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The art of producing an excellent and abundant harvest year after year comes down to two simple things: employing the best techniques to achieve your goal and knowing all there is to know about the crop you are growing. Many of these techniques are tried-and-tested methods that have been used, almost unchanged, for centuries—not because nobody has come up with a better method, but because they actually work. If you talk to any experienced professional grower or community-garden user, it soon becomes apparent that every grower, professional or amateur, in every region, has a slightly different way of achieving the same result. Therefore, the methods explained in this book are very much guidelines and, although most will work for the majority of gardeners without any modifications, some techniques will require tweaking in order to suit the area, the style of growing, the soil, and so on.
The most important part of growing any productive crop is to start planning and preparing for the next one at the end of each season. This is why the book begins with the basics—the planning and the tools required in order to grow fruit and vegetables productively. Knowing the basics is more important than knowing sowing dates, varieties, or potential size of harvest. If the basics are not right, then neither will be the harvest.
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There can be nothing more exciting than seeing a line of newly sown seeds germinating and nothing more disappointing than that line not being straight. Apart from the aesthetic pleasure gained from seeing a straight line, if a line of seedlings is not straight, it will either be taking up unnecessary space on one side or be too close to a row on the other. You can buy garden twine on a special holder, but winding the string onto two 18-inch (45-cm) lengths of bamboo is just as good.
When setting out your line, pull it tight and make sure that it is still tight when you are planting along its length and while making a shallow furrow. You need to check it on a regular basis to ensure that it has not moved. The simplest way to check it is to pull it upward, away from the soil, and let it go, and it will end up in the same position if it hasn’t moved.
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