Reasons Your Vegetable Garden Underperforms Every Year

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Are you struggling to get your vegetable garden to look good all year round? Does it look amazing in April, only to die by July? This is a common problem many people have, and the reality is that the failure was already in place before planting started.

What exactly are the reasons your vegetable garden fails every year?

Not Knowing What Beds Get Full Sun

Most vegetables need six to eight hours of sunlight per day. This means you need to know what beds get what amounts of sun each day. Tomatoes, peppers, squash, and corn, for example, need closer to eight hours, while leafy greens and root vegetables can get away with closer to six hours.

Planting without mapping where full sun actually falls across your beds means you’re probably leaving crops living in partial shade and producing far less than they should.

Before you plant anything, track your garden through a full day in early spring and note where direct sunlight falls at 9 am, noon, and 3 p.m. Then allocate beds based on this.

Sowing Too Much of One Thing

The truth is, six zucchini plants will produce way more than the average household will ever need. And they’ll crowd out everything around them by midsummer. This is a common over-sowing issue.

The same issue can happen with indeterminate tomatoes that weren’t staked to account for the actual mature size of the tomato plant, or planting climbing beans in front of lower-growing crops.

You need to map out the full-grown dimension of every crop before it goes into the ground, not the seedling size, the mature size, or before you end up sowing too much.

Putting Crops Together That Compete for the Same Nutrients

Heavy feeders planted side by side aren’t going to give you the results you think you’ll get or that you want. Brassicas next to corn, for example, as these both draw hard on nitrogen. And when they’re together, they don’t perform as well as they would surrounded by less competition.

Legumes, however, fix nitrogen in the soil and benefit brassicas, while basil planted near tomatoes repels aphids. Getting this right means that not only do you need to plan properly, but you also need to know your crops so you can plant them accordingly. Using a free garden planner can help you plan your space accordingly so everything gets the space and nutrients it needs.

Ignoring Crop Rotation

Growing the same family of crops in the same bed year after year allows soil-borne diseases and pests specific to that family to build up to levels that significantly reduce yield.

This could mean you end up with clubroot in brassica beds, potato blight spores, or even onion white rot. And these will persist in the soil and worsen with each planting.

A basic four-bed rotation cycling brassicas, roots, alliums, and legumes annually prevents this. But it does require you knowing which family each crop belongs to and planning where each one goes the following year. This means using a planner so it’s easier to track and observe results and avoid making the same planting mistakes year on year.

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A garden doesn’t need to have a full makeover for it to feel different; most of the time it just needs a few little changes. It might be making a few small adjustments that improve how the space looks, feels, and works day-to-day. There’s no need to start from scratch, either; you just need to work with what’s already there and shape it in a better way. Here’s how you can do that without making it over-complicated.

Photo by Shaun Montero on Unsplash

Start by Resetting the Space

Before you add anything new, you need to clear the space back. Look at what’s there right now: old furniture, overgrown plants, and unused features. These things tend to build up over time and can make your garden feel more difficult to manage. Remove anything that doesn’t serve a clear purpose. This gives you a clean starting point, and it also helps you to see the space properly again. Once everything is cleared back, it’s easy to decide what actually belongs there.

Let Light Back In

One of the biggest reasons a garden feels closed off is because of a lack of light. Trees and large plants can slowly block sunlight without you even noticing it. Over time, this changes how the entire space feels. Bringing in this company to handle tree work can make a noticeable difference. Cutting back overgrowth opens up the space, improves light, and makes everything feel more usable. There’s no need to get rid of absolutely everything; just focus on the areas where the light is most blocked. Even a small increase in light can completely change how often you use your garden.

Simplify the Layout

A busy layout can make a large garden feel small. If you’ve got too many features, too many sections, or too many materials being used, it can break up a space in a way that makes it feel cluttered rather than put together. Instead, you should be looking to build a layout that feels open and easy to move through. Create one or two areas rather than several small ones.

Focus on One Strong Feature

You don’t need to have lots of focal points in your garden; in fact, if you have too many of them, your garden is just going to feel scattered and messy. Choose one feature that stands out; this might be a seating area, a tree, or a section of planting. Build around that. If you’re not sure where to start, this guide on transforming your garden offers you some ideas on creating a clear focal point. Feeling like you are overloading the space? Keeping your focus narrow makes the garden feel more intentional.

