How to Grow Fresh Vegetables For Sale And Consumption

INTRODUCTION

Growing fresh vegetables to eat is one way of keeping healthy. Most vegetables can easily be grown directly from seeds sown in your garden. Such examples are pumpkin, peas, beans, spinach, tomatoes and onions. When planning a vegetable garden, you need to place it in a sunny area of the garden, as most vegetables, herbs and medicinal plants need plenty of sunlight (6 hours a day). There should be a water source close by to allow for easy watering and maintenance.

• Planting and watering 

Healthy vegetables need fertile soil or soil that is fed in order to increase its fertility. The soil provides plants with the nutrients and minerals they need to grow well and produce good crops.

• Follow the steps below to prepare your soil for planting. 

Before digging the trenches you need to collect garden and kitchen waste for a few weeks, allowing it to decompose in a compost heap until you have collected enough.
1. Dig trenches in the area chosen for your vegetable garden. Each bed should be at most 1m across, with narrow pathways in between. You can then easily reach the plants for picking or to do maintenance, without having to stand on the soil in between the plants.
2. Whilst digging the trench keep the healthy topsoil (first 30 cm of soil) in one heap and the poor sub subsoil (the next 30 cm of soil) in another heap. It is also acceptable to only dig up the first 30 cm of soil.
3. Water the trenches well.
4. Place organic matter such as garden and decomposed kitchen waste into the trench and allow it to sink down for a few days. This will enrich the soil.
5. Place the healthy soil (top soil) back into the trench on top of the organic matter.
6. Use the poor subsoil to make the paths around your beds.

• Mulch 

Mulch is found in nature: think of the blanket of leaves and twigs under a thicket of trees. Like a blanket retains heat, so mulch helps soil to retain moisture. It should be placed around plants to help the soil retain water for the plant, taking care to keep it a couple of centimetres or so away from plants stems to avoid stem rot. There are two kinds of mulch - organic and inorganic:

•  Organic mulches include compost, pine needles, bark or wood chips, straw, autumn leaves, shredded newspaper and grass cuttings (sprinkle thinly to avoid clumping). Organic mulch decomposes over time, thereby enriching the soil's organic content. The activities of the earthworms and microbial organisms in the soil mix these nutrients into the soil, and help enrich and aerate the soil.
•  Inorganic mulches are materials that do not break down, but help the soil retain moisture. Examples are plastic sheeting, gravel, pebbles and stones. Using inorganic mulches often creates a build up of heat in the soil, so is best used with plants that are adapted to heat. Plastic sheeting can be used to sterilise soil in a vegetable garden if there have been outbreaks of fungi, nematodes or other pests. Plastic sheeting can also be useful while germinating seedlings as the increase in heat aids germination. The plastic must be removed immediately once seeds have germinated.  

•  Reduces evaporation in your garden by up to 70%. 
•  Inhibits the growth of weeds and enriches the soil naturally. 
•  Controls the soil's temperature according to the seasons, preventing extremes. 

Before applying mulch, dig over the ground lightly to improve ventilation. When mulching beds with newly planted seeds it is best to use dry veld grass clippings or straw, which are thinner than other types of mulch. Seeds need light and oxygen to germinate and importantly need to be kept moist.  The dry veld grass clippings (a layer of 5 mm thick) allows light to penetrate through the mulch to the seed. The mulch layer is also thin enough to allow the seedling to push its way through to sunlight.

Germination

 Germination is the process whereby a plant grows from a seed after a period of dormancy.  Germination is the sprouting of a seedling from a seed, when the first greenery becomes visible (cotyledons).  The next leaves to follow are the first true leaves.  

Nematodes 

Plants sometimes become infested with diseases or are eaten by pests. Healthy plants resist diseases and recover from damage better than weak plants. Help to keep your plants strong and healthy by developing fertile soil. You can do this by regularly watering, weeding, mulching and feeding your soil (compost and fertiliser).

The nematode or roundworm is either beneficial or detrimental to a gardener's cause: 

•  Predatory nematodes kill garden pests like cutworms 
•  Pest nematodes like root knot attack the plants. 

Nematodes exist in soils naturally, and in some fertile soils the topsoil is estimated to containbillions of nematodes per acre. A high population of pest nematodes decreases the fertility of the soil and reduces crop yields. Nematodes penetrate root tips and cause swelling and distortions. These are easily recognizable on carrots where you find forked roots and lumps on the root system.

Mulching your garden assists in the prevention of nematodes; other techniques are crop rotation and companion planting and the planting of marigolds. The nematodes mistake the marigolds for a host crop and enter the roots as larvae. They are unable to induce giant cell formation, however, which is necessary to increase food intake in order for the larvae to develop into females. The nematodes then remain at the larvae stage or as males and then die out as they draw to the end of their lifespan. Beans are highly susceptible to nematode infestations. 

SOIL TYPES

 Healthy soil is needed to grow healthy vegetables. To make your soil healthy you first need to know what type of soil you are working with. 

•   Loamy soil is healthy soil. It consists of a mix of clay particles and sand particles. It is also full of organic matter and micro-organisms, which are little creatures that keep soil healthy. Micro-organisms and earthworms assist in breaking down and mixing in organic matter, thereby releasing nutrients for the plants and keeping pest infections to a minimum. Loamy soil allows air to circulate and it holds water well. 
• Clay soil is very sticky and holds water for long periods. If roots remain waterlogged for an extended period the plant can die.  
•   Sandy soil does not hold water well. Water filters through too quickly for plants to absorb a sufficient amount. Clay and sandy soil are not unhealthy soils. Most vegetables and plants grow better in loamy soil. 5