Vegetable Gardening for Beginners

If you’ve decided to start vegetable gardening this year, then you are among the 7 million households that are beginning their first gardening experience too. More and more Americans are looking for fresher, safer, better quality and cheaper food that can be cultivated right in their own backyards. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, beans and carrots are some of the most popular varieties. Before you begin, here are some gardening tips on planning, implementing and maintaining a bountiful garden.

The first thing you’ll need to do when creating a vegetable garden is picking the most suitable location and size. Firstly, make sure your location gets a lot of sunshine. Most vegetables should have around six to eight hours of direct sunlight each day for the best results. If you have a shadier location, you can place your lettuce and spinach there. As you assess your yard, make certain to take into account the shadows cast by the deciduous trees and the house throughout specific times of the day.

Ideally, the garden will be handily situated in close proximity to the kitchen, so you can tend to it with less effort and bring in your crop without walking long distances. The most satisfactory soil will be loaded with nutrients and drain properly, so you might need to add organic compost and use the right tools to aerate the earth before you start.

When choosing what goes into your garden, you’ll need to consider how much space the crops you want take up. Vegetable gardening items like corn, winter squash and tomatoes tend to take up a lot of room, so you’ll need a 20 x 20 garden at least. If you want to grow a few herbs, peppers, cucumbers and greens, a 12 x 16 plot should be sufficient. Garden guides from the National Gardening Association recommend growing plants in succession in three foot wide beds with 18-inch paths between each row. It’s also a good idea to add a few flowers (such as marigolds) into your garden to add some beauty, deter pests and attract helpful pollinating bees.

The last step before planting is to feed the soil and make it ready for productive vegetable gardening. Whatever the plants take up out of the soil, you’ll need to ensure microorganisms or soil puts back in. Several inches of compost or natural manure fertilizer usually does the trick. For a 12 x 16 (200 square-foot) garden, use about 75 pounds of commercial compost or horse manure. If you’re using uncultivated soil, the best garden advice is to apply five pounds of organic fertilizer with 5% nitrogen for every 200 square feet. Rake the fertilizer into the first few inches of top soil to break up clay clumps and create a nutritious environment for growing plants.

Eating healthfully doesn’t have to be expensive when you plant a vegetable garden. From container vegetable gardening to edible landscaping, you’ll find the information you need at the Vegetable Garden Site.

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