You’ve been trying to eat more organic foods, both to decrease the amount of pesticides you and your family consume and to help protect the environment. But take one look at your grocery store receipt and you know that buying organic can get very expensive, very fast. Luckily, there’s a way to grow your own delicious, fresh produce while having fun and learning at the same time: organic gardening!
Don’t know where to start? It is possible to hire someone to install and maintain a beautiful organic garden for you, but most of us can roll up our sleeves with a surprisingly low amount of effort. Remember, you can start small, even with just a single plant or two. Don’t worry if things aren’t perfect right away.

Organic gardening means you won’t use synthetic fertilizers or pesticides, but that doesn’t mean your plants fend for themselves. There are an array of tools you can use to bolster plant health and ward off pests. Read on for specific tips, taken from expert garden blogger, Leslie Land, her New York Times book 1000 Gardening Questions & Answers, and other sources.

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Getting Started

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Preparing the Soil

In order to get the best results with your new organic garden, you’ll want to make sure the soil is properly conditioned. You have to eat, and so do plants, so make sure your veggies get lots of fresh nutrients. Healthy soil helps build up strong, productive plants. Chemical soil treatments can not only seep into your food, but they can also harm the beneficial bacteria, worms, and other microbes in the soil.
The best way to gauge the quality of your soil is to get it tested. You can get a home testing kit, or better, send a sample to your local agricultural extension office. For a modest fee you’ll get a complete breakdown of pH and nutrient levels, as well as treatment recommendations; be sure to tell them you’re going organic. Typically, it’s best to test in the fall, and apply any organic nutrients before winter.

Even if you don’t have time for testing, you’ll want to make sure your soil has plenty of humus — the organic matter, not the similarly named Mediterranean spread. According to 1000 Gardening Questions & Answers, you’ll want to mix in compost, leaf and grass clippings, and manure. Manure should be composted, unless you aren’t harvesting or planting anything for two months after application. Preferably, get your manure from local livestock that’s organically and humanely raised.

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Making Good Compost

All gardens benefit from compostetty Images and you can make your own on site. Hey, it’s free! Compost feeds plants, helps conserve water, cuts down on weeds, and keeps food and yard waste out of landfills by turning garbage into “black gold.” Spread compost around plants or mix with potting soil — it’s hard to use too much!
The best compost forms from the right ratio of nitrogen- and carbon-rich organic waste, mixed with soil, water, and air. It might sound like complicated chemistry, but don’t worry too much if you don’t have time to make perfect compost. Even a minimally tended pile will still yield decent results.

1. To get started, measure out a space at least three feet square. Your compost heap can be a simple pile or contained within a custom pen or bin (some can be rotated, to improve results).
2. Add alternating layers of carbon (or brown) material — leaves and garden trimmings — and nitrogen (or green) material — such as kitchen scraps and manure, with a thin layer of soil in between.
3. Top off the pile with four to six inches of soil. Turn the pile as new layers are added and water to keep (barely) moist, in order to foster microbe action. You should get good compost in as little as two months or longer if it’s cold.
4. A properly maintained compost pile shouldn’t smell. If it does, add more dry carbon material (leaves, straw, or sawdust) and turn it more frequently.

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Choosing the Right Plants

It really pays to select plants that will thrive in your specific micro-conditions. As a general guide, check the USDA’s Hardiness Zones. Choose plants that will adjust well to each spot in terms of light, moisture, drainage, and soil quality. Most gardens have gradations in these variables. The happier your plants are, the more resistant they’ll be to attackers.

If you’re buying seedlings, look for plants raised without chemical fertilizers and pesticides. A great place to look is at your local farmers’ market, which may also have native plants and varieties well-suited to your area. It’s better to buy stocky seedlings with few, if any blooms yet, and root systems that don’t look overcrowded.

Many things are best grown from seed, including sunflowers, annual poppies, coriander, dill, annual phlox, larkspur, annual lupine, morning glories, sweet peas, squash, and cucumbers.

Planting Crops

Plants that you will be harvesting, such as vegetables or cutting flowers, should be grouped tightly in beds that you don’t walk on. Raised beds work great. Grouping reduces weeding and water waste, and helps you target compost and nutrients. Ample space between rows helps promote air circulation, which repels fungal attacks.
Remember that seedlings won’t always stay diminutive, and you do want to limit overshadowing. It’s a good idea to thin crops based on nursery suggestions.

According to Leslie Land, if you want the highest returns of organic produce with limited space and time, these plants are typically winners:

1. Indeterminate tomatoes: so named because the vines keep getting bigger and producing new fruit until frost.
2. Non-hybrid (old-fashioned) pole beans: They keep growing and producing ’til frost — assuming you keep them picked.
3. Zucchini: Everything they say about avalanches of zucchini is true, especially of hybrid varieties.
4. Swiss chard: You can keep breaking off outer leaves for months, and every picking will be tender as long as plants get enough water.
5. Tall snow peas and sugar snaps: They grow readily and produce delicious rewards.

Watering

The best time to water plants is usually in the morning. Why? Mornings tend to be cool with less winds, so the amount of water lost to evaporation is reduced. If you water in the evening, plants stay damp overnight, making them more likely to be damaged by fungal and bacterial diseases.

Ideally, you want to water the roots, not the greenery, which is easily damaged. A drip or soak system can work great, or just carefully water the bases of plants by hand.

Most experts recommend substantial, infrequent watering for established plants, typically a total of about one inch of water per week (including rain). One or two applications a week encourages deeper rooting, which promotes stronger plants. To avoid shocking tender greenery, try to use water at or near air temperature; collected rainwater is best.

Weeding

No matter where you live, you’ll still get weeds. Pulling them by hand may sound like hard work — and it can be — but it also can be good exercise, and gets you outside in the fresh air.

Reduce the number of weeds you have to contend with by applying mulch, which also helps protect the soil. Organic mulch and burlap can work in a pinch. Straw is cheap but doesn’t last long. Wood chips are nice, but can get pricey. Many people opt to use lawn clippings, although it should be noted that because they are high in nitrogen, clippings should only be used on plants that need a lot of the nutrient, such as squash and lettuce.

Protecting Plants Without Pesticides

If your garden is being assaulted by pests, it may be a sign of other problems, so the first thing you should do is make sure plants are getting enough light, nutrients, and moisture. Also remember that a diverse garden helps prevent pests by limiting the amount of one type of plant offered up to enemies.

It’s a good thing to foster natural predators in your garden, such as frogs, toads, lizards, birds, and even bats. Beneficial insects can be your best friends, especially ladybugs. Many nurseries even sell cans of them, though it’s true there’s a high probability they won’t stick around. Leave a small source of water out to attract friendly predators. It’s also a good idea to grow plants with small blossoms, such as sweet alyssum and dill, which attract predatory insects. Nets and row covers can also work.

Organic weapons include Bacillus thuringiensis, a naturally occurring bacteria that disrupts the digestion of caterpillars and other leaf-eaters. You can also use horticultural oils, insecticidal soaps, garlic, or hot pepper sprays.

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Harvesting

Don’t forget to harvest the fruits of your labor! Generally, the more you harvest, the more your plants will produce for you.
During peak harvest season, you’ll likely find that it’s best to check your garden every day. Got herbs? If you use them fresh, pick them right before you need them. But if you’ll be drying and storing them, it’s best to wait until just before they flower, since they’ll have the most flavor. Gather all herbs except basil in mid-morning, shortly after dew has dried. Harvest basil in the late afternoon, since it will last longer after some time in the sun.

