How Does Your Garden Grow?

Do you know anyone who has ever had a garden? Growing your own food can be super exciting and rewarding! It all starts with a seed, plus some good, nutritious dirt, time, and a lot of sunshine and before you know it out will pop a vegetable or fruit! You can chose whatever you want to grow. It's a type of beautiful magic, and the best part is: anyone can do it!

This type of flower, a Marigold, can help keep insects
away from your garden in a natural, safe way. 

There are a quite a few benefits to caring for your own garden. First, you will have your favorite fresh veggies without having to go to the store. Gardening can also be relaxing for some people, but it's also very interesting to watch baby sprouts start so small and end up being a full-sized pepper or tomato. It's also very healthy to grow your own vegetables because you can be sure that they were grown with only water, dirt, and sun. If you grow vegetables this way, they will be organic (Cloutre, 2016). Fruits, vegetables, meats and grains can grow organically. Non-organic means that sometimes chemicals were used during the time of farming. For example, some large farms use chemicals to make the vegetables grow really big, really fast. Some farms only use chemicals to get rid of an insect problem (Coleman, 2012). There are alternatives to using chemicals for pest control though, one way is to plant flowers that the problematic insect does not like (Coleman, 2012). Pesticides can get into our water or still be on the vegetable when we eat it. Some people believe its better and safer for our bodies if the fruits and vegetables we eat are grown in the organic way. 

Where is this garden?

You might be wondering, "How does a garden work?" It's an easy process, and gardens can be put nearly anywhere! Before you go get your shovel and seeds, you should ask your parents for permission. Next, you need to come up with a plan of where you want your garden to be. The most important spot to look for is one that gets a lot of sun all day, not under any trees or in shadowy areas. Gardens can be big or small, so you don't even have to have a big yard to grow your own food. So now that you're imagining where you're going to put your garden, what kind of vegetables would you plant? Would you plant peppers, onions, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, or asparagus? 

After you decide what vegetables you would plant, the next step would be to till the spot where the garden will go. This can be a tough job, but there are machines that do it much

How many tomatoes in this picture
look like they're ready to pick? 

simpler than if someone were to do it with a shovel and hoe. Tilling the ground means that you are stirring up the earth to put air into the dirt and to make room for the seed's little roots to grow. Usually, farms of any size (gardens included!) are planted in rows so the garden is organized, and the plants can grow next their same type. How big and how many rows there are is totally up to you. 

Example of how rows in a garden
might look. 

Some types of plants may have special needs, such as more water than others, or for example, peas like to climb, so after they grow out of the ground a little bit, gardeners usually put a fence next to where they're grown. This kind of instruction is usually found on seed packets, but can be found in plenty of gardening books. 

Growing your own vegetables means that you'll know exactly what the vegetables were given for nutrition while they were growing. If the seedlings and plants ate healthy, clean earth and water, that means when you eat the vegetables, you'll know they'll be healthy and clean, and so will you! When you know you grew your plants organically, you can be assured they only contain nutrients, which is exactly why we eat vegetables. 

References
Clouatre, D. (2016). U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Salem Press Encyclopedia.

Coleman, P. (2012, November). Guide for organic crop producers. Retrieved from USDA website: https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Guide%20for%20Organic %20Crop%20Producers_0.pdf