Some Gardening Basics

For the first time gardener, here are a few basic things that can get you on the right track to successful gardening.
There are nine hardiness zones and each of these further divided into two sub zones. You can see a map of Canadian hardiness zones here http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/environment/forest/forestcanada/planthardi
Any plant will grow well in areas that are higher that the one recommended.
Other pieces of information that will help with you gardening is the average last frost in the spring, http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/archives/5thedition/environment/climate/mcr4035 and the average last frost in the fall http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/archives/5thedition/environment/climate/mcr4036. These dates can help you when it is the best time to plant in the spring and gives you an idea on when it would be advisable to harvest your vegetables.
Information on average frost free period http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/archives/5thedition/environment/climate/mcr4037can help you choose the varieties that will grow well for the amount of frost free period for your area.

Information about your property that would be advantageous to have when going to your local garden center, would be the square footage of your property, square footage of individual garden beds, how much sunny or shaded areas on your property. Knowing the type of soil in your garden so bringing in a small sample, (about 1 cup) can give the garden personnel an idea of what type of soil you have and what to do if anything to the physical properties of the soil.
Knowing the nutrient levels, nitrogen, prosperous and potassium, and the PH, alkalinity or acidity (for the big definition if you want http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PH ) of you soil can be a help also. Soil testing kits can be bought at you garden center and are very easy to use, including in them a list of levels needed for a large variety of plants and recommendations of what to use to make the soil conditions the best possible for the plants you are growing.
This is some of the basic information that you can supply to your garden center that will help you to grow the best garden you can.
Subsequent posts will expand of this information.
I hope to have these posts to be two-way exchanges of information. If there are comments or ideas you wish to share please don’t hesitate to add them.

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