Growing Your Own Fruits and Vegetables in Your Garden

As the prices of everyday items, particularly fresh foods like fruits and vegetables, continue to skyrocket, people are beginning to look for other options, such as growing their own produce. Growing your own fruits and vegetables in your garden is advantageous for several reasons. For starters, you know where it’s coming from and if chemicals are being used throughout the growing process or not. Furthermore, when you have your own garden, you’ll come to realize that even the produce with blemishes and marks—the things that don’t typically make it to the grocery store aisles—are not affected in terms of taste and flavour. In fact, many people find the fruits and vegetables they’ve grown in their own garden to be more delicious than imported or store-bought produce, probably because of the time and effort they’ve spent to bring it from their garden to the table. Plus, of course, you get to curb some of your normal grocery trip expenses by having your own garden at home. So today, let’s dive into how to grow your own fruits and vegetables in your garden and everything you need to know about getting started.

Fruit Trees for Your Garden

Each season, one of our best-selling items at Blomidon Nurseries is our multigrafted fruit trees. Sometimes referred to as four- or five-in-ones, multigrafted fruit trees include several varieties of the same fruit on the same tree. As the name implies, these trees are created by grafting branches of different varieties of one fruit onto one tree. For example, instead of just having a McIntosh apple tree in your backyard, you could have a multigrafted fruit tree that holds McIntosh, Cortland, Fuji, Gala, and Red Delicious apples. Great news for the gardener: several different kinds of multigrafted fruits trees exist including pear, apple, plum, and cherry, to name a few.

Although multigrafted fruit trees are typically a little more expensive than a traditional fruit tree, it begins to pay for itself easily once you’re able to harvest several different kinds of fruit from the same tree to feed your family. In addition, they’re perfect for small yards since most multigrafted fruit trees are semi-dwarfs, meaning they will only grow to 12 to 15 feet maximum, and they don’t require another tree to pollinate it as most fruit trees with one kind of fruit do.

If you’re more interested in growing a fruit tree that only bares one kind of fruit, then there are a few specific things you’ll need to know. For one, you can’t just have one tree in your backyard and expect that it will produce fruit. In order for your fruit tree to flourish, you will need to have at least one other fruit tree (not the same kind either!) in your backyard so they can pollinate each other. Keep in mind, this is only the case with individual fruit trees, not multigrafted ones, and

the only types of individual fruit trees that don’t need another tree as a pollinator are peaches, apricots, and nectarines.

Growing Vegetables Three Ways

The three main ways to grow vegetables are in a traditional garden, raised beds, or external pots. The potting method has become an extremely popular way to grow vegetables over the past few years because it’s ideal for those with limited space and no heavy machinery is needed. When utilizing the potting method, you’ll want to acquire some thick felt pots called grow bags—available in-store or online now at Blomidon Nurseries—and make sure you have a sunshine-rich environment available for them, such as a balcony. These grow bags are perfect for vegetables of all kinds, including tomatoes, red romaine lettuce, string beans, and many more varieties, although you can also use them for flowers.

Raised garden beds are ideal for people who don’t have the space for a garden in their backyard but still want to benefit from growing their own vegetables. Raised beds sit above the ground, so they heat up quickly and allow for fast germination periods. But they need to be at least 14 to 18 inches deep, depending on what you’re trying to grow. Something else to remember for both the garden bed and potting methods is that the soil will need to be at least partially replaced after each growing season. This is because all the nutrient-rich soil has been used up and needs to be replenished with fresh soil each year. If you opt for a traditional garden, this replenishment happens naturally every time you rototill your garden with organic matter.

Final Thoughts 

As you can see, the process of growing fruits and vegetables differs in some essential ways, but one thing that’s universal is the need for sunlight. Both fruits and vegetables require at least six hours of direct sunlight per day in order to thrive. So, whether you’re growing a multigrafted fruit tree or a vegetable in a grow pot, it’s critical to find an area with direct sunlight so your produce can flourish. Overall, growing your own fruits and vegetables in your garden is not only the best way to know exactly what you’re consuming and where it comes from but it can also save you some money on groceries while helping you reconnect with nature.

If you need further assistance with seed or plant selection, gardening tips, or if you just have a general inquiry, be sure to visit us online or in-store. Ask for Jackie—our expert in all things plant and growing related!—when you call us at (902) 542-3346, or she can be reached at jbezanson@blomidonnurseries.com