Site Selection

Where are you going to put your vegetable garden? It should be somewhere convenient to your home with a dependable water source and at least 8 hours of direct sunlight daily. Most vegetables that you grow require full sun to reach their maximum production. The soil should be well-drained, fairly level, and away from trees and shrubs that will compete for water, nutrients, and sunlight. Our demonstration garden is a large, raised bed which makes it convenient for working with the plants, weeding, and harvesting. The bed is 33 feet (North-South) by 5 feet (East-West). That gives us 165 ft² of growing space. Your garden can be larger or smaller as long as it meets the basic criteria of sunlight, drainage, and water accessibility. Check out the Resources section below for more information.

Our raised bed in the New Orleans Botanical Gardens.

Site Preparation

The site should be cleared of all weeds and plant debris. Ours had a beautiful selection of basil growing and had been mulched with pine straw. Our first task was to remove the basil and pine straw.

Next, we took a soil sample and submitted it to the LSU Soils Lab for analysis. The current cost for a routine analysis is $11.00. Additional tests are available for additional fees. A soil test is an important step prior to starting your garden and can save you time, money, and headaches in the long run. Your local LSU AgCenter office can provide you with a soil test kit and instructions for taking and submitting a soil sample for analysis. Test results will tell you the soil pH and available amount of major plant nutrients. The lab will also make recommendations for soil amendments needed based on what you plan to grow. This includes soil pH adjustments. Your extension agent is available if you have any questions about your results.

When you get your soil test results, you will know what soil amendments are needed to make your garden a better environment for your vegetables. Our garden needed nitrogen and potassium nutrients added and sulfur to lower the soil pH. Vegetables prefer a soil pH around 6 and ours was 7.2. We also decided to add composted cow manure to improve the soil quality. Adding compost annually or at the beginning of each growing season is always a good idea. One 2 ft ³ bag of compost will cover 12 ft² of garden area with a 2” layer of compost. After spreading the nitrogen, potassium, sulfur, and compost on the soil surface, we incorporated all amendments by tilling to a depth of 6”. You can also incorporate the amendments using a shovel if a tiller is unavailable. After tilling, we raked and smoothed the garden.

Adding Amendments

Adding and Spreading Compost

Dr. Joe Tilling

Planning and Planting

How much space do you have? What does your family like to eat? What is the best way to extend the season and maximize production? Do you employ succession planting or varieties with different days to maturity? These are all questions to answer before making a trip to the garden center or ordering seed. We have chosen a number of well-liked vegetables for the Fall season garden with the goal of providing a family of two or three with enough fresh vegetables for many of their meals. We used the “Louisiana Vegetable Planting Guide” and “How Much to Plant” in making our plans. Our garden plan (below) what we planted, how much we planted, and what varieties we chose. We chose many varieties because they are specifically recommended for the Louisiana vegetable garden. Some crops can be started in the garden by direct-seeding and others are best as transplants. We used transplants for all of our vegetables except beets, spinach, and some lettuces. Seedlings are available in season from most local garden centers. We used garden twine to create a grid pattern in our garden to make spacing consistent and speed planting. We planted spinach, beet, and lettuce seeds in the front 2’ of space for convenience of planting and continual harvesting. Everything else was planted on 18” spacings except for the Megaton cabbage variety which needed more space.

Garden Plan - Fall 2023

Vegetable Seedlings Ready for Transport

When planting seeds, either directly in the garden or into seedling trays, it is important follow recommendations given on the seed packages or found in growing guides. Planting seeds too deeply or too shallow can prevent emergence following germination or lead to weak seedlings. Some seeds need light to germinate and shouldn’t be covered at all. Others may need some kind of pretreatment to increase the germination rate. Very small seeds usually germinate better if the germination medium is very fine. And, of course, optimal germination temperature is very important. Much of this information can also be found in the Resources section below.

Louisiana Master Gardener planting spinach

Irrigation

As we said in the site selection section, having a convenient water source is a consideration. Water stress can severely limit plant growth and production. It is advisable to have an irrigation system or plan for any vegetable garden. We used an irrigation system readily available at local home improvement retailers that employs ½” and ¼” tubing, drippers, and micro-emitters. We also purchased an irrigation timer at the same retailer. We placed 2 gallon per hour drippers at each of the transplanted vegetables and micro-emitters in the areas where we planted seeds. Using drippers rather than sprinklers reduces disease incidence by putting the water where it’s needed – the plant root zone – and not on the plant leaves and stems.

Garden Irrigation System: A - Previous tubing being reused; B - Master Gardener installing tubing and drippers; C - Micro-emitter on seed bed; D - Irrigation Timer

Mulching

Mulch will help to retain soil moisture and prevent weeds. Mulch should be layered to a depth of 2”-4” for optimal benefits. We used pine straw because of its durability compared to some other types. After the initial mulching, check regularly to be sure the mulch is in place and at the proper depth as plants grow and the elements take their toll. We remulched after the initial mulching process because the pine straw had settled and was no longer at least 2” thick. It can be difficult to put a thick layer around small seedlings. Direct seeded areas were not mulched but mulch will be added as the seedlings emerge and grow. You can easily see weeds emerging in areas where the mulch was thin.

Preparing to spread our pine straw mulch.

Maintenance

Once the garden is planted and irrigation and mulching are in place, your job is to be ever vigilant looking out for insects, diseases, and any other problems that can ruin all your good work. The earlier you identify an issue, the easier it will be to find a solution. You also want to watch for weeds, fertilizer needs, overcrowding, and harvest times. The number of days from seed or transplant to harvest listed in variety descriptions may differ slightly from area to area and according to weather or growing conditions.

Garden planted, irrigated and mulched.

Week 2

All the transplants are growing well but the mustard greens have really taken off and will be ready for harvest soon. The beets, spinach, and lettuce are sprouting. There are some areas where the seed did not germinate so we will replant those areas.

Late Week 2 Walk Through

Week 3

Everything is looking good at week three. The mustard greens are ready for harvesting the larger leaves. The replanted lettuce, spinach and beets are coming up nicely. The Galactic Lettuce is beginning to bolt. You can see tiny flower buds beginning to show. This may not be a good variety for our area. When lettuce plants go through a warm period, they begin to flower and become bitter. Certain varieties are more sensitive to the heat and bolt quickly, so they are not good varieties for our area. Slow-bolting varieties may be better for the South Louisiana garden. We want varieties that continually produce leaves throughout the growing season so we can have a steady harvest. We will replace these plants with a more heat-tolerant variety. We harvest mustard greens this week and will side-dress with a nitrogen fertilizer so the plants will continue to produce leaves. We side-dressed with about 1 tbs. of 15-5-10 fertilizer per plant and worked it into the upper soil layer.

Lettuce beginning to bolt.

Wow! What a Mustard Green Harvest!

Harvesting Mustard Greens

Paula Side Dress

Week 5 Walk Through