When harvesting leafy greens, pick sporadically from the entire crop, a little from each plant. For broccoli, wait until the central head is as large as it will get, before sending off buds for flowering. Cut it off right above the leaf node, and you’ll likely get better production from the rest of the plant. In general, it’s best to cut produce off with a sharp knife or scissors versus ripping with your fingers, which can cause more damage to plant tissue.

If you get too much bounty, remember you can also freeze, store some types of produce in a root cellar, or take up canning. Enjoy!

Cleaning Up

If you notice sick plants either during the season or at the end of the year, make sure you pull up the entire organism. Don’t forget to rake up underneath, since diseased leaves can harbor problems for a long time. Put all infected material deep in the woods, in the ground at least a foot deep, or on the bonfire.

Most healthy or expired plants can actually be left in place over winter. You’ll provide some food and habitat for birds and other wildlife, and plant cover can help protect your soil from eroding. It’s better to chop off annuals instead of yanking them out. That way you’ll leave soil intact, and help prevent weeds from gaining a foothold.

‘The way we see it, our gardens don’t belong to us alone – they belong to all the wildlife that lives there, eats there or even just uses them as a stopping off point,’ says award-winning garden designer Michael John McGarr of Warnes McGarr & Co. ‘This could involve the hedgehog that wanders through your garden at night, the birds that stop off in the thick shrubbery, right through to the beetles and woodlice that live under a stone at the end of the garden.’

It doesn’t take a huge amount of effort to ensure wildlife can flourish in your garden within a complete redesign. It really just takes a good awareness of what creatures need and hopefully you should be able to enjoy your new garden alongside the birds, butterflies and bees.
At Warnes McGarr & Co, Michael is used to working with ultra-high end and high-tech designs, creating expensive outdoor kitchens and outdoor cinemas or seating areas with televisions – but in equal measures he can be found at bottom of the garden building a beetle bank, or cutting hedgehog passes in the fencing.

Here, Michael talks through the top five ways you can include wildlife in your garden and landscaping design.

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1. Keep some mature existing shrubs and trees

‘If a client wants a complete garden redesign, especially if they’ve just moved in, they may want everything pulling out the garden and a complete redesign from scratch. As designers, this would be a fantastic brief for us, however, we would always be mindful of how garden creatures and birds might use the existing mature greenery,’ begins Michael.

‘If you sit in your garden for long enough and watch a specific shrub, bush or tree, you will see the flow of birds, animals or insects that either pass through it, or live there.’

Michael says it’s not always possible to keep every mature tree or large shrub, but ‘if we can keep a mature plant in a garden that could provide shelter for small birds, a home for a frog or hedgehog and numerous insects, then we will try to include it in our designs’.

1. Think about the movement of hedgehogs

Becoming an increasingly rare sight in our British gardens, hedgehogs are losing their habitats at an alarming rate.
‘One of the reasons for this is that they can travel around 2km every night looking for food, but more and more gardens are becoming closed off with secure boundaries like fences and gates,’ Michael explains. ‘Concrete bases for fence panels create an impenetrable barrier for a hedgehog, so we always ensure that fence panels we create for clients have a “hog-hole” cut in the bottom to allow them to freely access a garden, if they wish.’

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You’ll only need a gap of 13cm x 13cm for hedgehogs to get through. Better still, if you want to help hedgehogs, look at how to create a ‘hedgehog highway’ with your neighbours.

1. Planting for pollinators

‘Luckily, we don’t have to do much persuading when it comes to creating a wildlife planting scheme, as the flowers that bees and other pollinators love, are also just as attractive to the human eye,’ says Michael. ‘Try to incorporate a range of native/ indigenous planting where possible to support bugs and insects with both food and shelter.
‘We often use Borage; Lavender; different varieties of Echinacea, Salvias, Alliums and Verbena bonariensis in our planting designs to attract bees, hoverflies, butterflies and moths. We also recommend Viper’s Bugloss (Echium vulgare) if you have a sheltered site, as the stunning bright blue flowers are very popular with bees.
‘Teasels (Dipsacus fullonum) are brilliant for providing height and structure in wildflower gardens. They are loved by insects and pollinators for their nectar, and the seeds are adored by goldfinches. Teasels do like to self-seed so ensure you pull up any seedlings that encroach into areas you don’t want them.

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‘We also recommend a large native grass called Pendulous sedge (Carex pendula) that are great for frogs to hide within. This can grow quite large, so do be prepared to divide and cut back every year,’ Michael explains.

With so many different species of trees, Michael also suggests some which you can plant specifically for wildlife. ‘One of our favourites is the hawthorne (Crataegus monogyna), which can also be planted as hedging,’ he reveals. ‘This attractive native species is also fantastic for wildlife and can host more than 300 insects. Its pollen in spring is an important source of food for bees, while the bright red fruits in autumn are also eaten by birds.’

Meanwhile, for shrubs, think outside of the standard buxus which suffer from a number diseases. ‘Think of drought-tolerant indigenous shrubs such as Mountain Pine (Pinus mugo) with which you can create a strong striking evergreen structure within the garden,’ he says.

1. Leave an area of unmown lawn

‘With our larger garden design clients we often talk through the possibility of leaving patches of unmown grass, at the end of a garden or around some trees,’ says Michael. ‘We think long grasses can look beautiful, especially when they go to seed. However, this can also be so beneficial to the environment and your garden wildlife, by providing areas of shelter. It doesn’t take long for wild flowers to also seed themselves within the grass.’
A ready-planted wild flower turf is another option. You can create a low-maintenance wild flower meadow within your garden, and all you’ll need to do is cut it back once a year.

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1. Provide a habitat for frogs

‘You don’t even need a full-size pond to have frog residents set up home in your garden,’ says Michael. ‘A small sunken basin or attractive bowl can provide a place for them to breed and have a swim. Then you need to have lots of ground-cover plants or mature shrubs and woody plants to provide shelter and habitat for them.
‘Cats, hedgehogs and larger birds will also eat (or just kill, in the case of cats) frogs, so it really is important to have somewhere they can remain well hidden. A pile of rocks next to your mini-pond can provide the perfect hiding hole for frogs, or even a toad, if you’re lucky.’

These days, more and more people are discovering the joys of playing in the dirt—though grown-ups might prefer the term “gardening.” Food gardening is especially hot, with nearly 20 percent more households hopping on the food-growing train during the past five years. Renewed interest in gardening may be due in part to the local food movement. Locavores are interested in having greater access to healthy, high-quality food, knowing where their food comes from, and supporting the environment and the local economy. Gardening (especially organic gardening) certainly fits the bill!

Gardening has also been shown to have significant health benefits. For starters, it encourages people to engage in other behaviors and activities that promote wellnessTrusted Source. For example, gardeners consume more fruits and vegetables than non-gardenersTrusted Source. When gardeners choose to grow food organically, they’re reducing their exposure to pesticides and potentially eating produce with a higher nutrient contentTrusted SourceTrusted Source. Gardening also reduces stress and improves mental health. And it counts as moderate-intensity exercise, which can help people live longer livesTrusted Source.

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With all those good reasons to garden, what are you waiting for? Whether you have your own plot of land or will need to pursue an alternative approach to gardening, get started with this handy-dandy guide to the gardening basics. Gardening is often a process of trial and error, so remember to relax and have fun with it. We promise: It’s not as intimidating as it might seem!

