Thinking of growing vegetables? Veggie gardening isn’t hard, but if you’re a newbie, you’ll want to get a handle on some best practices before you get started. You’ll be eating fresh carrots and tomatoes before you know it!
Swipe through to get 7 quick tips about how to grow an incredible vegetable garden.
Almost all vegetable plants need full sun, so choose a site for your veggie garden that gets plenty of sunlight. Some plants like spinach and lettuce may do ok in a shadier spot, but tomatoes and peppers need at least 6 hours of full sun each day.
Many vegetables are heavy feeders, meaning they need nutrient-rich soil. If you’re just clearing out a patch of grass to create a vegetable plot, odds are you’ll need to mix some compost into the dirt or other material high in nutrients, such as an organic fertilizer
If you have limited yard space, consider planting vegetable plants in containers. Several varieties of tomatoes and beans, for example, have compact bush forms that do well in large pots. If your outdoor space consists of just a balcony, you can still harvest fresh veggies all summer long.
If your family hates eggplant, don’t plant it. Maybe they like zucchini better, so add some of those to the mix. Chili peppers are really easy to grow, but will you really eat the number of chilis produced by five plants? Tomatoes are easy to grow and are much more versatile that other veggies.
Even if you get summer rains, you’ll probably need to supplement with water from a hose. Vegetable plants are not drought-tolerant, for the most part. Setting up a soaker hose irrigation system would be optimal, but if nothing else, be sure your veggie plot is within reach of a hose.
You can plant seeds or you can go to a garden center and get small plants that give you a head start. Beginning gardeners might have better luck planting small plants that get you on your way faster.
Neem oil is a terrific natural pesticide and fungicide, so it’s always good to have a spray bottle of it on hand. It’s effective against tomato hornworms, corn earworms, aphids and whiteflies. Neem oil also controls common mildews that can grow on plants.
Photography: Amazon