Succeeding with Vegetable Gardening

Vegetable gardening is a great alternative to buying your produce at the grocery store. By growing your own vegetables, you can produce food that is less expensive and that tastes much better too.

Growing vegetables is no more difficult than growing flowers or herbs, and you’ll be rewarded with healthy, tasty produce to eat as the season progresses.

The first step in constructing a vegetable garden is deciding what size garden you want to plant. Find a site for it that has good drainage, proper air flow and rich, deep soil. Check and see how much sunlight the site gets during the day - vegetables in general like as much sun as they can get. You may find you have competition for your vegetables, such as rabbits, deer and other animals, who may like your garden as much as you do. If you see some of these critters, you may want to protect your garden with a fence or put out traps to catch animals like moles and mice.

Before you can plant the garden, you must prepare the soil. To get rich soil for vegetables, you’ll want to cultivate it and apply organic fertilizers like compost and other amendments. Tilling the soil first will help improve the soils condition by mixing in organic material and preventing weeds throughout the season.

If you’re planning a small garden, tilling can be replaced by spading, hoeing and raking. Be sure to mix in organic matter to provide the nitrogen, minerals and other nutrients your vegetables need. If you don’t have your own compost pile to make this wonderful mulch, you can buy organic compost from your local garden center or landscape company. Do a little research first to see what specific nutrients the plants you choose will need. Leafy plants like lettuce, spinach and cabbage thrive with higher nitrogen levels; while root crops like beets, potatoes, carrots and rutabagas like more potash. Some plants like beans and tomatoes use less fertilizer, and some like onions and potatoes need more.

Plan your garden arrangement before you plant. No single plan will work for every garden. Conditions vary from one part of your yard to another. A popular method for planting vegetables is to plant those vegetables that need limited space together. For example, one side of your garden may contain all your spinach, lettuce, beets and radishes. Those that need a lot of room can be planted further apart on the other side, for instance your potatoes, corn and squash. Try to keep tall plants in the back so they don’t block the sunlight from smaller plants.

Plant your vegetables at the right time of year. Don’t put out seedlings or seeds until all danger of frost has passed. If you just can’t wait to get started, you can set up a hotbed and start some seeds to plant out later. Really simple hotbeds can be built using old windows – search online or in your local library for more details. Once you’ve got your garden planted, water appropriately according to the needs of each variety. Most plants need approximately an inch of water per week.

Take the time to keep your weeds in check. It can be hard work, but weeds compete with your vegetables for water, nutrients and light, as well as attract insects and disease to your garden. You can be rid of weeds by cultivating with a hoe or by applying mulch around the plants. To keep your garden disease free, use disease-resistant plants and seeds or use controlled chemicals if maintaining an organic garden is not high on your priority list.

Many people say that vegetable gardening is their favorite form of gardening because you get to eat the results of all your labor. It is not expensive to begin, and the flavor of homegrown fresh from the garden vegetables can’t be beat. Take the time now to start correctly and you’ll be rewarded with a healthy, low maintenance garden all summer long.

TheGardenStaff.com is a great resource for information on vegetable gardening, rose gardening, water gardening and more. Let us help your garden grow!