What a Plant Needs

Plants are kind of like people—each type of plant has a unique “personality” and likes different things (water, sunlight, soil type, etc.). Some plants like it hot and sunny, while others like it cooler or moister (or both). It’s fun but can take some experimentation (and internet research) to learn what works best for a particular type of plant. That being said, virtually all plants require a few basic ingredients:
Sun: Plants are pretty magical, as they harness energy from the sun and, through photosynthesis, convert that energy into their tissues. Because plants need the sun to grow, many plants, including most fruits and veggies, need a good amount of direct sun during the day. Have a shadier plot? Research which plants prefer shady conditions if you have less light available.

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Water: Plants also need water, and it’s often the amount of water that’s available that will keep plants from wilting up in the summer sun and heat. In many places, it may be necessary to water your garden regularly in order to keep plants happy. Consider your water sources; if they’re not close to the area where you’ll be gardening, it will be important to figure out a system for transporting water to your garden.

Getting in the Zone

Plants perform best when they have optimum temperatures for growth—like Goldilocks, the conditions need to be juuuust right. Understanding your climate will help you decide which plants to grow. This information is generally provided for seeds and plants online and when you purchase them to help you decide what will work best.
To better understand your climate, get familiar with the plant hardiness zones. They’re based on the coldest winter temperatures, which help determine which plants are likely to do best in a particular location. This information is especially useful for planting perennial plants—that is, plants like trees, shrubs, and many flowers that live for several years—because often it’s the coldest winter temperatures that determine where these plants can thrive.

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Growing season length is another handy piece of information. It’s the average amount of time per year where the temperature stays above freezing during both day and night. Growing season length is particularly useful for planting annual plants—including most garden vegetables and many flowers—which live for only a single year. If you want to plant melons, for example, you’ll want to make sure that you can find a variety of melons that can grow fully within the length of your growing season. And you’ll want to make surethat you plant it early enough that there are plenty of days left in the season for it to grow and mature.

Location, Location, Location

Gardens come in all shapes and sizes, so it’s just a matter of figuring out what will work for you. In fact, gardening doesn’t even have to occur outside—plants grown indoors provide some of the same stress-reducing benefits as gardening, while also improving indoor air qualityTrusted Source. Community gardens provide another great alternative if your gardening space is limited or if you’re looking for a more social gardening scene.

If you’re growing plants outdoors, try to choose a spot that optimizes all those things that plants need—light, water, nutrients, and good soils. You can choose to grow plants directly in the soil (which is an easy and affordable option), to build raised beds, or to grow plants in containers. Raised beds (which are basically large wooden boxes filled with soil) are often six to 24 inches off the ground; they can be very productive, but it will cost extra money for the materials to build the beds. For smaller spaces or starter gardens, containers are a fantastic way to go because they provide so much flexibility. Watering is especially critical for containers because they dry out faster than garden beds. Luckily, these gardens are often pretty small so watering only takes a few minutes.

So Many Questions

The wonderful thing about gardening is that there are so many potential plants out there to grow. Here are some things to think about as you plan your garden:
• What types of plants are you most excited to grow? Many people are interested in growing their own food, but others may be interested in simply beautifying their decks or yards.
• If you’re growing plants for food, what do you most like to cook and eat? There’s no reason to grow a five-pound zucchini (trust us—it happens!) if you don’t love the stuff. Grow things that are so yummy to you, they may not even make it into the house!
• What amount of space and light do you have available for gardening (whether at your place or at a community garden)? Take into account whether you’re gardening in the ground or in containers on a deck or patio, how much light the area receives each day, and whether the area offers any shade. While these variables will partly determine what you’re able to grow, the good news is you can pretty much garden anywhere.
• How much time are you looking to spend gardening? Plants require regular care, so be realistic about how much time you’ll be willing to spend weeding, watering, and so on. It’s generally a good idea to start small and learn the ropes before taking on a huge commitment. If you love it, you can scale up from there.

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Watering Strategies

How much you need to water plants will depend on a few things. Hotter and drier air will pull moisture from plants and soils more quickly, so more watering will be necessary as the temperatures go up. The type of soil you have in your garden will also affect how much water is available to plants. A good rule of thumb is that plants should receive enough water to cover the ground with an inch of water each week, and it’s better for plants to get all the water one or two times per week rather than a little bit each day. An easy test to see if plants have enough water available is to put a finger in the soil and make sure it feels moist two to three inches below the surface. When watering, it’s best to use a watering can or sprinkler (dumping a lot of water on the plants all at once can damage them). Of course, if your area gets a lot of rain, you won’t need to perform this chore often!

Essential Equipment

Beginner gardening requires a few tools (but there’s no end to the amount of gardening equipment that one can use). The larger the scale of your gardening, the more tools you’re likely to need. One of the major reasons people are interested in gardening is to reduce food costs; if you’re in this camp, start with the minimum and add things as you need themTrusted Source.

Container gardens are super-simple to get going. For these, containers, potting soil, a watering can, and a small trowel (or even a sturdy kitchen spoon!) are the basic equipment that’s needed. For raised beds or beds in the ground, it’s helpful to have a trowel, watering can, shovel, hoe, and digging fork. Larger gardens might benefit from the use of bigger equipment, such as a rototiller, for preparing the soil—but this is by no means necessary if you’d prefer to flex those muscles in the garden.

Preparing for Planting

You’ve planned where your garden will be, what plants to plant, how you’ll care for them, and stocked up on essential equipment. Finally, it’s time to put some plants in the ground!

When purchasing plants, you’ll have the option to purchase seeds or small, starter plants that you can transplant into your garden. Many vegetables and flowers are easy to grow from seed, making that the simpler (and more affordable) choice in many situations. Buying plants, rather than seeds, is especially useful when a plant is difficult to grow from seed, if the growing season is particularly short, or if a larger plant is going to make that garden look great. To combine the best of both worlds, lots of seeds can be started inside in pots and later transplanted outdoors.

The directions for planting will depend on what’s being planted; typically this information is provided on the seed packet or tag that comes with a given plant. (If this information doesn’t come with a plant, the internet is an amazing resource.) Seeds can be planted in rows or geometric patterns that use space more effectively. Just put seeds in the soil (depth varies by plant), cover them back up with dirt, and water. If you’re using starter plants, dig a hole that is bigger than what you are transplanting so that the roots have lots of room to grow. Soil should be gently packed around the roots so that the plant stays at the same level above the ground that it was in the container. After planting seeds and/or starters, be sure to water the soil thoroughly. Ta-da! Your plants are ready to grow!

Growing your own vegetables is both fun and rewarding. All you really need to get started is some decent soil and a few plants. But to be a really successful vegetable gardener — and to do it organically — you’ll need to understand what it takes to keep your plants healthy and vigorous. Here are the basics.

“Feed the soil” is like a mantra for organic gardeners, and with good reason. In conventional chemical agriculture, crop plants are indeed “fed” directly using synthetic fertilizers.

When taken to extremes, this kind of chemical force-feeding can gradually impoverish the soil. And turn it from a rich entity teeming with microorganisms insects and other life forms, into an inert growing medium that exists mainly to anchor the plants’ roots, and that provides little or no nutrition in its own right.

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Although various fertilizers and mineral nutrients (agricultural lime, rock phosphate, greensand, etc.) should be added periodically to the organic garden, by far the most useful substance for building and maintaining a healthy, well-balanced soil is organic matter.You can add organic matter to your soil many different ways, such as compost, shredded leaves, animal manures or cover crops.

