Sarah's Garden, week 1: The five rules of growing food in the city

Sarah's Garden is a weekly-ish column in which Sarah DeGiorgis documents her attempts to grow food in her sunny West Philly backyard. If you're going to try urban gardening out yourself, especially if you've never done it before, follow along through the season!

This will be my fourth year growing vegetables in various backyards in this fair city, and I think I've finally learned some things.  Gardening is basically trial-and-error but there are a few basic things to keep in mind. So, by way of introduction, I give to you Sarah's Gardening Tenets:

1. There is no such thing as a green thumb

Seriously, you don't know how many house plants I've killed.  We're not talking five or six, we're talking like 50.  Maybe more.  But every summer my vegetables thrive and someone along the way remarks what a green thumb I have. You know why my vegetables do so well? Because I water them diligently and check on them once a day, eagerly awaiting the day when I can start eating them. You know why my houseplants die?  Because they don't give me delicious vegetables and I forget about them. It's as simple as that:  plants are living things and require care to thrive. You don't have to sing to your plants or talk to them or name them (though be my guest, a few of mine have names), but you do have to water them, check on them often and make sure they are doing well.

2. Sun matters

This is really important. Most vegetables need full sun, which means at least six hours of sunlight a day. There are plenty of plants, including lots of herbs, that thrive in partial sun. Another consideration with sunlight is that the direction it's coming from — north, east, south, west — really matters as well.  Southern sun is the brightest and hottest and best for vegetables, but can be too strong for more delicate plants. Western sun is second-best for vegetables, but remember that it's going to be in the afternoon only — we all know the sun rises in the east, right? Right. Western sun is also good for plants that can't take super-strong southern sun but still need quite a few hours of sunlight.  Next is eastern sun, which is going to be mostly in the morning and is not bright/long enough for most vegetables.  Northern sun is the weakest and good for shade-loving plants — definitely not enough for vegetables.  So if you want to grow vegetables, make sure you have a place that gets at least six hours of sun mostly from the south.  Seriously, it makes a big difference.

3.  Be aware of native plants/invasive plants

This doesn't apply to vegetables, but I'm trying to branch out (get it??) and grow other plants, too.  Invasive species are plants that are not native to the area, have been brought in somehow, and are now choking other plants out.  They're not good but sometimes can't be helped — migrating birds can drop seeds that then start growing — but as a gardener it's good to be aware of some local invasive species so you can steer clear of them.  On the flip side, planting things that are native to the area is always a good bet because they will thrive in this particular climate and help balance the local ecosystems.  This mostly applies to perennials (plants that come back every year), not annuals (plants that only last one season, like many vegetables).

4. Be persistent/stubborn

If something doesn't work, try it again. Seriously, there are so many reasons why a plant could fail — soil, sun, water, pests, diseases — and sometimes the growing season just isn't right for that particular plant.  How do you know what went wrong? Well, if you don't know then try it again next year and you may have an entirely different outcome.  I tried for so long to grow eggplant, a notoriously fickle vegetable. Eggplants need really warm soil for a long time, longer than other heat-loving vegetables like tomatoes and peppers. The first year I grew eggplants, I got flowers but no eggplants. I tried again the next year, this time getting flowers and what looked like the beginnings of eggplants but then nothing.  Finally the third year I gave in and bought eggplant starts instead of growing them from seed.  Guess what? I got two whole eggplants! I think this means that my eggplants that I grew from seed weren't getting quite a long enough growing season since I wasn't starting them in a greenhouse — they were always very healthy but just never seemed to get to the fruiting stage.  I was beginning to think there was something wrong with me and maybe eggplants didn't like me? THANK GOD that is not the case.

5. Try new things

It's fun to grow things that you know will work — for me, that's tomatoes.  I know tomatoes well, I know what they like and that they need lots of water and something to climb on, and I can consistently look forward to lots of delicious tomatoes by the end of the summer.  But it's fun to try out different things, too — last year I grew beans and this year I'm trying peas. Every plant is different and I think the more variety you grow, the more you learn.

Next time I'll show you what I've started in my garden...