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The Canadian Champion, Friday, June 13, 2003-29 The vegetable garden:è go'od planning leads to good tastes <NC)-Home grown produce just seems to taste better..and theres a reason. Corn, beans, peas, tomatoes and other vegetables taste best when they re fresh-picked. Store-bought vegetables often j have to be picked days ahead of when they appear on the produce shelves, and sometimes that means they're picked a littie green. With your own veg- etable garden, you can pick them when they're at th pak of perfection. Yum! The best vegetable gardens start with two solid foundations: good soi! and a good plan. Your soi! can be improved by ensuring there is good drainage, and lots of organic matter present. Compost is one of the best soi! improvers you can possibly find. If you don't have compost, try adding Green Earth Premium Compost into the garden. Take the time to measure your garden area, and draw it out on paper. That way, when you're at the garden centre, standing in front of the seed packet display, you won't be tempted to pick and choose like you would at the salad bar. Hiere are a few things to consider when laying out your garden: 1. Relate choices and number ot plants to timing. A dozen heads of lettuce may not sound like a lot, but it s if they're ail ready on the samie day. If you need more, consîder earlier and later-maturing varieties. You could also plant the sanie vaniety at one or two-week intervals. 2. Plant vegetables your family will enjoy eating. (ie. you can probably get Junior to weed the peas more easily than the turnips, if you're making the garden a family project). 3. Make sure you allow enough room for each type of vegetable to get the light it needs, and grow to the fui! size. Once the soi! bas warmed up (later in the spring) it's a good idea to mulch around the plants to con- serve nîuisture and prevent weed growth. Use a high-quality mulch (the Hillview mie of Professional mulches are great) as it will last longer and look much better than cheaper products. Once the garden is established, it will benefit from regular weeding, watering and feeding. Use a good quality fertilizer like PINK Ali-Purpose Garden Food 8-12-6 to provide the balanced nutri- tion your vegetables will need. YoulIl have to keep a constant watch for ail kinds of pests, too. Fences will keep out the larger types, while a variety of options are available for insects. If you can, control insects by picking them off by hand or use Green Earth Insecticidal Soap. You cao also uise pyrethrin-based sprays on vegetables, such as Green Earth AIM Flower and Vegetable Spray. Good luck with your vegetable garden this year. And if you (10 have good luck... bon appetit! Garden forts inspire the kids (NC-How do you get kids into the garden and keep them there with a life-long passion for plant- ing? According to Mark Cullen, host of Mark Cullen Gardening on Home & Garden Television (HGTV), the trick is to tap into their imaginations at an early age and carve out a special place in the garden just for them. And what could be cooler for kids than a fort grown entirely from shrub cuttings? a Start with dormant pussy willow or forsythia cut- tings, between five and eight feet in length. a Create a circle, several feet in diameter - which will form the floor of the interior of the fort - by planting the cut end of the branches approximately one foot into the ground. The branches should be spaced about two inches apart. Water and allow the cuttings to take root. a Be sure to leave an opening - perfectly kid-sized, but too small for grown-ups- that will be the entrance to the fort. e Gently bend the top ends of the cuttings, gather the tops in the centre and tie together with garden- ing twine to form the shape of an igloo. e Approximately one third of the cuttings should take root and begin to grow, filling in the gaps where the other cuttings will eventually rot away. a Pruning from season to season will allow you to control the shape of the fort as it grows. Airing on HGTV Thursdays at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT, Mark Cullen Cardening feature hands-on, practical advice for gardeners from coast to coast. For more tips from Mark Cullen, visit www.hgsv.ca. 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