Organic matter improves the fertility, the structure and the tilth of all kinds of soils. In particular, organic matter provides a continuous source of nitrogen and other nutrients that plants need to grow. It also provides a rich food source for soil microbes. As organisms in the soil carry out the processes of decay and decomposition, they make these nutrients available to plants. For more on this subject, read Building Healthy Soil.

Make Efficient Use of Space

The location of your garden (the amount of sunlight it receives, proximity to a source of water, and protection from frost and wind) is important. Yet just as crucial for growing vegetables is making the most of your garden space.

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Lots of people dream of having a huge vegetable garden, a sprawling site that will be big enough to grow everything they want, including space-hungry crops, such as corn, dried beans, pumpkins and winter squash, melons, cucumbers and watermelons. If you have the room and, even more importantly, the time and energy needed to grow a huge garden well, go for it. But vegetable gardens that make efficient use of growing space are much easier to care for, whether you’re talking about a few containers on the patio or a 50-by-100-foot plot in the backyard. Raised beds are a good choice for beginners because they make the garden more manageable.

Get Rid of Your Rows

The first way to maximize space in the garden is to convert from traditional row planting to 3- or 4-foot-wide raised beds. Single rows of crops, while they might be efficient on farms that use large machines for planting, cultivating, and harvesting, are often not the best way to go in the backyard vegetable garden. In a home-sized garden, the fewer rows you have, the fewer paths between rows you will need, and the more square footage you will have available for growing crops.

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If you are already producing the amount of food you want in your existing row garden, then by switching to raised beds or open beds you will actually be able to downsize the garden. By freeing up this existing garden space, you can plant green-manure crops on the part of the garden that is not currently raising vegetables and/or rotate growing areas more easily from year to year. Or you might find that you now have room for planting new crops — rhubarb, asparagus, berries, or flowers for cutting — in the newly available space.

Other good reasons to convert from rows to an intensive garden system:

Less effort. When vegetables are planted intensively they shade and cool the ground below and require less watering, less weeding, less mulching — in other words, less drudgery for the gardener.
Less soil compaction. The more access you have between rows or beds, the more you and others will be compacting the soil by walking in them. By increasing the width of the growing beds and reducing the number of paths, you will have more growing area that you won’t be walking on, and this untrammeled soil will be fluffier and better for plants’ roots.

Grow Up, Not Out

Next to intensive planting, trellising represents the most efficient way to use space in the garden. People who have tiny gardens will want to grow as many crops as possible on vertical supports, and gardeners who have a lot of space will still need to lend physical support to some of their vegetables, such as climbing varieties of peas and pole beans. Other vegetables that are commonly trellised include vining crops, such as cucumbers and tomatoes.

The fence surrounding your garden may well do double-duty as a trellis, so long as the crops grown on the fence can be rotated in different years. Other kinds of vegetable supports are generally constructed from either wood or metal. However, no matter which design or materials you use, be sure to have your trellis up and in place well before the plants require its support — preferably even before you plant the crop. With some vegetables, such as tomatoes or melons, you may also have to tie the plants gently to the support, or carefully weave them through the trellis as they grow.

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Keep Crops Moving

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.
To use a three-year crop rotation system, make a plan of the garden on paper during each growing season, showing the location of all crops. If, like most people, you grow a lot of different vegetables, these garden plans are invaluable, because it can be difficult to remember exactly what you were growing where even last season, much less two years ago. Saving garden plans for the past two or three years means that you don’t have to rely on memory alone.

A Continuous Harvest

Planting crops in succession is yet 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.
While there is nothing wrong with planting a garden this way, wouldn’t it be easier to plant a few seeds or transplants at a time, throughout the course of the whole growing season, rather than facing the herculean task of “getting in the garden” all at one time?

After all, a job almost always becomes easier the more you divide it up. Plan to plant something new in the garden almost every week of the season, from the first cold-hardy greens and peas in late winter or early spring, to heat-loving transplants such as tomatoes, peppers and eggplant once the weather becomes warm and settled.

Then start all over again, sowing frost-hardy crops from midsummer through mid-fall, depending on your climate. Keep cleaning out beds as you harvest crops to make room for new vegetables that will take their place. You can even interplant crops that grow quickly (radishes) alongside other vegetables that require a long season (carrots or parsnips), sowing their seeds together. This makes thinning out the bed easier later on, since you will have already harvested the quick-growing crop and given the long-season vegetables that remain some much-needed elbow room.

Another benefit of succession planting, of course, is that your harvest season lasts longer for every crop. This means that, instead of getting buried in snap beans or summer squash as your plants mature all at once, you can stagger plantings to ensure a steady, but more manageable supply of fresh vegetables.

Print Your Plans

If you use our Kitchen Garden Planner, you can print your plans, make notes and save them for future seasons.

Keep Good Records

Finally, we end up where we started — with the realization that, although vegetable gardening can be rewarding even for beginners, there is an art to doing it well. There is also a mountain of good information and advice from other gardeners available to you. Yet one of the most important ways of improving your garden from year to year is to pay close attention to how plants grow, and note your successes and failures in a garden notebook or journal.

Just as drawing a garden plan each year helps you remember where things were growing, taking notes can help you avoid making the same mistakes again, or ensure that your good results can be reproduced in future years. For instance, write down all the names of different vegetable varieties, and compare them from year to year, so you will know which ones have done well in your garden.

Many people keep a book in their car to record when they change their oil and perform other routine maintenance. In the same way, get in the habit of jotting it down whenever you apply organic matter or fertilizer to the garden, or the dates on which you plant or begin to harvest a crop.

Over time this kind of careful observation and record-keeping will probably teach you more about growing vegetables than any single book or authority. That’s because the notes you make will be based on your own personal experience and observations, and will reflect what works best for you in the unique conditions of your own garden. As in so many other pursuits, so it is in the art of vegetable gardening: practice does make perfect.

There are tons of different vertical gardening systems and supports to choose from, and it’s fun to get ideas for your garden.
Below, I’ve broken my vertical gardening ideas down into a few different sections so you can easily find what you’re looking for.
First I share a few of my favorite hanging gardens, wall mounted planters, and living walls. Then I move on to inspiring ideas for DIY vertical planters, trellises and vine supports.

Hanging Garden Ideas

Hanging gardens are a popular way to grow flowers and other ornamental plants, and they’re also a wonderful way to grow food. The best part about these hanging vertical garden ideas is that you don’t even need a yard!

You can display these projects hanging just about anywhere. And not only will you be able to garden in places you never considered before, it will look amazing too.

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1. Hanging Cone Planters

This vertical garden idea puts a fun spin on standard hanging baskets. I love how these adorable hanging cone planters move and twirl in the wind. The longer you make the twine, the more they will move.
They’re perfect for dangling under a deck or pergola, from the ceiling of a porch, or from the branches of large trees. You can use them for growing herbs like I did here, or plant them with your favorite flowers. They also make fun DIY gifts!

1. Large Self-Standing Living Art

This gorgeous self-standing easel combines art and function to create a unique piece of living art that will look amazing in your garden. The best part is that, since it’s always growing, your living artwork will never stay the same for very long.

Place it at the entrance of a path or gate as a fun way to welcome guests into the garden. Or use it to liven up a boring corner of your patio or deck, creating an interesting conversation piece.

