Starting Heirlooms Can be Challenging, so Use These Gardening Tips For Great Results
As a home gardener, maybe you are motivated to get started because you love the taste of homegrown produce or appreciate knowing where your food comes from. Or you might have begun your first garden to help your children understand the growing process and learn to enjoy fresh foods. As you have learned more about gardening, you might have developed an interest in heirloom gardening, but these varieties can be tricky to grow. A few gardening tips can help you get started if you are a novice heirloom gardener.
Heirlooms tend to have richer flavors than some of the other varieties you could grow, but they come with some special care needs. Here are a few of the common mistakes that you’ll want to avoid:
Starting out too big: It’s hard not to get excited about growing heirlooms, but because they can require some individualized care, you may want to start out small your first year planting them. You’ll be tempted to try them all, but choose a few varieties and enjoy success rather than starting out with grandiose visions of a big heirloom harvest, only to end with a failed garden.
Heirlooms require some particular conditions to thrive, and managing those requirements for three to five plant varieties may be a good challenge the first year. Heirlooms need certain soil temperatures, spacing, sun exposure and watering, so take your time and start small. Seek out gardening tips from the pros at your local nursery for heirloom success.
Choosing the wrong heirlooms for a starter garden: Some heirlooms are easier to grow than others. You may be setting yourself up for failure if you choose more difficult varieties like carrots, artichokes, sweet potatoes or onions. While no heirloom is guaranteed for success, you may have better luck getting a good harvest if you choose kale, beans, beets, radishes or squashes. You may also fare better by talking with an experienced heirloom gardener to see what tends to grow well in your climate. They may also have other gardening tips that will help if you run into trouble along the way.
Not saving your seeds: One of the core principles of heirloom gardening is that you save the seeds to keep the species growing year after year with identical qualities. Heirlooms are open pollinated, so you can save the seeds from your best plants and use them again next year. Choose your seeds, dry them and then save them in an airtight glass container until spring. This will give you a great start on next year’s garden.
Starting an heirloom garden is exciting, and you’ll love having the taste of heirloom vegetables to add to your table and share with friends. Be sure to label your heirlooms with Kincaid Plant Markers so you can give them all the special care they need to thrive. Take a look at the options we offer for rust-free markers that can be used year after year for a lifetime of heirloom gardening.
