How to Start and Maintain A Backyard Vegetable Garden

With the population rising by the day and arable land getting more scarce and unavailable, food is also becoming a rare commodity. With this reality in mind, new methods of having more food on the table are being devised, introduced and implemented to cover the deficit.
The most common and talked about food security methods being advocated for and in fact practiced in some countries are genetically modified foods, green house farming and irrigation. These three are proving to be the answer to the current food shortage.

Well, what most of us do not know is that we have a very nice resource that could help feed us and our neighbors as well. The “backyard garden. It could be your own home or a rental home. The reality is that most of these homes have a backyard space that most of us just over look not knowing that it has a great potential to yield some food.
I have managed to turn my backyard garden into a vegetable farm and I will tell you how I managed to do this. There are two methods that I have used to get maximum gain from the small space I have.
Vegetables are a sure source of vitamins and only take one month to three months to mature. We have Kale, Cabbage, Spinach and broccoli just to name but a few. These four types of vegetables are what I do farm in my small garden.
On one end, is a seed bed that I put seeds first so that they germinate and give me seedlings that I will plant in my garden. The seed bed has to be prepared well and has to be tilled to perfection to allow the seeds germinate with ease. I usually use organic fertilizer or animal manure as these decompose fast, plus adds minerals to the soil and is not too acidic. Of course you have to get your soil PH so as to know what fertilizer to use.
The seeds take about two weeks to germinate and shoot from the ground.  Once this occurs they are ready by this time to be transferred to the main garden. I usually water them early in the morning and late in the evening when experiencing very hot and sunny conditions, I usually cover them with a layer of hay to avoid water loss. The good thing with a backyard garden is that you do not need so much water to keep it green. The next step is to transfer the seedlings to the garden. This is where I have devised a method to further save on space for all the four types of vegetables. With Kale and spinach which grow as stems, I use sacks that are filled with soil that has been mixed with either manure or organic fertilizer and make holes on the sides and plant the two types.
With a 200lbs bag I can comfortably plant 15 seedlings and watering this is so easy as you just pour water on the top and it is absorbed downwards. With about 6 sacks I have managed to plant almost 100 seedlings and after one month I will start to get some harvest both for my family and make some money selling to my neighbors.
With cabbages and broccoli which grow within the ground, the balance of the space is for these. I will transfer the seedlings into the main garden and repeat the same process as for spinach and kale of fertilizer application. These take some space and watering them is a bit tedious but it is worthwhile. At the end of the day, I could harvest a combined total of about 100 pieces on these two.
The other difference is that the latter takes three months to mature. One more thing is that I have to keep weeding the garden and observing for insects and diseases. I have realized though that since a back yard garden is like a controlled area, it is less likely for your plants to be attacked by the two.

With this outcome, I will keep having my back yard garden as a vegetable garden for ages to come. Make yours a source of some food and some income as well.

Here is a video of another person’s backyard garden that you may enjoy.