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1. Antique Ladder Hanging Planter

Antique ladders are a popular trend for interior decorating, and I love the look. So I designed one to use as a hanging vertical planter.
This replica antique ladder is very easy to build, and inexpensive too. I filled the planters with colorful herbs, but you could use it for growing any small plants, like succulents, strawberries or salad greens instead.

Living walls are a huge trend these days, and they look fantastic! But for most of us, building a substantial living wall isn’t an attainable goal.
Wall mounted planters are smaller, and much more practical for home gardeners. These vertical gardening ideas are fun, easy to make, and will add life and color to a boring blank wall or fence.

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1. Upcycled Living Picture Frame

Picture frames are no longer just for displaying photos of our loved ones. Living picture frames have become a very popular trend these days, and this project is a great way to upcycle old frames.
Used photo frames are a dime-a-dozen at second hand stores and yard sales, and are very easy to find. It’s common to see living picture frames planted with succulents. So, for something different, I planted mine with herbs and salad greens instead.

1. Simple Vertical Wall Pockets

Vertical wall pockets are a brilliant way to add life to a boring fence or blank wall, and they don’t have to be complicated to make. These charming vertical wall pockets are ideal for any small space.
They look darling hanging on a fence, or adorning the railing of a deck or balcony. I planted mine with colorful herbs, but you could use flowers or succulents instead if you prefer.

1. DIY Living Vertical Wall

Living walls make gorgeous additions to the garden, and really open up your growing options. While dedicating an entire wall or fence to building a massive vertical wall garden would be awesome, it’s not practical for most people.

So, I came up with a scaled down version of a vertical living wall that anyone can build. This one can be mounted on an exterior wall or fence, and is perfect for growing small vegetables, succulents, herbs, or flowers.

Vertical Garden Planters

Take traditional container gardening to whole new heights by combining it with vertical gardening. The vertical gardening ideas in this section combine the two popular methods in exciting and creative ways.
One of the biggest benefits of using containers is that you don’t even need a traditional garden plot. You can put them in places you normally wouldn’t be able to grow anything, like on your deck, balcony or patio.

1. Stacked Pots Tower Garden

If you’re like me, you have more garden pots collecting dust in the garage than you care to admit. What better way to put those extra planters to use than to create a stacked pot tower garden?
This stacked pot garden is easy to make, and super inexpensive when you use planters you already have. It looks fantastic standing on a deck or patio, on the front step, or anywhere in the garden.

1. Planter Box With Trellis

Raised planter boxes with a trellis like this one are perfect for adding height to any corner of your garden. Since the box in this design has a bottom, you could even install it on your patio or deck.

The built in trellis allows you to grow even more plants in this small self-contained garden. Put shorter plants, like salad greens, flowers, or peppers in the front, and grow your favorite vining plants up the trellis.

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1. Upcycled Utility Rack Planter

This project gives new life to a simple utility rack that I found at a local discount store, turning it into a vertical planter. A beverage cart or other decorative storage cart would also work great.

Since it’s so cute, you can place it right next to your front door, or use it to adorn a balcony or patio. Plant your upcycled utility rack garden with herbs and edible flowers like I did, or fill it with your favorite annuals.

1. Self-Standing Gutter Garden

Hanging gutter gardens are super popular these days, and I absolutely adore the idea. But the gutters become very heavy once they’re filled with plants and soil, and I don’t have a spot that’s sturdy enough to hang them.

So, I decided to come up with a fun vertical garden design idea for a self-standing gutter garden that doesn’t require hanging. This self-standing gutter garden is perfect for any area in your yard, and offers an impressive amount of growing space.

Gardening can be a great way to enjoy the outdoors, get physical activity, beautify the community, and grow nutritious fruits and vegetables. If you are a beginner or expert gardener, health and safety should always be a priority.

Below are some tips to help keep you safe and healthy so that you can enjoy the beauty and bounty gardening can bring.

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Dress to protect.

Gear up to protect yourself from lawn and garden pests, harmful chemicals, sharp or motorized equipment, insects, and harmful rays of too much sun.
• Wear safety goggles, sturdy shoes, and long pants to prevent injury when using power tools and equipment.
• Protect your hearing when using machinery. If you have to raise your voice to talk to someone who is an arm’s length away, the noise can be potentially harmful to your hearing.
• Wear gloves to lower the risk for skin irritations, cuts, and certain contaminants.
• Use insect repellent containing DEET. Protect yourself from diseases caused by mosquitoes and ticks. Wear long-sleeved shirts, and pants tucked in your socks. You may also want to wear high rubber boots since ticks are usually located close to the ground.
• Lower your risk for sunburn and skin cancer. Wear long sleeves, wide-brimmed hats, sun shades, and sunscreen with sun protective factor (SPF) 15 or higher.

Put safety first.

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Powered and unpowered tools and equipment can cause serious injury. Limit distractions, use chemicals and equipment properly, and be aware of hazards to lower your risk for injury.
• Follow instructions and warning labels on chemicals and lawn and garden equipment.
• Make sure equipment is working properly.
• Sharpen tools carefully.
• Keep harmful chemicals, tools, and equipment out of children’s reach.

Know your limits in the heat.

Even being out for short periods of time in high temperatures can cause serious health problems. Monitor your activities and time in the sun to lower your risk for heat-related illness.
• If you’re outside in hot weather for most of the day you’ll need to make an effort to drink more fluids.
• Avoid drinking liquids that contain alcohol or large amounts of sugar, especially in the heat.
• Take breaks often. Try to rest in shaded areas so that your body’s thermostat will have a chance to recover. Stop working if you experience breathlessness or muscle soreness.
• Pay attention to signs of heat-related illness, including extremely high body temperature, headache, rapid pulse, dizziness, nausea, confusion, or unconsciousness.
• Watch people who are at higher risk for heat-related illness, including infants and children up to four years of age; people 65 years of age or older; people who are overweight; people who push themselves too hard during work or exercise; and people who are physically ill or who take certain medications (i.e. for depression, insomnia, or poor circulation).
• Eat healthy foods to help keep you energized.

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Extreme Heat

Keep Your Cool in Hot Weather

Tips for persons with disabilities and physical activity.
Talk to your health care provider if you have physical, mental, or environmental concerns that may impair your ability to work in the garden safely.
• If you have arthritis, use tools that are easy to grasp and that fit your ability. Research shows that 2½ hours per week of moderate physical activity can give you more energy and can help relieve arthritis pain and stiffness.
• If you are taking medications that may make you drowsy or impair your judgment or reaction time, don’t operate machinery, climb ladders, or do activities that may increase your risk for injury.
• Listen to your body. Monitor your heart rate, level of fatigue, and physical discomfort.
• Call 911 if you get injured, experience chest and arm pain, dizziness, lightheadedness, or heat-related illness.
Enjoy the benefits of physical activity.
Gardening is an excellent way to get physical activity. Active people are less likely than inactive people to be obese or have high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, heart disease, stroke, depression, colon cancer, and premature death.
• Be active for at least 2½ hours a week. Include activities that raise your breathing and heart rates and that strengthen your muscles. Help kids and teens be active for at least 1 hour a day.
• If you have been inactive, start out with just a few minutes of physical activity each day. Gradually build up time and intensity.
• Vary your gardening activities to keep your interest and to broaden the range of benefits.

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Get vaccinated.