Conclusion

You don’t need a full redesign to improve your garden. By clearing back what’s unnecessary, improving light, and simplifying the layout, you can change how the space feels in a really short amount of time. Focus on what you actually use, keep things nice and manageable, and avoid adding more than you need. That’s what’s going to turn a garden into a space that you can enjoy being in.

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Photo by OPPO Find X5 Pro on Unsplash

How to Keep Your Garden Projects

Clean and Under Control

Garden projects always start with good intentions. You plan to tidy things up, maybe build something new, or clear out overgrown areas, and then the waste starts to pile up really quickly. You have branches, soil, broken, and old fencing; it all adds up faster than you actually think. If you don’t stay on top of it, your garden can quickly feel harder to manage than when you actually started. Here’s how to make sure you keep things under control so you can actually enjoy the process.

Start With a Clear Plan

Before you pick up any tools, take a minute to think about what you’re doing. Are you cutting back hedges, removing old plants, or digging out a section for something new? Each job creates a different type of waste. Green waste, like leaves or branches, is one thing; heavy materials like soil, stones, or wood are another. When you know what’s coming, you can easily prepare for it. You won’t end up with piles scattered across your garden and no clear way to deal with them. Set a simple plan for where the waste is going to go as you work.

Create a Dedicated Waste Area

One of the easiest ways to stay organized is to make sure that you keep all of your waste in one dedicated area. Pick a spot that’s easy to access, but that doesn’t get in your way. This keeps your garden looking tidy, and while you’re in the middle of doing a project, it also helps to save you time. You’re not walking back and forth trying to figure out where to drop things. And don’t let the pile grow out of control. Once waste starts to spread, it can slow everything down and make every single job bigger than it is.

Use the Right Removal Option

Small garden jobs might only need a few bags, but larger projects need something far more reliable than that. Clearing a full garden, removing decking, or cutting down trees creates a lot of waste, more waste than what most people actually expect. This is where having a proper solution helps. Using Lupo dumpster rentals gives you one place to put everything as you go. There’s no need for you to worry about making multiple trips to get rid of rubbish or overflowing bins. Everything stays contained, and you can focus on actually doing the project itself. That makes a notable difference, especially when you’re working on the bigger projects.

Keep Things Safe as You Work

Garden work can get very messy, but it shouldn’t be something that is considered unsafe. Loose branches, sharp tools, and even piles of waste can quickly become hazards when you’re working in the garden. It only takes one mishap to turn a simple task into a problem. Make sure you make it a habit to clear your space as you go.

Conclusion

Garden projects don’t need to turn into a mess when you plan ahead, manage waste properly, and stay consistent. Everything becomes much easier for you to handle, you move faster, work more safely, and enjoy the result more. When you step back at the end, you’ll see a clean finished space instead of a job that dragged on longer than it should have.

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1. What zone are we in (and why is it important to know)?

The United States Department of Agriculture thrives on keeping records. They published the first recommended growing zone map back in 1960. This map comes in handy when you’re choosing what to plant.  Some plants will not survive in extreme cold temperatures or in high temperatures.  We are in Zones 8a through 10a. This means our average temperature ranges from 64-78 in north Louisiana. Not counting last summer. Climate and weather play a crucial role in determining the success of a garden. Temperature, for instance, is a critical factor that affects plant growth, especially for plants grown in a garden, such as vegetables and fruits. The ideal temperature range for planting varies depending on the plant species, and planting outside of the optimal temperature range can lead to stunted growth or even death. Precipitation and sunlight are other essential weather factors that affect plant growth. Knowing your regional climate and hardiness zone can help align the growing season, timing and amount of rainfall, and temperature ranges to ensure optimal plant growth and yield. Planting calendars are designed to calculate the best time to start seeds and plant a garden based on the first and last frost dates.  By researching and understanding the ideal planting season for your area, you can maximize your garden’s potential.

2. Dirt isn’t just dirt.

You can’t just dig a hole, plop a plant in, and hope for the best. At least give it a fighting chance. Sometimes, most of the time, you will have to optimize your garden soil. Knowing the soil type and nutrients required to grow a healthy plant is essential for a successful garden. Soil testing provides valuable information about the physical and chemical properties of the soil, including nutrient content, pH levels, and water retention. Understanding the nutrient requirements of plants and the optimal pH levels for growth is crucial in selecting the right fertilizers and soil amendments. Even with healthy soil, it pays to add compost.

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Do a spring inspection:

Now is the time to see what damage has  been done by the brutal cold we had in  December. While most of the plants  should be budding out, some may not  have made it through the freeze. If that  is the case, go ahead and pull those dead  plants out now. 

