4 steps to a bountiful garden.

Every spring when it comes time to plant the garden, I wonder whether I'm doing it right. Are there enough nutrients in the soil? Am I allowing adequate space between the rows? How deep should I plant the seeds? What can I do to prevent weeds from taking over? Despite my questions, I proceed with planting--only to find out later what I did wrong and what I did right. Learning by doing is how I realized that planting a garden can be as simple as the following four steps.

First of all, the garden's soil needs to be prepared. I do this partly during the winter months by gathering produce scraps from the kitchen, old weeds, leaves, and straw, layering them inside a bin in the basement. There the mixture decomposes over the course of six to eight weeks. I make numerous batches of this rich soil which I cultivate into the garden in May, using a roto-tiller. This motorized hoe loosens the soil and spreads the nutrients from the batches of compost to all areas of the garden.

After I finish tilling the garden, I locate the needed materials including row markers, a spade, seeds, a hose and sprinkler, and mulch. Then I begin laying out the garden by poking sticks into the earth to mark the ends of the rows. This makes it easy to picture where all the plants will be positioned. If an area seems too crowded, I simply adjust the layout by increasing the width between the rows.

Once the arrangement looks suitable, it is time to plant. Using the spade, I dig long trenches where the rows will be; the depth depends on what will be planted in each row. For potatoes, the trenches are about six inches deep, but for seeds they only need to be three inches deep. * Then I place pea, bean, carrot, corn, broccoli, radish, or lettuce seeds in each of the trenches and cover them with dirt.

After I finish, planting, I turn the sprinkler on and let it water the garden; this helps the plants sprout quickly so I can do the final step--mulching. By spreading grass clippings, straw, or leaves between the rows, I can keep the ground moist and prevent weeds from growing. In addition, I lay straw down on the main walkway and around the edges of the garden to prevent grass from invading. Then I wait, checking on the garden a few times per week to water it, pull out the occasional weed, spread fertilizer, and pick the ripe vegetables.

Throughout the summer and into the fall, it is easy to tell if I planted the garden correctly. Sometimes I positioned the rows too close together, causing the plants to tangle up. Other times I don't put down enough mulch, resulting in dried up roots and stems. But I've found that if I stick closely to the basic process described above, my garden will produce an abundant harvest and greatly reward me for my toil and time.

Author's note: This explanation of how to plant a garden was written as a process analysis essay for my college English class. Thus the steps needed to be very basic and easy to follow. While the average COUNTRYSIDER already knows how to plant a garden, I thought this article might be helpful to new homesteaders as well as younger readers. After all, my four-step process produces results, as evidenced by the abundant harvest we gathered last year.

* Ed. note: Actually these seeds should be planted at different depths. Three inches is pretty deep for lettuce and radishes, for example.

SETH WILLARD

MINNESOTA

WWW.SETHWILLARD.COM