Veggie Garden: For my Latino food recipes

Pick some seeds for vegetables that you know you use in your kitchen regularly.

I chose Cilantro, Lechuga, Tomates, Cebolla Larga, Cucumbers, Corn and several others but for a starter garden I recommend you concentrate on 3 to 4 kinds of crops.


Step 1
Setting up your garden’s home is the most important part of the process. Make sure to find an area in you backyard that is level and gets sunlight most of the day. You will need to work on removing grass and weeds completely.
The simplest way to deal with weeds and grass is to remove them physically, either by pulling or digging them out or, if they are small, hoeing them off at soil level. If you have too many weeds to just pull, it is best to use a combination of cultural and chemical methods. Spray weeds in full growth with a chemical herbicide and, as they start to die, bury them when the area is dug over. When the new weed seedling germinate, spray them with a chemical while they are most vulnerable.

You can spray the weeds cover the lot with a plastic tarp and a week or two later uncovered it and till the ground. That's the easy chemical way.

Once the weeds are dead you should till the dirt thoroughly, this is tedious, but it ensures you grow a great garden ;-)

Step 2
Okay, once you set up your garden lot, start planting.

If you choose to plant seeds:

If you live in Utah, start your seeds inside. They have these great “green house” starters at Walmart that are in the $5.00 range. You pour water into them to make the dirt bags swell up then you place 2 or 3 seeds in each dirt bag, you cover them and place them in a warm place wait about a week and you should start seeing seeds sprouting.

If you live in Houston, create rows of elevated soil in your garden plot. Make holes for the seeds in the dirt and place seeds about 8 to 10 inches away from each other.

If you choose to buy young vegetable plants:

Make sure to check all the leaves for signs of pests or disease, and make sure that the plant does not suffer from leaf drop. Avoid plants that are growing moss, this means they’ve been sitting there too long. Also check to see if there are too many roots growing out of the holes at the bottom of the container for the same reason.

In Utah, if you buy young plants remember to wait to transplant them after the weather will be warm more consistently so after the last possibility of frost. If you plant them before you can use a tarp or plastic wrap at night to make sure the plants don’t die if there happens to be a frost.

When you are placing the plants just make sure to make a hole where the entire root fits and sprinkle and tighten dirt over the hole. Don’t tighten too much.

The dirt should not be too hard so it still contains some oxygen.

I found this great resource for Houston gardeners: http://www.chron.com/houstongardening/

For Your Info:

Cilantro and other herbs need lots of watering so you have to make sure and remember to water those crops daily.

Here’s a list of hard to kill plants: (in case you think ull forget watering etc)
Chile Pequin
Black-Eyed Peas
Peppers: Yellow, Orange, Red or Green
Squash
Tomatos
Green Onions