I rarely watch the news but have been following it a bit now with all the floods and heavy rains going on here in Scandinavia, and yesterday my eyes caught an article in the newspaper about vegetables that can be bought in the supermarkets are full of poison/chemicals (not that that was a news-flash to me) so I’ve got really inspired to write a post about how to grow your own vegetables.

Maybe it can inspire you too to create your own vegetable garden, because it’s really easy to do, and it’s really awesome to have your own organic veggies! 🙂

The garden in the images belong to me and my neighbor who is also a very dear friend of mine.

(Click on the pictures to see them better/larger, and then ‘back’ to get back to the post again).

~Enjoy the article!

Lets begin from the beginning:

First you need to find a spot in your garden where you want to grow the vegetables and then simply start digging, remove rocks and weeds etc. It doesn’t have to be deep because you will fill the spot with soil afterwards.

Here’s how our backyard looked before we began digging and creating it:

And here’s how it looks now:

As you can see there’s some work to do when digging and making space for the garden.

This is what we used to dig with:

And of course, you need some clothes and shoes that you don’t mind getting dirty, like my sexy Crocs (Foppatofflor in Swedish) 😀

By the way; here’s how our backyard looks in the winter-time brr… 😀

When you have done the digging, the next thing you need to do is to get some soil.

Me and my friend bought 6 large sacks (50 liters each) for only 200 Norwegian kroner, which is about $30 and that’s plenty of soil and will be enough for a garden with the size we have. (Although we had some soil left from last year too).

In addition to the soil, we also bought organic fertilizer (but you don’t necessary need that) because we created the veggie garden a few weeks later than normal because of all the rain.

The organic fertilizer was about 300 Norwegian kroner, which is about $47.

This will give the vegetables a little bit more “vitamins” and help them grow 🙂

Fill the veggie garden with the soil and mix some of the fertilizer into the soil. (You need very little, be sure to read the instructions so you don’t ‘overdose’ your plants).

Lastly, you need to buy seeds of course.

In our garden we have onion, reddish, lettuce, and some other stuff which I can’t remember at the moment. (I’ll post some pics here on my blog later on when they have grown bigger).

If you decide to grow for example 6-7 different vegetables you will need to have separate 6-7 spaces for them in your garden as you can see an example of in this pic with 4 separate spaces:

Seeds by the way vary a bit in cost, on an average they cost between 10-50 Norwegian kroner, which is about $1-$8 per package.

Onions look a bit different and cost about 45 Norwegian kroner/$7:

You can read in the back of the seed packages (and onion packages) when to grow and how to sow them: (Click twice on pic to see what I wrote/text).

Some seeds are larger and can be put into the soil as we have done with our reddish, this is how the look after only ten days after sowing: (Pretty rows huh?:-)

And some other seeds are very small (this is our carrots) and can be sprinkled all over the soil as we have done here:

And oh, to remember what you have sown and where, write the name of the vegetable (and date when you planted it) on a piece of wood or something like you see we have done in the previous pic.

When the carrots grow you just weed them out and throw away (or move to another spot) the small ones so that the strongest and largest can grow freely.

When you have sown the seeds in the soil with the fertilizer and you’re done with this step,  you just water the whole garden (with lots of water) but before that you should put a non-woven fabrics (fiberduk in Norwegian/Swedish, don’t know if the English word is correct) over it to protect it against insects and birds, rain etc:

It costs about 60 Norwegian kroner/$10. It also helps create a greenhouse effect for the plants and it’s really great to have in the beginning until the vegetables has grown larger, then you can remove it.

As the veggies grow, make sure you lift the non-woven fabric up so that they can grow freely under it. You can put a stick under the fabric to hold it up.

Another thing that’s great to do is to put some Tagetes (the yellow flowers in the image below) here and there as they help protect the garden against natural pests and weeds.

I can’t remember what they cost, but they are also very cheap.

That’s it! 😀

Now you just have to remember to water it and weed it (which I think is very relaxing and meditative to do) now and then and watch the veggies grow.

It’s not difficult at all, and it’s fun, and best of all; it’s organic.

I really hope you give it a go, you will not regret it!

To grow herbs is easy too, and in the summer-time you can grow them outside on the balcony or veranda. (Or in your kitchen)

Simply put the seeds in the soil (no fertilizer necessary) and either put them in one of these boxes/houses:

Or do as I have done here with a small plastic-bag around the pot:

(The plastic pots are freely given at some places, I have never paid for any myself, just ask and the shop may give them to you for free).

Remember to water them regularly (keep the soil moist at all times in the beginning especially), and when they grow larger you simply remove the plastic:

And as they grow larger you move them into larger pots:

You can grow tomatoes and cucumber on your balcony too, or just buy a plant if don’t want to wait for the seeds to grow:

Besides from vegetables and herbs you can sow all kinds of flowers too:

(If I remember it right, the ones in the first pic are eatable flowers).

And even if Tagetes don’t smell that good, you can have some on your balcony or porch to keep the insects away:

I also grow some sprouts and lenses in my kitchen:

That was it! Hope you enjoyed this article and found it inspiring.

I really appreciate all shares and ‘likes’ as this article can inspire others to grow their own organic veggies as well instead of only eating the ones we can buy in the supermarket as they contain all kinds of chemical stuff that is not good for the body.

Let me know if you have any questions, and stay tuned for updates on how the vegetable garden grows 🙂