Hank Gordon asked:


Having a vegetable garden is a great asset to your live, with the right vegetable garden design and the right soil you can grow your own healthy and delicious vegetables for your self and your family. But how do you determine what kind of soil you have and do you need to base your vegetable garden design to these findings?

A vegetable garden takes a lot of effort and you need to make sure what kind of soil you have before you start planning and creating your first vegetable garden design.

You Need The Right Soil for a Successful Vegetable Garden Design

To grow vegetables you need good soil and you can define soil in roughly three types. The first and best type of soil to grow vegetables in is loam. This type is rich of humus, dark, crumbly and soft. It holds water but it also allows for good drainage. This type is an organic matter build up from all kind of living plants, fungus and other living things that have died, decomposed and have returned to the ground. It is also very easy to dig. In this type of soil your veggies will grow like crazy. So start making that vegetable garden design, you don’t need to do anything to enhance this type of soil.

The next type of garden dirt is clay, this is not as rich as loam and needs a bit of work. Clay consists of very tiny particles and these stick together which causes real poor drainage. You can enhance the clay by mixing it with sand, peat moss, bone meal and other soil nutrients. Mixed together makes the clay suitable for vegetable garden design.

The last soil type is sand, this is the opposite of clay because the structure is loose and much larger partials. This means the dirt is dry and poor, but with some work and adding some soil nutrients, you can make it definitely good enough to start with your vegetable garden design.
It is likely that your garden is a combination of the these three basic types. There are kits you can buy that test the dirt and it tells you what to add to enhance the soil. You can also ask a nurseryman for some exact advice before you start with your vegetable garden design.

Prepare the land for your vegetable garden design

Whatever soil you have you will only grow good vegetables and fruits if it is properly prepared. The best way to do this is in the autumn or early winter. You need to make sure that the soil is thoroughly spaded and turned to about two spades deep. You can work some (organic) fertilizer in to the ground and during winter the moisture can properly sink in. This will improve the condition of the soil tremendously.

During winter you can start drawing your vegetable garden design and add in all the vegetables and fruits you want to grow. You can dig in to books instead of the ground and get some real knowledge about the growing methods and the soil type the many different vegetables need to be very productive.

When you add this knowledge to your vegetable garden design you will have a great time when harvest time comes.

Lanny Hintz asked:


Now wouldn’t it be more fulfilling to eat vegetables that come from your very own garden? It feels great knowing that your very own hands have helped grow the vegetables that are in your salad or dish. We have to bear in mind though that growing vegetables is not easy and can sometimes be downright frustrating. But with a lot of patience and hard work you’ll soon be tasting the fruits of your hard labor.

In growing vegetables it is important that the seeds have been properly planted. You have to ensure that the soil is moist and rich in nutrients to help your seeds grow. The seeds must not be planted in loosely packed soil so as to prevent having air spaces that would tend to dry or shrivel the tiny roots once it starts to grow. It is vital that the soil touches the seed to enable it to take root immediately when it starts to germinate.

It is a must for you to know the different needs of the different types and kinds of vegetable that you may be growing. Each vegetable requires different spaces for it to grow and different depths for it to be planted on. Knowing information like these is important so that your vegetables get the right amount of care and tending. Some plants would require having much more water than others so you should try to separate them. When you plant vegetables, you can’t expect all of the seeds to develop so heavy seeding is quite alright. To help your vegetables grow beautifully, fertilize the land or better yet sprinkle some food for your plants.

Now, that you have started to grow your vegetables you need to undertake measures to make sure that your vegetable garden lasts long. Water them regularly and consistently check that they are in good shape to make certain that they will continue to produce and bear fruit. If you encounter any problems, take the necessary action or preventive measures. One of the things that you should avoid doing is to leave your vegetables to over ripen. Harvest them so that your plants will continue to produce. When plants go to seed they stop producing.

