DEREK FELL'S ADVICE TO THE BEGINNING VEGETABLE GARDENER

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The main problem with using compost as the sole source of fertilizer for one's garden, however, is that the decomposed material usually is deficient in the phosphorus which is essential for early fruit formation. You can get around this problem, however, by mixing bone meal or rock phosphates (two natural sources of phosphorus) into your compost pile, or by applying them directly to the soil.

SOIL TESTS AND HOW TO USE THEM

In my opinion, there's a lot of gibberish going around these days about the importance of soil tests. (Here, I'm talking about testing to determine the pH?or degree of acidity?of a piece of earth.)

For example, I believe that the way in which some books give long lists of flowers and vegetables, along with the precise pH that each plant prefers, is ridiculous. I guess that's OK for the agribiz farmer who specializes in one particular crop and who must?to protect his investment?have all the factors in his favor . . . but how can the average home gardener ensure a different soil pH from one row of the vegetables in his backyard to the next? He can't, obviously.

The best you (or I) can do is strive for a happy medium, meaning a neutral or slightly acid soil. If you don't know what kind of earth you have, ask a nearby farmer (or a gardening neighbor). Then, if you're still concerned about your soil, send a sample of the earth to your local state soil testing service. They'll tell you what?if anything?is missing from the dirt and how to "tailor" its composition to the particular crop(s) you wish to grow.

HOW TO SELECT THE CROPS (AND THEIR VARIETIES) FOR YOUR FIRST GARDEN

For many beginners, the selection of "what to grow" is the most confusing aspect of gardening. Catalog descriptions all seem to read the same ("super!", "best!", "most productive!"), and those seed packets you buy from the local nursery aren't really very valuable when it comes to helping you choose one particular variety of, say, lettuce or cucumbers over another. Yet, for the experienced gardener the selection of seeds is perhaps the most important part of gardening! (In a future article, I'll tell you why.)

For now, let me just emphasize that it's important for beginners to start with easy?to-grow varieties of easy-to-grow vegetables because a little success goes a long way toward one's understanding of the essentials of plant growth.

In my experience, the easiest-to-raise crops are loose-leaf lettuce (especially Oak Leaf), radishes (Cherry Belle is my favorite), zucchini squash (Burpee Hybrid), carrots (Royal Chantenay), snap beans (try the new bush Romano's), tomatoes (Supersonic is tops), peppers (such as Tasty Hybrid), parsley (any kind), and cucumbers (Marketmore 70 for disease resistance).

I planted each of these varieties except for the cucumbers?in my own 12' X 20' vegetable garden in southeastern Pennsylvania last year, along with the following varieties (which I also consider easy to grow): Boston Bibb head lettuce, Yellow Bermuda onions, a new All-America spinach called Melody, a hybrid broccoli with the appropriate name of Premium Crop (one head measured 10" across!), Fordhook Giant Swiss chard, Stone-head cabbage, Detroit Dark Red beets, and Goldcrop wax beans.

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