedly remove the shoots between the main stem and the leaves.
- Hilling up: When beans, peas, or tomatoes are about 10 cm high, they should be hilled up. This makes them stronger. If you hill up carrots or potatoes, they won't get green tops.
Harvesting
The best harvest time is in the evening, as the nitrate content is lowest at this time.
- Kohlrabi and zucchini: harvest as early as possible, as they are still more tender at that time
- Potatoes: when the foliage is yellow, they are ripe and can be harvested
- Onions: when the foliage is yellow and bends over, they are ripe. Let the onions dry on the bed in the sun for another 2-3 days.
- Root vegetables: on sunny mornings, pull them up slightly with a light jerk. They are still not harvested until the evening. This procedure lowers the nitrate content.
I hope these tips help you have a productive fruit and vegetable patch. I would be very happy to receive new ideas or comments on this article!
Read also: Make your own markers in the vegetable or herb bed
Photos by Sabine, meinhaushalt.at
I would like to create a vegetable and herb patch for my small family and have read your tips with interest. I think they will be very helpful to me in laying out the beds. Thank you very much and best regards,
Karin Dumke