If you see any signs of weeds, weed them out. Weeds are one of the pests that could choke your plants since these weeds compete with them for water and nutrients in the soil. Vegetable plants have a life span so consider planting in intervals so that you have new ones to replace the early ones that may have reached their end in producing.

Abhishek Agarwal asked:


Vegetable gardening at home signifies many things to many individuals – for quite a few people it may be financially prudent to cultivate their own vegetable whereas for many others it is a pleasurable pursuit to grow vegetables. You might be interested in knowing whether your soil is just right for cultivating vegetables. Rest assured that even the most awful soil could be renewed and transformed to produce a decent crop. Four vital aspects need to be committed to memory regarding gardening in general and vegetable gardening at home in particular. To grow and harvest healthy vegetables you should give due consideration to the soil conditions.

1. Every garden requires nutrients and enriched soil contains essential plant elements.

2. Appropriate Cultivation

3. Right Temperature

4. Proper Moisture

In case you are planning to start a vegetable garden at home, then you should be aware that the soil does not continue to stay enriched naturally but rather plants tend to drain the soil of its natural resources. Regular cultivation is necessary for keeping the soil rich as it aids in converting the raw food for the plants into accessible forms of food. A gardener enthusiastic about setting up a home vegetable garden should regularly put in plant food and manure into the soil from external supplies. The gardener should also ascertain the garden spot that receives the maximum sunlight, which in turn indicates a very high temperature in this area. All plants, whether they are trees, vegetables, flowers or fruits require warm sunshine if they need to grow and flourish. Lastly, every garden requires lots of moisture and hence there should be frequent watering to make certain moisture seeps down to the plant roots.

Establishing a successful home vegetable garden calls for locating the ideal place for raising vegetables, having soil that is properly turned over, enriched with nutrients and which is open to plenty of sunlight and heat and has proper drainage. In the first place, you should make up your mind what you wish to grow and where would be the location. Annual plants like rhubarbs, for instance, should be grown together at one corner of the vegetable garden. Vegetables like onions and carrots that are available throughout the season should be planted together. According to the space remaining, you can grow other crops like lettuce or peas. Study garden books for guidelines on sowing seeds and so on and record it against your selected vegetables. In this case, you need not spend countless hours trying to get the necessary information.

If you have a tiny space at your disposal, then your vegetable garden will adopt an intensive approach where the plants are packed densely together. Vegetables that grow best in such conditions are asparagus, beet cauliflower, kale, lettuce, carrots, Swiss chard cabbage, and tomatoes. The optimum season for cultivating vegetables is late in the spring, which produces a yield in the summer season even though beet, cauliflower, and carrots can be sown in June and harvested in October or November.

Elizabeth T James asked:


If you are going to take up a new hobby, you might as well do something that is productive as well as fun. One such activity is vegetable gardening. Vegetable gardening is a very relaxing activity that millions of people love to do. There is also a certain pride when you know that you can grow your own fruits and vegetables right from your own backyard. In order to become a successful vegetable gardener, though, you must have a specific plan involving the kinds of plants you want in your garden, as well as the placement of these plants.

Basic Requirements for Vegetable Gardening

A flat, level surface is necessary for vegetable gardening to ensure that the water will flow evenly, giving sufficient nourishment to all the plants in your garden. If you have an uneven terrain, some of your plants may drown while others might be dehydrated. Good soil is essential as well so make sure that you buy quality gIf you are going to take up a new hobby, you might as well do something that is productive as well as fun. One such activity is vegetable gardening. Vegetable gardening is a very relaxing activity that millions of people love to do. There is also a certain pride when you know that you can grow your own fruits and vegetables right from your own backyard. In order to become a successful vegetable gardener, though, you must have a specific plan involving the kinds of plants you want in your garden, as well as the placement of these plants.