Vaccinations can prevent many diseases and save lives. All adults should get a tetanus vaccination every 10 years. Tetanus lives in the soil and enters the body through breaks in the skin. Because gardeners use sharp tools, dig in the dirt, and handle plants with sharp points, they are particularly prone to tetanus infections.
• Before you start gardening this season, make sure your tetanus/diphtheria (Td) vaccination is up to date.
• Ask your health care provider if you need any other vaccinations.

Thinning carrots is one of those tedious garden tasks that, although necessary, isn’t much fun. But why do we need to thin carrots anyway? It’s because carrot seeds are very small and it’s easy to accidentally plant them too thickly when sowing the tiny seeds. If carrots are spaced too close together, there isn’t enough room to develop large healthy roots and they may become stunted or misshapen.

Carrots can be planted every few weeks from mid-spring to mid-summer to ensure a long season of super-sweet homegrown roots

How to plant carrots

Carrots grow best in a sunny site with deep, well-draining, clump-free soil. Of course not all of us have perfect soil, myself included, so I grow most of my vegetables in raised beds. If your soil is shallow or heavy, stick to compact varieties of carrots like Red Cored Chantenay, which has short, thick roots that only grow about five-inches long. Or, baby varieties like Little Finger that have slender four-inch long roots. And while I generally grow at least a handful of varieties like Ya-ya, Napoli, Atomic Red, and Imperator, I also love the many different rainbow blends of carrots, like Carnival Blend that offer a bold mixture of orange, purple, red, yellow, and white varieties.

Related Article : https://www.justhomegardening.com

Once you have seeds in hand and have picked a good site for your carrot crop, it’s time to amend the soil. I loosen the top foot of soil in my beds using a garden fork, working in around an inch of compost. If using manure, be sure it’s aged at least two years as the higher nitrogen levels of half-composted manure can cause carrot roots to fork or become densely covered in root hairs.

Thinning carrots makes sure the roots have ample space to grow.
Direct sow carrot seed in the garden in mid-spring, about a week or two before the last expected spring frost. If you have a cold frame or polytunnel you can plant up to two months earlier. To seed carrots, make a shallow furrow in the bed, about one-quarter to one-half deep. I usually make the furrow with a finger or lay the handle of my garden fork on the soil surface and press gently.

This is your first opportunity to minimize the need to thin the carrot bed later on. How? By sowing just two to three seeds per inch and spacing them as best as you can. Cover the seeds with a thin layer of soil or horticultural vermiculite and irrigate the bed thoroughly with a gentle spray of water. You’ll need to keep the soil consistently moisture while the seeds are germinating, which can take 14 to 21 days, sometimes longer.

For the longest season of high-quality carrots, succession plant every four to six weeks from mid-spring to mid-summer. My final carrot sowing is in late July and these are the carrots we harvest all autumn and winter from our cold frames, mulched beds, and polytunnel.

Plant pelleted carrot seeds

One of the easiest ways to space carrot seed correctly and reduce thinning is to plant pelleted seeds. Pelleted seeds are coated with an inert clay which makes all the seeds the same size and shape. This is convenient for market gardeners and farmers who use seed sowing equipment, but it’s also great for gardeners who will find the larger seeds easier to handle and plant. Space pelleted seeds an inch apart. Provide adequate moisture until seeds germinate and are growing well.
The downside to using pelleted seeds is that most seed companies only offer a few varieties of pelleted carrot seeds so you’re limited in the varieties you can grow.

Reduce the need to thin carrots by planting pelleted carrot seeds. Pelleted seeds (on the right) are coated in inert clay and their large, uniform size makes sowing the seeds much easier.

Thinning carrots: how to thin carrot seedlings

For me, thinning carrots begins when the seedlings are about three to four inches tall. I start by gently pulling out weak or stunted-looking seedlings and once they’ve been removed, it’s time to thin the rest of the bed. At this stage, I try to thin the plants to about an inch apart, which usually means removing every second seedling. If I didn’t use pelleted seeds, there may be a few random clumps of plants that are in desperate need of thinning. Heavy rains can also cause seeds to wash and pool on the soil surface and come up in clumps.

When thinning carrots, carefully pull the tiny seedlings from the soil or pinch off the foliage at soil level. When you’re done, gather up the discarded seedlings and bury them in your compost pile. The smell of fresh carrots can attract carrot rust flies. You can also gently mound up some soil around the tops of your carrot plants at this time to help keep the roots covered. If the roots are exposed to light as they grow, their shoulders will turn green and bitter.

After the initial thinning, I follow up around a month later with a second thinning session. Every second carrot is again removed, leaving the roots spaced about one and a half to two inches apart. The good thing about this second thinning is that you’re rewarded for your work with baby carrots! Yum!

Follow up your first carrot thinning with a second session a month later. This second thinning will result in sweet baby roots.

Can you transplant some of your carrot thinnings?

The quick answer is yes. The longer answer is that while you can transplant carrot seedlings, you raise the risk of ending up with twisted or misshaped roots. If you plan on re-planting some of your carrot thinnings, be sure the root of each seedling is planted as straight as possible in the new spot. Water well after re-planting.

Wouldn’t you love to grab a fresh, juicy peach or a handful of strawberries from your own backyard? Below are some of the best fruits to grow in your own fruit garden, even if you have limited space.
Before you plant, give some thought to where you want to place your fruit garden. Fruit trees and shrubs will be around for many years. Make sure you can provide the following:

• Full sun: Fruit trees and shrubs need lots of sunshine and warmth to set flowers and develop sweet fruits
• Well-draining soil: Roots that sit for days in soggy soil will rot
• Air circulation: Most fruit diseases are caused by some type of fungus and damp leaves are an invitation for the fungus to take hold
• Protection from cold winds and late frosts: Even if your fruit variety is frost-hardy, frigid and drying winds can kill their tender buds, resulting in no fruit for the season. The same can happen when the buds are hit by a late spring frost. You can’t control the weather, but planting your fruits in a sheltered location–such as near some type of wind block like a fence or hedge–will help.

Growing Blueberries

Berries are an easy way to try your hand at growing fruit. Blueberries are attractive three-season shrubs with pretty white spring flowers, summer fruit, and gorgeous red, fall foliage. Growing blueberries requires some advance work in order to ensure the soil is acidic enough, but the shrubs will live and produce for years. For a large harvest, you will need two varieties for good pollination.
In cold winter climates, grow highbush blueberries, like ‘Bluecrop’. Gardeners in mild climates should opt for either rabbiteye or southern highbush varieties. You can also grow blueberries in containers.

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Growing Strawberries

Freshly picked strawberries are well worth the minimal effort it takes to grow them. You have a choice of three types: June bearing, which sets one large crop in June (nice for preserves and for freezing); Everbearing, which produces two to three smaller harvests per season; and Day Neutral, which continually sets small amounts of strawberries throughout the season.

Although strawberry plants are not difficult to grow, the plants don’t last forever. Expect to replace or rejuvenate them every three to five years.

Growing Raspberries and Blackberries

Raspberries and blackberries have always been backyard favorites, but older varieties could be rambunctious plants, spreading everywhere and being covered in thorns that made harvesting a painful chore. Newer cultivars are much better behaved and thornless. The plants do require annual pruning, to keep them productive, but it is a quick job. Choosing early mid- and late-season varieties will extend your harvest for weeks.

