If you're new to gardening, sowing outdoors can seem a little intimidating. In fact, it's an easy and affordable way to start your garden and grow fresh, tasty vegetables yourself. With a little planning and patience, you can successfully plant your outdoor seeds. In this article, we will guide you through the basic steps to help you succeed in your outdoor sowing and have success in your gardening.
Appreciated by many gardeners, decried by modern agriculture and by certain cynical chroniclers, companion planting is today the subject of controversy.
In the relatively short summer conditions that prevail in Quebec, several species of vegetable or flower plants must be sown indoors as early as March or April. These plants will thus be able to produce mature flowers or fruits before the onset of cold weather in autumn.
Under the term sowing hide several realities. There is the operation itself which consists of putting the seeds into the ground. There is also the cultivation of young plants until they are transplanted outside. During these two stages, the needs of the plants evolve.
What's better than the cold month of January to plan your vegetable garden? We have time to think about it, with the first sowings only starting in a few weeks. By doing this, we avoid disappointing mistakes during the summer.
Seeds from Jardins de l'écoumène have a very high germination rate in the year of purchase. Depending on the species, this germination rate decreases more or less quickly over the years: some seeds still germinate reasonably well after five or ten years, but others no longer germinate after only two years.
Microgreens are plant seeds that are germinated on potting soil while sprouts are seeds that are germinated in pots without substrate. Microgreens require less maintenance than sprouts which must be rinsed twice a day, sometimes more in some cases.
It is the easiest indoor culture to grow. For the basic principles, consult Écouinfo Growing vegetables indoors: possible and fun.
Light, temperature, watering, air circulation, substrate, parasites and fertilization represent important issues, but have many solutions as shown by Écouinfo Growing vegetables indoors: possible and funny. However, when growing fruiting vegetables indoors another major challenge is also present: pollination.
It is possible and quite easy to grow vegetables indoors during the cold season. However, one should not expect super returns as outwardly. These are mainly complementary crops. We ensure the freshness of the products and above all we have fun.
Growing your own vegetables is already a good way to reduce food waste.
A few years ago, it was suggested that gardeners throw away the potting soil they had used in their pot after a year of use. When we know that land is a precious commodity, not very renewable (it takes 200 to 1 years to renew the soil layer), this advice was a bit absurd. Since then, we have been more respectful and we know that we can reuse the potting soil from the containers from year to year.
The harvest, and therefore the conservation, of fine herbs begins as soon as the plants have reached the desired point of maturity. For herbs whose leaves we eat, we can make several harvests during the summer. The warmer you live in a region, the higher the number of harvests.
While the harvests have started in mid-summer, several spaces have been freed up in the vegetable garden. We can of course cover them with biodegradable material, such as mulch, to prevent erosion, but we can also use them to start new crops.
Looking at a map of the world, you might think that we will never run out of water. However, the situation is misleading. Fresh water reserves, and therefore useful for watering plants, represent only 2,5% of all this water. If we subtract polluted water, we quickly understand that the protection of such a resource is vital for humanity. Both for hydration and for eating.
We often read that with less than 6 hours of sunlight it is difficult to grow vegetables. This information is partially false, because some vegetables and herbs grow in places where sunlight hours are reduced. Some people really like this kind of situation.
There is some confusion about the word mulch. This is derived from the word straw and is therefore a technique which consists of covering the ground with straw… or an organic material that resembles it. For supporters of this definition, the expression “organic mulch” is therefore a pleonasm. So what about “plastic mulch”? They should rather be called anti-vegetative tarpaulins or ground covers. This confusion comes from the translation of the word mulch which in English designates both mulches of organic origin, canvases and decorative coverings such as river pebbles.
When is the right time to plant or sow in the vegetable garden? Each year, the right time for the start of sowing and especially planting in the vegetable garden is
What do the numbers corresponding to hardiness zones mean?
Can we completely trust these indications?
Let's make one thing clear: nothing gives a summer look to our plates more than chili peppers, peppers and tomatoes!