Basic Requirements for Vegetable Gardening

A flat, level surface is necessary for vegetable gardening to ensure that the water will flow evenly, giving sufficient nourishment to all the plants in your garden. If you have an uneven terrain, some of your plants may drown while others might be dehydrated. Good soil is essential as well so make sure that you buy quality garden soil that is packed with sufficient minerals for the healthy growth of your vegetables.

Choosing the type of vegetables you want to plant in your garden is the fun part. There are hundreds of vegetables you can choose from, but make sure the ones you pick are well adapted to the particular environment and climate in your area. Most vegetables are actually very easy to cultivate if you provide them all their growth requirements.

Planning is very important for the success of your vegetable gardening venture. You need to at least have a general idea of where you want to place your different vegetables in relation to each other. Using pots is a good idea so you can rearrange your garden if the need arises. Of course, your options will be limited if you have a small garden space but if you have a large area to work with, your gardening options are limitless.

One more important element that all vegetable gardeners find very important is the elimination and prevention of garden pests. There are many organic pesticides that you can use to solve this problem without inflicting any damage to your crops.

If you have a little more open space at home, you can go for regular home vegetable gardening as well. This is a more structured type of gardening in which you can lay out your garden more systematically than when you are using random containers.

If you live in a cramped apartment or high-rise condominium where there is no backyard to plant in, you have to use your creativity in order to create your own indoor garden. You can use any kind of containers to serve as an improvised garden plot and place this near a window in order to get as much sunlight as possible.

When it comes to productive hobbies, nothing can be better than vegetable gardening. Not only will vegetable gardening provide you with fresh vegetables to serve your family, but it also has therapeutic and relaxing effects on your body and mind. Regardless of what kind of vegetable gardening you choose, planting your own vegetables will definitely be much healthier and cheaper than purchasing them from the local grocery store.arden soil that is packed with sufficient minerals for the healthy growth of your vegetables.

Choosing the type of vegetables you want to plant in your garden is the fun part. There are hundreds of vegetables you can choose from, but make sure the ones you pick are well adapted to the particular environment and climate in your area. Most vegetables are actually very easy to cultivate if you provide them all their growth requirements.

Planning is very important for the success of your vegetable gardening venture. You need to at least have a general idea of where you want to place your different vegetables in relation to each other. Using pots is a good idea so you can rearrange your garden if the need arises. Of course, your options will be limited if you have a small garden space but if you have a large area to work with, your gardening options are limitless.

One more important element that all vegetable gardeners find very important is the elimination and prevention of garden pests. There are many organic pesticides that you can use to solve this problem without inflicting any damage to your crops.

If you live in a cramped apartment or high-rise condominium where there is no backyard to plant in, you have to use your creativity in order to create your own indoor garden. You can use any kind of containers to serve as an improvised garden plot and place this near a window in order to get as much sunlight as possible.

When it comes to productive hobbies, nothing can be better than vegetable gardening. Not only will vegetable gardening provide you with fresh vegetables to serve your family, but it also has therapeutic and relaxing effects on your body and mind.

Jesse Akre asked:

If you’re itching to get your green thumb on, but want to do more than grow flowers, you should consider your own vegetable and fruit gardens. You may be thinking your backyard doesn’t have good enough soil to grow great vegetables and fruits. That may be true, but you still don’t have to give up. Instead, create a better yard, through garden planters.

You don’t want to pay a fortune to add layers of right topsoil to your whole yard when you really only need the richer soil in the specific places where the plants are going to be growing. You may not have done the research before, but it could be hundreds to thousands of dollars to have a complete layer of topsoil placed on your yard. So, why not just create smaller rich planting venues with garden planters?

Instead of trying to prepare a whole yard, you can decide where you want your garden to grow and put garden planters in the right formation. Then fill them with potting soil or topsoil that the plants will thrive in, and plant away.

If you really want to dress up your garden area, you can choose some of the more decorative garden planters out there. Some can go with the theme of your yard, being made to look like a number of animals outdoor scenery pieces that blend in with your natural backyard look. Others will look like they are finely sculpted pieces of stone that were meant to be in a statuary.