Inspect your hardscape – walls, fences,  sheds, gutters. Have any shifted, bowed  or rotted? Now is the time to repair any  damage before working on the beds. 

This is a good time to plan and build new  raised gardens, widen existing ones, and  tidy up your beds’ edging.  

Test your garden soil: Experts recommend testing your garden  soil every year. You may learn your soil  is very high in phosphorous, so you  would want to avoid adding fertilizers  with phosphorous. You may find out  your soil is too alkaline, but want to  grow acid-loving shrubs like azaleas and  hydrangeas which would mean adding  aluminum sulfate to your soil.  

Detailed instructions on how to collect  and submit a soil sample, along with soil  recommendations, is available at the  LSU AgCenter office (318.408.0984 or  www.nwlamg.weebly.com).

Feed your soil: 

Once you know what your garden  soil needs based on the test results,  implement those changes for the best  possible growing season. It is also good  practice to top-dress the soil with  an inch or two of compost or a good  manure in early spring.  

March is a good time to fertilize  most shrubs and trees. Although, you  want to wait to fertilize any spring  flowering shrubs until the flowers  have started to fade. Non-flowering  shrubs can be fertilized now. Most  ornamental shrubs and trees like a  slow-release, well-balanced ‘shrub  and tree’ type fertilizer. If you are  unsure what to use, ask your local  nursery professional or extension  agent.  

If you didn’t feed your roses in  February, March is also a good time to  feed roses. 

Fertilize established perennials after  new growth appears with a good  flower fertilizer or organic plant food. 

It’s time to prepare the veggie garden  for spring planting. You will need to  work into the soil a half inch layer  of composted organic matter such  as composted manures to feed your  freshly planted vegetables.

Do some pruning 

Our growing area is Zone 8b which  means most pruning should be  completed by now. 

Perennials should have any old, dead  growth removed as soon as possible.  

Prune your roses immediately if you  have not already done so. Pruning this  late will not hurt your rose bushes but  may delay blooming.  

If you haven’t already done so, prune   your crape myrtles, but only if they are still   dormant and have yet to leaf out. 

Groundcovers and ornamental grasses can be cut back now. This includes mondo grass, liriope (monkey grass), and pampas grass. 

Now is also the time to prune back  any plants damaged by the winter  storm. Woody plants such as azaleas,  camellias, and Ligustrum took a hit.  These plants, although normally  evergreen, likely lost most of their  leaves. The brown leaves have fallen  off by now, and most of the woody  stems are green and very much alive.  You may have cane dieback, which   will need to be pruned. To find out  how much dieback your plant has, use  a sharp blade (or your fingernail) to  lightly skin the bark to reveal the wood  underneath. Start at a branch top and  observe the color under the skinned  area. Damaged wood will be brown.  Work your way down until the skinned  area becomes green. This indicates  healthy tissue. Prune off the tissue  above the green area.

Shrubs 

Shrubs can be planted now. 

Vegetables 

For your vegetable garden, continue direct sowing  seeds of lettuce, garden greens, beans, squash,  melons, and okra. Seedlings of tomatoes, peppers,  and eggplants should be in the garden now. Be  prepared to provide frost protection if a cold snap  threatens. 

Fruits 

Now is a great time to plant strawberries,  blueberries, blackberries, pomegranate, and other  fruit trees. 

Perennials 

These flowering or foliage plants return year after  year once planted. There are many varieties that  do well here and bloom in the spring, while others  bloom in the summer, fall or even winter. Some  favorite perennials to plant now include peony,  garden phlox, Lenten Rose, daylily, yarrow, Shasta  daisy, and salvia. Not only do these grow well in our  area, but they also multiply and can be divided and  moved to another bed or shared with a friend. 

Taking the time to complete a few essential spring  garden tasks will bring you benefits for the rest of  the season. Plus, it just feels amazing to get back  outside and into the garden!

The post Spring Gardening Tips appeared first on SB Magazine.

Turaeza Lopez 

The Baker’s Path 

BY SCOTT ANDERSON

Baking is many things to Turaeza Lopez. Baking is a science. “Baking takes components to make it arise to what it’s supposed to be. If it lacks one of those components, it won’t be the product you wanted. But it’s a fun science, and it’s not complex.”

Baking is art. “I like to compare it to being a painter,” she said. “I am not a painter. But they can visualize something, and they can paint it. I can paint a taste in a product without knowing if it’s going to taste good or not. It’s kind of like when you paint a picture. You just know.”

