Vegetable gardening offers a variety of benefits that will enrich your life in so many ways! In addition to enhancing mealtime with fresh homegrown vegetables that you grew yourself, tending the garden is great for the body. It gets you outside in the fresh air and sunshine where you can get a little closer to nature while enjoying the simple things in life.
It’s important to grow food, not lawns!
The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible
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Growing a vegetable garden is also great exercise. Tending to and harvesting the plants require a considerable amount of bending and stooping that can help you stay in shape. It’s a great way to clear your head, which enhances mental clarity while improving your self-esteem. After all, sitting down and enjoying the delicious foods you grew yourself is very rewarding.
However, growing a vegetable garden is a lot of work. It takes planning and preparation to ensure your garden thrives but don’t let that deter you from getting started.
All you need is a little guidance and a few great ideas to help you get started and that is exactly what we have to offer.
The first step in growing a garden involves choosing a location for your plants. Your garden should be close to a water source and have good drainage to prevent standing water from rotting your plants. The location should also allow your plants to receive several hours of direct sunlight to help keep them healthy.
Here, you’ll find some great garden layout ideas and raised gardening plans to help you choose the perfect spot and options for your garden.
You’ll also discover some great tips on which vegetables grow best in the spring, along with tips on how to grow vegetables such as cucumbers, beets, basil, broccoli, and spinach. You can even find information on what to do if you end up with too many tomatoes to eat, so nothing goes to waste.
This is an excellent place to learn about composting and how it benefits your garden. Discover how trench composting works or learn how to compost with worms to help your vegetables grow healthy and thrive.
Pests are a common problem that all gardeners small and large dread. They can do a lot of damage to the vegetables you worked so hard to grow but don’t worry. Here, you can get some great tips on how to get pests such as slugs, snails, caterpillars and hornworms out of your garden without using harsh chemicals.
You can also learn how to protect your garden from animals such as deer, cats, dogs, moles, squirrels and birds that can destroy it in a few short days.
Not having enough space is another problem that keeps many people from enjoying the benefits of vegetable gardening. If you’re dealing with limited space, this is a great place to gather tips and ideas for small space gardening. Learn how vertical gardening works or how to grow a living wall. You can also discover which vegetables grow best in small gardens or learn how and where to grow vegetables indoors for the best results.
Freshly picked bell peppers add a welcome crunch and color variety to summer dishes such as salads, salsas, and kebabs. Wouldn’t it be great if this summer you could enjoy your own homegrown sweet bell peppers? Learn how to grow bell peppers with this quick and easy guide. Growing bell peppers is a fun and …
I have discovered that garlic is a wonderfully easy and enormously satisfying crop to grow. After planting and mulching my softneck garlic cloves in early November, I mostly ignore that section of the garden until the summer harvest time. And then the fun begins: loosening the soil with a digging fork, giving each stalk a …
Eggplant stars in a wide range of international dishes, from eggplant parmesan to moussaka, and it can even be grilled for a fun addition to a summer cookout. Although technically a short-lived perennial, eggplants are almost always grown as an annual. The beautiful purple fruits can be a bit tricky to grow in the vegetable …
If you try to make the most of your plants and eat all that you can of a harvest, you might be wondering, “Are broccoli flowers edible?” It’s a great question, so let’s explore the answer. If you’re a broccoli lover, you may already know about the many ways to prepare and eat this veggie. …
Cool, crunchy cucumbers are great in salads, pickled, or even eaten plain with a little salt (or is that just me?). These wonderful summer veggies can grow well in all sizes of vegetable gardens, since proper trellising means they take up very little horizontal space. In addition to providing the proper growing conditions, choose some …
If you’re wondering what to do with spinach, you’re in luck. I’ve compiled some of my favorite ideas for using spinach in the kitchen. My favorite is fresh, raw spinach in a salad, but that can get boring for a lot of people, so let’s look at some other ways to use it. Spinach is …
Late summer tastes like heirloom tomatoes, watermelon, and sweetcorn. Corn is a popular vegetable garden crop, though pests can make it difficult to grow. Whether you’re trying to fit many plants into a small space or would like to interplant for the numerous benefits companion planting provides, it is helpful to know which plants get …
If you’ve been wondering what to do with green tomatoes, you’re in luck! While most people know what to do with the famous red tomato, you may be struggling with your green ones. When your tomato plants start to mature, the fruit turns red. However, when the weather turns cold, you may find yourself with …
Sweet and tangy – are you wondering what to do with beets? This vegetable is actually quite versatile. The bright pink root vegetable is very good for you, but it doesn’t get as much attention as it probably should. One reason for this is that people don’t know how to cook them to make them …
Are you asking yourself what to do with too much zucchini? If your bounty has been plenty this season, don’t worry. We have some great ideas to help you ensure nothing goes to waste! Too much zucchini? Is there such a thing? Well, if you love it, then it may be hard to believe, but …