Not everyone wants that look through. Some want it to look like they planted their back yard with a very traditional and simple garden. Even if you don’t want to see the garden planters, you can still have them in the yard; you just need to make sure they are not visible. In this case you will want to get the simple and economical garden planters and bury them in the backyard, with the top right at the surface of the ground. Then you still have the same rich ground to plant in, but no evidence.

Another beneficial part of using garden planters is that you can be the envy of the neighborhood by having the first harvestable garden on the block. While they will think you put out a lot of money to have full grown plants imported, so you could drop them in the ground as soon as it was ready, you will know that you really started some of those garden planters early on in the pantry or another room in the house. It’s also nice to know that when you have a desire to do a little gardening that even Mother Nature and her freezing fury can’t stop you, you just need to relocate the already growing plants when the outside temperature is ready for them.

With the help of garden planters you’ll be able to enjoy gardening all year round and also reap the rewards of fresh fruits and vegetables on your dinner table.

Kenh Jones asked:


As the proud owner of a tiny vegetable plot one of the easiest ways to increase my plot is to grow vegetables in containers. Container vegetable gardening has become very popular to the point the seed companies now have special varieties for growing vegetables in containers. You cannot always use just any plants because some varieties like a wide spread root system while others grow perfectly well with a smaller root set.

This year I tried to grow sweet peppers in some flower pots but I found them pot bound and dying. I transferred them to the plot and within 2 weeks they were growing and much healthier.

Many people actually are constantly on the lookout for a good way to grow their own vegetables even when space is at a premium. Moreover, these people also wish to avoid purchasing vegetables that contain non-organic matter and they need to also find a way to avoid paying for highly costly organic foods.

An Ideal Solution

With problems such as E. coli to worry about as well, growing vegetables at home has now almost become a necessity and so, it is not surprising to find that container vegetable gardening offers an ideal solution to those who have limited space to grow their vegetables at home. Today, almost everything that we consume is a product of mass production which means that the vegetables that we are eating will have been touched by many hands which in turn can lead to these vegetables becoming unsafe to consume.

Even with little space in which to grow vegetables at home, thanks to container vegetable gardening it has now become possible to grow sufficient quantities of vegetables to feed your family on a daily basis. Container vegetable gardening also is advantageous to you because you can grow your vegetables on a patio or even a deck and even growing your vegetables indoors is possible as long as you use indoor grow lights.

Not all vegetables lend them well to container vegetable gardening, and so you may have to especially avoid planting vegetables that are on the larger size such as corn which grows to such heights that it would require using very heavy as well as large pots. Other vegetables that won’t lend them well to container vegetable gardening include large melons and even certain kinds of squashes and tomatoes that are better off being grown in larger gardens.

Lettuce and spinach as well as vegetables with plenty of leaves on them are what you need to consider for container vegetable gardening as these do well when grown in containers. To get the most out of container vegetable gardening you can also choose to plant small tomatoes of which salad tomatoes, plum tomatoes and cherry tomatoes are good examples.

Besides choosing an appropriate vegetable for your container vegetable gardening, you also will need to worry about the proper size of the container and typically, you need to choose a container that should at least be six inches in depth and which is also at least ten to twelve inches wide.

Some people – myself included – find the vegetable plants attractive in themselves. They are to my mind far more interesting because they produce something you can eat but still look good as a plant. Lettuce and cabbages can be very decorative

Another option worth exploring is home vegetable gardening, which contrary to popular conception need not make your home look unsightly. Provided that you plan it thoroughly and plant your vegetables carefully, home vegetable gardens can look very pretty and can add harmony to the home rather than make it look ugly.

The bottom line is that container vegetable gardening is a good option for anyone that is interested in eating food that does not contain excess of non-organic matter and who wishes to save on costs of buying expensive mass-produced vegetables.