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How to Design a Specialty Vegetable Garden

Contributor
By eHow Contributing Writer
(11 Ratings)

Grow what you can't buy, and cultivate your taste buds with specialty vegetables from the garden. Design a vegetable patch for your own heirlooms, local favorites, ethnic cuisine ingredients and perennials such as artichokes and horseradish.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Instructions

Things You'll Need:

  1. Step 1

    List the plants you want to grow, and learn about them. Investigate their needs and compare these to your growing conditions, then set realistic goals.

  2. Step 2

    Pick a sunny site with ready access to water for your specialty vegetable garden. Be sure the soil can be amended to drain well, or plan to build a raised bed.

  3. Step 3

    Measure the space available and draw it on graph paper. Lots of room? Make it 6 feet square with a 1-foot path down the middle to create two planting beds each 6 feet long and 2 1/2 feet wide.

  4. Step 4

    Draw those two beds and their path to sketch a total growing space 12 feet by 2 1/2 feet - room for five staples of Caribbean cuisine and your uncle's heirloom beans plus a few artichokes. Design for just one favorite or make your own combinations.

  5. Step 5

    Estimate the number of plants you can fit in based on their mature size. Then design for the longest harvest possible - draw in early varieties interplanted with later ones.

  6. Step 6

    Design trellises into the garden to maximize space for snow peas. Add permanent hoops to support floating row covers, shade cloth or plastic-film season extenders.

  7. Step 7

    Modify a popular design: Chinese specialty vegetables plus perennial favorites horseradish and asparagus. Double dig the northeast corner of the garden for the longer-lived perennials.

  8. Step 8

    Cultivate delicate local favorites that are grown for unparalleled flavor but are impossible to ship.

  9. Step 9

    Design a space in your garden to leave room for the unexpected package of pass-along peas.

Tips & Warnings
  • Share your surplus with friends, or sell it for profit at ethnic restaurants.
  • Ask about seed and plant sources where you shop for specialty vegetables - a local grower may share starts of locally adapted varieties.

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