	Reported by: Julie Vandeventer, April 20, 1998
	Perennials on Parade ... page 1
	Annuals Accelerate Your Garden ... page 2
	Getting the Most from Your Garden ... this page

Getting the Most from Your Garden

Planning Your Garden

Gardeners have to work hard to stay ahead of dandelions.

Sketching a garden plan on paper can help you avoid mistakes in planting. After the garden has been planted, the plan will also remind you of what has been planted where. In addition, if you save the dated plans from year to year, they can help you arrange future gardens.

In making your sketch, be sure that all the plants will have enough space around them. Different kinds of plants need different amounts of room to grow well. Plan to grow most kinds of vegetables in straight rows, which are easy to plant and care for. But to make a flower garden look attractively informal, plan to group flowers of the same species in irregularly shaped clusters. If the garden will be backed by a fence, hedge, or wall, plant tall flowers at the back of the bed, medium- sized flowers in the center of the bed, and short flowers in the front of the bed.

To save space in a vegetable garden, you can plan to grow certain spreading vine plants, such as some varieties of tomatoes, on stakes or other supports. You can also make the best use of your garden space by using a planting method called successive planting. As soon as you harvest one crop of vegetables, you plant another crop in the same place, providing it will mature by the end of the growing season. Early onions, cabbages, and peas, for example, can be harvested in early summer. They can be followed by plantings of such summer and fall vegetables as beans, eggplants, and peppers. Your sketch for a vegetable garden should provide for successive planting.

Analyzing the soil

Thistles can be a nuisance if left to grow too long. They can thrive in almost any soil.

If your garden soil looks and feels either heavy and clayey or light and sandy, the texture needs to be improved. Plan to add to the soil some kind of organic matter (decayed plant or animal material). The organic matter will loosen heavy, clayey soil so that air can reach the plant roots. It will make light, sandy soil better able to hold moisture. Many gardeners use a kind of moss called peat moss to improve soil texture.

Most garden plants grow best in soil that is slightly acid or neutral--that is, neither acid nor its opposite, alkaline. A gardening expert can tell you how acid the soil in your area probably is. But if you want exact information on your soil's acidity, you can buy a soil-testing kit. Many American gardeners take a sample of their soil and send it to their county agricultural extension agent or state agricultural college for testing. If your soil is too acid for the kinds of plants you want to grow, plan to add lime to it. If the soil is too alkaline, plan to add sulfur..

On page 1:

Perennials on Parade

On page 2:

Annuals Accelerate Your Garden