5 things you should consider about planting vegetables in your garden

Home gardens have become a viable alternative to growing at home, in these small spaces dedicated to agricultural activity, any type of plant can be planted, but generally at least in our geographical area vegetables are planted, firstly because they are plants that do not have a large size and because they are the most used when preparing meals at home. Without a doubt, there is nothing better than growing our own food since, we know that they are items of excellent quality, managed rationally without the excess of agrochemicals and it allows us to save money, since, in the market, vegetables can be a little expensive.

Before sharing the aspects that we consider important to be able to establish vegetables, it would be important for you to know that usually when we talk about horticulture comes to mind is the production of vegetables only, but in reality when we talk about horticulture it covers several branches such as fruit growing, floriculture and olericulture. From the aforementioned branches the olericulture is the one that is responsible for the study of vegetables, the word comes according to what was reported by Valadez (1998), from the Latin Oleus which means “plants to be cooked” and culture which means “cultivation” . Of course, vegetables can also be consumed fresh, but we cook them to prepare meals.

- Soil or substrate: we must take into account that an orchard can be established in our homes either directly on the ground or on a substrate when building flowerbeds, in either of the two ways we have to consider that the soil or the substrate is loose, so that there is adequate aeration and therefore, the radical system develops efficiently. When substrates are made, a part of them may be composed of organic material, some use decomposed bovine manure, compost, ash, vermicompost among other materials that guarantee the retention of moisture and the progressive contribution of nutrients from organic matter.

- Availability of water: we all know that water is essential for the growth of plants, of course to hydrate them and because it is also the means by which the roots transfer the nutrients found in the soil, the watering of vegetables can be light in the morning or in the evening so that it can be taken advantage of and must also avoid aguachinamiento that can cause some suffocation or anoxia of the radical system.

- pH: the pH is one of the chemical characteristics of great importance that soils have, the ideal will always be to have neutral pH levels since, it is the ideal parameter for microorganisms to develop efficiently and that they decompose the organic matter that will guarantee the fertility of the soil, there are some crops that do not tolerate acidic pH therefore amendments such as agricultural lime can be applied to decrease the acidity.

- Fertilizers: if you are working at home the planting surfaces are not very large therefore, to buy inorganic fertilizers that can become toxic you better make compost with the waste from the kitchen in a practical and easy way in plastic containers, we can talk about that in future publications, you can also make a compost lombri with Californian red worms that decompose the waste material produced at home and get a liquid and solid fertilizer, in our house we have one and it is very effective, of course you should devote a little time to it during the week.

- Climate adaptation: we have always talked about this when we touch on topics such as foraging, but in the planting of vegetables it is also important, since there are species that do not adapt to certain climatic conditions, in countries where the seasons of the year are well marked (spring, summer, autumn and winter) there are cultivars that adapt to different seasons.

Dear readers, olericulture is the most performed activity by all of us who have gardens at home, in the garden we have at home we sow vegetables that adapt to tropical climatic conditions with high humidity, we usually sow tomato, paprika and chili peppers, because they are medium-sized erect-growing plants and are widely used in our kitchen, we have also sown chives under more controlled conditions, as for garlic, carrots and others they adapt to more temperate conditions. If they investigate well the climatic conditions they have in their geographical area and the crops that adapt to those conditions will have successful plantings.