With many of us stuck at home, it’s easy to feel the pull from your yard or apartment balcony. Maybe the produce aisle has been out of tomatoes one time too many. Maybe it’s pure boredom. But the fact is: People are gardening — and many for the first time.
Growing vegetable gardens takes a lot of work, but don’t put too much pressure on yourself for making mistakes, or having a rough time getting started. Barb Neal, a horticulturalist at the Cornell Cooperative Extension in New York, says even she and her partner, who is also a horticulturalist, don’t always manage perfect garden protocol. They didn’t get around to cleaning up their home garden and pulling weeds before the first snowfall last year, for example. “And, boy, did we pay for it,” she says, with lots of weeding and fertilizer additions this spring.
Even the pros make mistakes sometimes. “We know what we’re supposed to do,” Neal says, “and then sometimes we don’t do it.” So if you don’t have a tried-and-true green thumb, that shouldn't stop you from giving home gardening a shot. Here are some steps you can take to make it a success — and the science explaining how it all works.
