How To Start Your Vegetable Garden

I want a vegetable garden with my favorite vegetables on it and I admire people who can do it. It was always like that, dreaming to have a bigger land so I can have my own garden.. and I thought it can only happen in my dreams (or if I choose to live in the province). I was too afraid to start my vegetable garden but when a fellow blogger showed her harvest from her garden, I was encouraged to start my own.

I started with nothing but small cups, soil less mixture and some seeds (egg plant, okra, sili and Chinese kangkong). My mom helped me since she’s the one who got the greener thumb (so green that even she just throw a seed and not plant, it will grow). She told me to soak the seeds overnight before planting it. We filled the cups (8 oz plastic cups that was used from our recent letson party) with soil, about half and then put the seeds on it. After 2 weeks, I re-potted the seedlings (with the help of my kids) and planted new ones (tomatoes, sigarilyas, okra, talong and Chinese Kangkong again)- that was March 3.

One month after, I re-potted the seedlings from March 3 gardening. I’m happy that the sigarilyas seedlings are getting bigger everyday..As I have mentioned before, sigarilyas is one of my favorite vegetable and I grew up seeing it on my grandmother’s house.. having a sigarilyas here will always remind me of my happy childhood with my grandmother.

Last March 24, we had our first taste of our veggies! Chinese Kangkon in Garlic and soy sauce.. and I can’t wait for the time that we’ll be having Pakbet right from our garden..

You want to start gardening too? Here’s some of the things I learned when starting a vegetable garden:

• Seeds can be bought on Hardwares (ung sosi ha.. ung nasa mall.. like ACE, DIY etc) or at National Bookstore (yup they have some seeds there, I bought my okra, sili and talong seeds there)
• You don’t need to buy pots, you can use small cups (or emptied ice cream pints or emptied Coke plastic bottle..) as your pot.. and when they grow bigger, you can use/ recycle big water containers (Absolute or Wilkins, it will work the same)
• If soil is the problem, you can SOIL LESS.. mixture of organic materials that’s made suitable for plants.. there are different types of Soil less mixture so make sure you got the one for veggies. I use Enrico Soil-less mixture (around 75 PhP per bag)
• I found that the best time to repot your seedlings is a month after you plant them.. and oh plant them 4-6 seeds per cup/pot so that it wouldn’t be crowded (like what we first did and what we did to our tomatoes).
• After planting the seeds, you only need to water it 2-3 times, when it starts to sprout and have leaves water it 4-5 times a week. You don’t need to water it everyday not unless it is super hot and the soil dries up easily.
• Buy simple gardening tools such as shovel. You don’t need to buy big tools and super sturdy kind, you can settle for smaller and cheaper ones.
• Talk to your plants and treat them well.

You know what’s the best thing about gardening? it keeps me moving.. specially when I need to re-pot them.. watering them is an activity too.. it’s also a great way to create fun memories with my kids (re potting and watering).. and I got to enjoy the plants even though they’re not bearing fruits yet. It’s very relaxing to see how much greenery our little space can have.

Next month, I need to start making balag/ trellis for our sigarilyas or else it will start to climb on our gate.