“Baking is a lot different than cooking,” she said. “I am a great chef, but my passion is in baking.”

Lopez fondly recalls baking oatmeal cookies as a girl growing up in California. But she wasn’t so sure the kitchen was where she wanted to be when she chose the United States Air Force as part of her life’s path.

“When I joined the military and I found out I was going to be a chef, I put my head down on the desk and I cried,” she said. “I didn’t join the military to work at Denny’s. In the end, God showed me where I was supposed to be.” She served more than 20 years in the military.

While overseas, Lopez discovered another pursuit outside the kitchen. “I was stationed in Germany and was going through a personal trauma,” she said. “I wanted something to focus on. One of my old friends was in the fitness industry. She had started competing. She said, ‘Tess, you should really do this.’ So Tess began to compete. It was during that part of her journey she learned something more about herself.

“I like goals. If I want something, I want it. But at the end of it, once I accomplish it, I don’t carry on with it. If I put a goal out there, the goal was the great thing about it for me.” She stopped competing, but she discovered a new passion — creating a cupcake that was balanced for carbs, fats and proteins but still tasted like a cupcake.

“I was literally at the gym pushing cupcakes in people’s faces and saying, ‘Try this. Does this taste like a cupcake?’ I was trying to create something that tasted like the traditional thing,” she said. But when that path proved rocky, a revelation led her to a new fork in her road.

“In trying to sell to the body-building community, even though I knew and trusted my product, I wasn’t able to sell the trust,” she said. “I sat there and said, ‘Why am I selling to less than 1 percent of this nation when I should be selling to the 99.9 percent of this nation that just wants to have a healthy dessert that tastes like the real thing?’” She launched Prep Cakes to serve those who were struggling to meet their health and weight-loss goals.

“People rely a lot on diets,” Lopez said. “I can support that. Some people need that strict thing to follow. The problem is it’s not a lifestyle. Prep Cakes is a lifestyle. It allows you to have your cake and eat it too. You can pick and choose.”

The concept took off. So much so that many of the people who enjoyed her healthy take on traditional sweet treats encouraged her to take another big step in 2018. “I had a lot of customers who said I should audition for ‘Shark Tank,’ she said. “Because my customers wanted me to, I did.” She traveled to Dallas for the audition. It was a long, arduous nine-hour day, she recalled. About 48 hours later, she came upon another fork in her road when she got an email saying she had been accepted to go on the show. “I thought and prayed about it, and I knew in my heart the time wasn’t right,” she said. “That wasn’t where I was supposed to be. So, I declined the offer.”

She knew she had more to learn. “People jump into business without understanding business,” she said. “Because you have a great idea and concept, or even a skill, doesn’t mean you know you can run a business. God will put you in positions to lead, to understand the financials, to build your team.” One of those positions Lopez was put in was director of the incubator kitchen at Cohab in downtown Shreveport. She also launched the MS Kick kitchen with Southern University. She spent about three years with those two projects, helping others launch their food businesses.

“The time in Cohab definitely helped,” she said. “Going in there and turning that back into an incubator kitchen.” That’s also when she met Jim Malsch, who became a mentor to her in her business. “Usually when you meet people who are coming with a business idea, you can tell pretty quick if they’ve got it or not,” Malsch said. “Tess definitely had the attitude and passion. She has incredible drive. She just needed a little guidance and the confidence.”

In both cases she knew it was time for her path to veer again. “I had to leave Cohab because at that point I was consuming space when I was beyond it. That wasn’t fair for new entrepreneurs. I left MS Kick because I realized I was focusing on so many other people’s businesses and not my own. I felt in my heart that God kept my business afloat even though I wasn’t in it. When I came back, it flourished. That was a sign to me. I put my heart and soul into my business, and it’s been great.”

While the business has flourished, Lopez refuses to rest on her laurels. She is putting her marketing background to work on rebranding her “guiltless desserts.” “I don’t like the word ‘guiltless.’ Just because you have diabetes doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you,” she said. “Guiltless is a negative. I don’t like that. It’s ‘food that fits your lifestyle.’

“Ultimately, I want to be a household name for ‘you can have your cake and eat it too.’ It doesn’t have to be bad. I have wholesalers ask, ‘Do you make guilty cakes?’ Why do I need to? If my stuff tastes like the real thing, why do you need the sugar in it. It’s a rewiring of the brain that desserts don’t have to be a bad thing.”

