The best site for a vegetable garden should incorporate the following: At least six hours of sunlight daily, good drainage and air circulation, and a level location with loose, rich soil. There should also be a nearby source of water, and ideally, convenient access to tool storage and equipment.
Plants’ roots penetrate soft soil more easily, so you need a nice loamy soil. Enriching your soil with compost provides needed nutrients. Proper drainage will ensure that water neither collects on top nor drains away too quickly.
Make sure You don’t plant in a place that’s prone to flooding during heavy rains, or in a place that tends to dry out a lot. You also don’t want to plant somewhere where strong winds could knock over your young plants or keep pollinators from doing their job.
Ideally, your vegetable garden should be close to both a source of water and your kitchen. Vegetables will need water on a regular schedule. If they get watered erratically they will exhibit all sorts of problems like cracking open, not setting any fruit at all or becoming prone to cultural problems like blossom end rot.
Vegetable gardening requires the right tools for preparing the garden and caring for the plants. To create the garden the basic tools you will need are a shovel, fork, trowel and maybe a tiller.
Fence your garden. A fence, besides keeping out rabbits and other hungry animals, helps define your garden visually. Rabbits, Voles, Woodchucks, Deer, Chipmunks, Squirrels. All eat leaves or fruits of plants in vegetable gardens.
Crop rotation within the vegetable garden means planting the same crop in the same place only once every three years. This policy ensures that the same garden vegetables will not deplete the same nutrients year after year. It can also help foil any insect pests or disease pathogens that might be lurking in the soil after the crop is harvested.
Planting crops is another way to maximize growing area in the garden. All too often, though, gardeners will prepare their seedbeds and plant or transplant all their crops on only one or two days in the spring, usually after the last frost date for their location
Add a three-inch layer of any organic mulch around your plants and over the irrigation lines if possible. Mulch will insulate the soil, helping to keep it cooler in summer and warmer in winter. It also helps retain moisture, suppress weeds and acts as a protective barrier from diseases splashing up onto the plants from the soil. And besides, mulch looks great in the garden.
Store-bought vegetables often lack flavor simply because they’re grown in the wrong season. Vegetables generally fall within two categories: those that love cool weather and those that need warm weather. Plant at the proper times to reap the best garden harvest.
Common cool-season vegetables: asparagus, beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, chives, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, Swiss chard, kale, leek, lettuce, onion, parsnips, peas, radishes, spinach, and turnips.
Common warm-season vegetables: beans, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, melons, peppers, zucchini and summer squash, pumpkin and winter squash, sweet potato, tomato.