Growing Grapes

Although grapevines are not hard to grow, you will face stiff competition at harvest time from birds and other animals. Grapes need some type of trellis or support to grow on. There are also a lot of recommendations on how to prune them, but many people grow them quite successfully with a much more casual approach.
Check with your local Extension office to learn the best varieties for your area and be sure you choose the type you are looking for, either fresh eating or wine making.

Growing Apples

Everyone wants to grow apples, but they are very difficult to grow well because apple trees are prone to so many insect and disease problems. They also require a great deal of pruning. Although newer cultivars were bred to be less susceptible, they still require some spraying, covering, or other methods of keeping problems out. Nonetheless, they are beautiful, long-lived trees and if you think you’re up to the task, there are many choices to try.

For easier care, look for a dwarf variety. You will also need two different apple tree varieties for good pollination. To save space, look for trees with multiple varieties grafted onto one trunk or opt for a small columnar tree that can be grown in a container.

Growing Cherries

Growing Peaches

Peach trees tend to be small enough to fit in any size backyard. When the peaches are ripening, you can smell their sweetness several yards away. They do require some pruning–to keep the branches productive and reachable–and a bit of thinning the young fruits in order to get a smaller crop of large pieces rather than a heavy crop of tiny peaches.

Growing Figs

Fig trees are surprisingly easy to grow, either in the ground or in containers. They do not require much pruning and are usually pest free. Most fig varieties are only hardy down to USDA hardiness zone seven, but there are a few newer cultivars that are hardier; also, you could always grow your fig in a container.
If you chose to grow your fig tree in a container and move it indoors for the winter, keep the container small. The more confined the roots are, the smaller the top of the tree will remain. You will still get plenty of figs and it will be much easier to move about.

Growing Melons

If you are not ready for the commitment of a tree or shrub, you can still grow delicious melons in your vegetable garden or in containers. Melons need a lot of sun and heat. They also need a good amount of space. They grow on vines that can easily reach 20 ft. or more. It is possible to grow melons up on a trellis, but you will need to choose a variety with small fruits. Large melons, such as watermelon, become so heavy that they will drop right off the plant. However there are plenty of varieties to choose from.

You’ve been trying to eat more organic foods, both to decrease the amount of pesticides you and your family consume and to help protect the environment. But take one look at your grocery store receipt and you know that buying organic can get very expensive, very fast. Luckily, there’s a way to grow your own delicious, fresh produce while having fun and learning at the same time: organic gardening!

Don’t know where to start? It is possible to hire someone to install and maintain a beautiful organic garden for you, but most of us can roll up our sleeves with a surprisingly low amount of effort. Remember, you can start small, even with just a single plant or two. Don’t worry if things aren’t perfect right away.

Organic gardening means you won’t use synthetic fertilizers or pesticides, but that doesn’t mean your plants fend for themselves. There are an array of tools you can use to bolster plant health and ward off pests. Read on for specific tips, taken from expert garden blogger, Leslie Land, her New York Times book 1000 Gardening Questions & Answers, and other sources.

Start off on the right foot with all of the tools you’ll need for the job.

Top-Tested Clippers: Fiskars PowerGear Bypass Pruner ($25, amazon.com)

Ergonomic Trowel Set: Fiskars 3 Piece Softouch Garden Tool Set ($16, amazon.com)

Best-Selling Soil Test Kit: Luster Leaf Rapitest Soil Test Kit ($14, amazon.com)

Favorite Compost Bin: Yimby Tumbler Composter ($89, amazon.com)

Breathable Garden Gloves: Pine Tree Tools Bamboo Working Gloves ($8, amazon.com)

Lightweight Watering Can: Union Watering Can ($10, amazon.com)

In order to get the best results with your new organic garden, you’ll want to make sure the soil is properly conditioned. You have to eat, and so do plants, so make sure your veggies get lots of fresh nutrients. Healthy soil helps build up strong, productive plants. Chemical soil treatments can not only seep into your food, but they can also harm the beneficial bacteria, worms, and other microbes in the soil.

More gardening ideas : https://www.justhomegardening.com/

The best way to gauge the quality of your soil is to get it tested. You can get a home testing kit, or better, send a sample to your local agricultural extension office. For a modest fee you’ll get a complete breakdown of pH and nutrient levels, as well as treatment recommendations; be sure to tell them you’re going organic. Typically, it’s best to test in the fall, and apply any organic nutrients before winter.

Even if you don’t have time for testing, you’ll want to make sure your soil has plenty of humus — the organic matter, not the similarly named Mediterranean spread. According to 1000 Gardening Questions & Answers, you’ll want to mix in compost, leaf and grass clippings, and manure. Manure should be composted, unless you aren’t harvesting or planting anything for two months after application. Preferably, get your manure from local livestock that’s organically and humanely raised.

Making Good Compost

All gardens benefit from compost and you can make your own on site. Hey, it’s free! Compost feeds plants, helps conserve water, cuts down on weeds, and keeps food and yard waste out of landfills by turning garbage into “black gold.” Spread compost around plants or mix with potting soil — it’s hard to use too much!

The best compost forms from the right ratio of nitrogen- and carbon-rich organic waste, mixed with soil, water, and air. It might sound like complicated chemistry, but don’t worry too much if you don’t have time to make perfect compost. Even a minimally tended pile will still yield decent results.

1. To get started, measure out a space at least three feet square. Your compost heap can be a simple pile or contained within a custom pen or bin (some can be rotated, to improve results).
2. Add alternating layers of carbon (or brown) material — leaves and garden trimmings — and nitrogen (or green) material — such as kitchen scraps and manure, with a thin layer of soil in between.
3. Top off the pile with four to six inches of soil. Turn the pile as new layers are added and water to keep (barely) moist, in order to foster microbe action. You should get good compost in as little as two months or longer if it’s cold.
4. A properly maintained compost pile shouldn’t smell. If it does, add more dry carbon material (leaves, straw, or sawdust) and turn it more frequently.

Choosing the Right Plants

It really pays to select plants that will thrive in your specific micro-conditions. As a general guide, check the USDA’s Hardiness Zones. Choose plants that will adjust well to each spot in terms of light, moisture, drainage, and soil quality. Most gardens have gradations in these variables. The happier your plants are, the more resistant they’ll be to attackers.

If you’re buying seedlings, look for plants raised without chemical fertilizers and pesticides. A great place to look is at your local farmers’ market, which may also have native plants and varieties well-suited to your area. It’s better to buy stocky seedlings with few, if any blooms yet, and root systems that don’t look overcrowded.

Many things are best grown from seed, including sunflowers, annual poppies, coriander, dill, annual phlox, larkspur, annual lupine, morning glories, sweet peas, squash, and cucumbers.

Planting Crops

Plants that you will be harvesting, such as vegetables or cutting flowers, should be grouped tightly in beds that you don’t walk on. Raised beds work great. Grouping reduces weeding and water waste, and helps you target compost and nutrients. Ample space between rows helps promote air circulation, which repels fungal attacks.

Remember that seedlings won’t always stay diminutive, and you do want to limit overshadowing. It’s a good idea to thin crops based on nursery suggestions.

According to Leslie Land, if you want the highest returns of organic produce with limited space and time, these plants are typically winners:

1. Indeterminate tomatoes: so named because the vines keep getting bigger and producing new fruit until frost.
2. Non-hybrid (old-fashioned) pole beans: They keep growing and producing ’til frost — assuming you keep them picked.
3. Zucchini: Everything they say about avalanches of zucchini is true, especially of hybrid varieties.
4. Swiss chard: You can keep breaking off outer leaves for months, and every picking will be tender as long as plants get enough water.
5. Tall snow peas and sugar snaps: They grow readily and produce delicious rewards.