When Lopez retired from the military at Barksdale Air Force base, she didn’t just make Shreveport and Bossier City her customer base. She made it her home, where she has raised her two children. “I am a realist,” she said. “Money comes and money goes. I don’t worry about that stuff. My greatest success is my children—them finding their success would be my greatest success.”

She is also a proud Shreveport resident who actively campaigns against things like blight in the Highland neighborhood. “I believe in this community,” she said. “I am not going to sit by and watch our community in turmoil.”

Lopez has found community, even among the city’s bakeries, and she knows she isn’t walking this journey alone. “Our bakery community is family-centric,” Lopez said. “There is no competing. I love that. I can go to Lilah’s, and they give me boxes. The Lowders brought me flowers when I opened. Julie Anne’s recommends people to my bakery when they have an allergy. That’s how close we all are.”

Scott Anderson is a freelance writer with more than 20 years’ experience in journalism. He enjoys discovering and sharing people’s stories.

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RULES TO GROW BY ! 

BY MARK WILSON

Springtime brings about the start of a new year in the plant world, with plants coming out of dormancy and budding out. The question always is “When is spring really here?”

There are many ways to say when the spring season has started, from Punxsutawney Phil seeing or not seeing his shadow, to the Spring Equinox, to the Farmer’s Almanac, or when the pecan trees break their dormancy. All could be used, but for north Louisiana we can safely assume April 15th or Tax Day. By then, it is safe to say that the chances of a freeze are low enough to start planting and fertilizing.

This brings us to three rules to keep in mind when getting your garden ready:

RULE ONE

Gardening comes back to three things: Fertility, Light, and Water.

So where to start? The most logical answer is to start from the ground up, in this case with the soil.

RULE TWO

Never guess, get a soil test.

To grow the best plants possible, a soil test should be run. Soil sample kits can be picked up at the Master Gardener office at the Red River Research Station at 262 Research Station Road in Bossier or at many of the local plant nurseries. These boxes have step-bystep instructions on how to take and submit samples for analysis. Results will be sent back with a tailor-made work up of what the sampled areas need to grow the best plants possible. Most of the landscape plants and vegetables are looking for a fertile soil with a pH of 5.5-6.5. If soil pH changes need to be made, the soil test results will state how much sulfur (to lower pH) or lime (to raise pH) needs to be added to get the desired pH.

Once the pH is at the optimum level, the soil’s fertility comes next. While plants may make their own food, they get their water and nutrients from the soil. The soil sample results will tell what is needed and in what amounts. Sometimes a simple balanced fertilizer is needed such as an 8-8-8 or 13-13-13. More often than not, soils will not need all three macro-nutrients: Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium (N-P-K ). So fertilizers such as Urea (40-0-0), Triple superphosphate (0-46-0) or Potash (0-0-60) will be called for. These fertilizers will allow for the application of what is needed without adding what is not needed. If done in containers, a sample slow-release balanced fertilizer is ideal.

Now that fertility needs have been determined, it’s time to place it out for the plants to use. For lawns, April 15th is a great day to fertilize. This is late enough that the grass should be fully out of dormancy and actively growing.

An important fact is that a healthy lawn has less weeds. If a lawn is healthy and mowed at the correct height, there will be less weeds. Follow these guidelines for the best mowing heights:

¾” to 1.5” for Bermuda grass; 1” to 2” for Zoysia grass; 1” to 2” for Centipede grass; and 2” to 3” for St. Augustine grass. For more information on the best way to fertilize and take care of lawns, see “Louisiana Lawns Best Management Practices” Pub. 2940 at lsuagcenter.com.

RULE THREE

Right plant, right place, right time.

For those who are more interested in the landscape rather than the lawn, this is the time to look at what plant materials are still alive and coming back and what needs to be replaced.

Season selections should be made based on what will grow this season and what is growing now. Avoid planting full grown plants that will not make it much further into the season.

Choosing plants with similar needs, such as water requirements or light requirements, will make things easier overall. A way to remember this is plant ‘Like with Like.’ Plants should also be planted to avoid “instant” landscape caused by planting too many plants in a small area. Instead, space plants based on mature height and spread.

For more information on planting annual or perineal color see “Bedding Plants for Louisiana Landscapes” Pub. 2747 at lsuagcenter.com or call the Ag Center office at 318.408.0984.

Mark Wilson is the Master Gardener Coordinator for Northwest Louisiana.

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