Growing Spaces: Vegetable Gardens

This 37-page guide to growing spaces will teach you how to create your own vegetable patch, including:

First, create a list of vegetables that you and your family like.

Second, consider your space. You can create a variety of different growing spaces, including a conventional or organic garden, a raised bed or an urban container garden. Lay out a plan for vegetable placement. Consider raising early season, mid-season and late-season vegetables. Are you looking for fresh vegetables, canning and freezing, or a variety of both? Learn how to garden with a plan!

Third, the following vegetables are better planted as transplants: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cauliflower, beets, lettuce and onions. Remember that melons, cucumbers and squash are the most difficult to transplant due to poor uptake of water from a limited root system.

Fourth, become familiar with different seed-starting methods, including direct seeding.

Fifth, stay on top of pests and learn to control them! Use the least toxic insecticide, either organic or conventional, but do not bother with a fungicide.

Sixth, consider gardening with aids. Use hybrids for better productivity and disease resistance, geotextile tunnels are excellent for temperature extremes, blossom-set spray yields superior fruit and drip irrigation on a timer allows for uniform soil moisture.

Seventh, learn which plants enjoy companions, for example, beans like celery and cucumbers.

Eighth, learn different organic practices. Incorporate composed plant and animal residues annual. Consider using organic teas as a source of fertilizer. Have a zero-tolerance for weeds, diseased plants or insect pests.

Ninth, be creative with your garden! Cages can be used with containers to support such crops as tomatoes, cucumbers and pole beans. A potato bag is a unique way to grow potatoes.

Tenth, learn to garden with perennial crops like rhubarb and asparagus.

This superb guide to growing spaces will help prepare you for your springtime garden!