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.
If you decided to join the ever-popular urban farming movement, but your garden gets hardly any sun, don’t worry. I did some research and I share what vegetables grow in the shade. The vegetables most likely to grow well in shade are leafy greens, such as lettuce, spinach, and kale. Other vegetables that don’t need …
My attempts at growing brassicas, or members of the cabbage family, have been all but thwarted by pests like cabbage loopers, cabbageworms, and harlequin beetles. And when the ravaged plants have finally had time to recover and begin producing, they bolt instead, because the summer heat has set in. While any of a slew of …
Beets are a wonderful crop to grow for many reasons. These vegetables are packed with nutrients, and you can harvest some of the leafy greens while you wait for the vibrant, fleshy roots to fully mature. To ensure healthy plants both above and below the soil, grow one or two companion plants for beets nearby. …
If you’re at all familiar with companion planting, you have likely heard that carrots love tomatoes. But why is that? And what other plants do carrots love? Keep reading to learn the answers to these questions in our list of the best companion plants for carrots. Because not all plants get along well together, this …
Beans are one of my favorite garden vegetables. They are so rewarding and easy to grow, and I appreciate the rhythmic work of picking and snapping them (though by summer’s end I’m tired of the work!). In winter, I can pull out a bag of frozen beans or a jar of dilly beans and enjoy …
Is onion a vegetable? Anyone who’s ever cooked before has first-hand experienced the difference an onion can make to a dish, although it is not the most convenient to cut and prepare. However, the onion bulb has often been questioned regarding its authenticity as a vegetable, and with good reason. There are various arguments regarding …
Basil is a delicious herb and one of the easiest to grow. Sprinkle a few seeds in the garden and enjoy homemade pesto, flavorful soups, pasta, focaccia, and more all summer, and even throughout the year (pesto freezes wonderfully!). Sprinkle those seeds in the right places, and you’ll also enjoy benefits from and to basil …
Companion planting with perennials like asparagus can seem a bit daunting at first since they occupy a permanent space in the garden. However, interplanting perennials (and mixing in a few annuals, too) can be very rewarding. Check out the tips below on the best companion plants for asparagus, as well as which plants should be …
In spring, arugula is one of the first vegetables to show up at the farmer’s market. This peppery green contains lots of vitamins and adds a pleasant bite to salads. If you would like to start growing this wonderfully healthy vegetable in your garden, plant it with some of the best companion plants for arugula …
Companion planting offers numerous benefits to the home gardener, whether practiced in the vegetable garden, herb garden, or even flower beds. If you are just getting started with this practice, the numerous possible plant combinations can seem impossibly overwhelming. This companion planting guide breaks down the basic details about companion planting and includes a list …