Watering

The best time to water plants is usually in the morning. Why? Mornings tend to be cool with less winds, so the amount of water lost to evaporation is reduced. If you water in the evening, plants stay damp overnight, making them more likely to be damaged by fungal and bacterial diseases.

Ideally, you want to water the roots, not the greenery, which is easily damaged. A drip or soak system can work great, or just carefully water the bases of plants by hand.

Most experts recommend substantial, infrequent watering for established plants, typically a total of about one inch of water per week (including rain). One or two applications a week encourages deeper rooting, which promotes stronger plants. To avoid shocking tender greenery, try to use water at or near air temperature; collected rainwater is best.

Weeding

No matter where you live, you’ll still get weeds. Pulling them by hand may sound like hard work — and it can be — but it also can be good exercise, and gets you outside in the fresh air.

Reduce the number of weeds you have to contend with by applying mulch, which also helps protect the soil. Organic mulch and burlap can work in a pinch. Straw is cheap but doesn’t last long. Wood chips are nice, but can get pricey. Many people opt to use lawn clippings, although it should be noted that because they are high in nitrogen, clippings should only be used on plants that need a lot of the nutrient, such as squash and lettuce.

Protecting Plants Without Pesticides

If your garden is being assaulted by pests, it may be a sign of other problems, so the first thing you should do is make sure plants are getting enough light, nutrients, and moisture. Also remember that a diverse garden helps prevent pests by limiting the amount of one type of plant offered up to enemies.

It’s a good thing to foster natural predators in your garden, such as frogs, toads, lizards, birds, and even bats. Beneficial insects can be your best friends, especially ladybugs. Many nurseries even sell cans of them, though it’s true there’s a high probability they won’t stick around. Leave a small source of water out to attract friendly predators. It’s also a good idea to grow plants with small blossoms, such as sweet alyssum and dill, which attract predatory insects. Nets and row covers can also work.

Organic weapons include Bacillus thuringiensis, a naturally occurring bacteria that disrupts the digestion of caterpillars and other leaf-eaters. You can also use horticultural oils, insecticidal soaps, garlic, or hot pepper sprays.

Harvesting

Don’t forget to harvest the fruits of your labor! Generally, the more you harvest, the more your plants will produce for you.

During peak harvest season, you’ll likely find that it’s best to check your garden every day. Got herbs? If you use them fresh, pick them right before you need them. But if you’ll be drying and storing them, it’s best to wait until just before they flower, since they’ll have the most flavor. Gather all herbs except basil in mid-morning, shortly after dew has dried. Harvest basil in the late afternoon, since it will last longer after some time in the sun.

When harvesting leafy greens, pick sporadically from the entire crop, a little from each plant. For broccoli, wait until the central head is as large as it will get, before sending off buds for flowering. Cut it off right above the leaf node, and you’ll likely get better production from the rest of the plant. In general, it’s best to cut produce off with a sharp knife or scissors versus ripping with your fingers, which can cause more damage to plant tissue.

If you get too much bounty, remember you can also freeze, store some types of produce in a root cellar, or take up canning. Enjoy!

Cleaning Up

If you notice sick plants either during the season or at the end of the year, make sure you pull up the entire organism. Don’t forget to rake up underneath, since diseased leaves can harbor problems for a long time. Put all infected material deep in the woods, in the ground at least a foot deep, or on the bonfire.

Most healthy or expired plants can actually be left in place over winter. You’ll provide some food and habitat for birds and other wildlife, and plant cover can help protect your soil from eroding. It’s better to chop off annuals instead of yanking them out. That way you’ll leave soil intact, and help prevent weeds from gaining a foothold.

Growing your own vegetables can be fun as well as rewarding. All you need to get started is – some decent soil and few plants and this way you provide fresh healthy vegetables to your family. But if you want to become a professional vegetable gardener then you will have to learn and understand what it takes to keep your plants healthy and strong.
A good home gardening plan may include selecting the right location, determining the size of the garden, deciding upon the types and varieties of vegetables to plant. Now let’s discuss it in detail;

1. Site selection

You must select a place where the soil is loose, rich and well-drained. Never choose low areas where water gets collected or the soil remains wet. Your vegetables will not grow in poorly drained areas. Also, take care that vegetables need proper sunlight to grow well so do not plant it at a place where there is shade or shadow. Most of the vegetables need at least 6 hours of sunlight each day. Make sure there is a water supply nearby, if possible. Water is not required every time but is needed after long dry periods or when planting seeds.

1. Size of the Garden

One of the most common mistakes made by the enthusiastic or new gardeners is making the garden too big. It is important to mention that a garden that is too big in size will have too much work to do. And if the garden is small, you will easily manage it. Hence while determining the size of your garden, consider the below given factors:

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• Reason for gardening – If the garden is merely a leisure activity for you then a container or flower bed garden can be big enough. But if you want to grow vegetables for canning or freezing purpose then it will require a bigger area.
• Types of vegetables to be grown – Some vegetables take a lot of space whereas others don’t. But most of them need at least 3 feet space between the rows. So if you are planning to plant 10 rows of vegetables, your garden must be 30 feet wide.
• Size of Family – If gardening is a family activity then a large space can easily be taken care of moreover a larger family will also use more vegetables.

1. Deciding on what to grow

Now this is indeed a big question. Many people usually get confused at this step because they don’t know what will be right crop for their garden. What to grow in the garden is as big as where to locate it. You can consider the following points in selecting the vegetables:
• It is advised not to plant watermelons in a small garden as they need too much area. There are other vine crops like cucumbers and cantaloupes that can be easily grown in small gardens.
• If your garden is smaller, you will have to get high production from each row. Small, crops like turnip, radish, and beet yield quickly and do not require much space. On the other hand, tomatoes, bush beans, and peppers need more space and produce over a long season.
• You must plant vegetables that are costly to buy at the market. Broccoli is one of the more expensive vegetables that can be grown in most home gardens.
• You can grow different kinds of vegetables to put more variety into your diet.
• You must also grow vegetables that your family likes to eat.

1. Location of vegetables in garden

You need to arrange vegetables in a way that makes the most efficient use of the space as well as light. Tall vegetables like okra, corn and tomatoes can be grown on one side (preferably at the north) of the garden where they won’t shade short-length vegetables like bush beans. You can also divide vegetables according to maturity. You should also plant small, fast-maturing vegetables between the big ones. If possible plant vine crops near a fence. Make a rough sketch on paper to show the location and spacing of vegetables in the garden.

1. Time for plantation

Vegetables in general are divided into two groups based on season i.e. warm season and cool season. Cool-season crops can tolerate lower temperatures so you can plant them before the soil gets warm in the spring. They can also be planted in late summer to yield after the first frost in the fall. Whereas, warm-season crops cannot bear frostiness, it will not grow when the soil temperature is cool so it must be planted after the last frost in the spring and early enough to mature before frost in the fall.

1. Keep a Record

Finally, keep a record of each and everything you do in your home garden as it will help you in the next planting season. This indeed is one of the most important ways of improving your gardening – all you need is to pay proper attention to how the plants grow and note down your successes and failures in the garden notebook.

Here are few vegetables that you can grow in the beginning:
• Tomatoes
• Cabbage
• Bush beans
• Lettuce
• Beets
• Carrots
• Chard
• Radishes