Vegetable Gardening Tips For The Beginner

Here are some tips to make planting and growing your vegetable garden easier to optimize your garden's yield and produce.
Gardening in a Small Space
Using space efficiently in a small garden takes a little extra planning. First, try to plant space-efficient and continuous-bearing varieties. Study seed catalogs and seed packets which highlight varieties with compact growth habits and good yields.
Practice succession planting to get more than one crop in the same space. Plant an early spring crop of peas, for example, and once they’re harvested, dig the vines under and plant a crop of another variety. Practice interplanting – planting two or more crops together that have different growth habits, and can therefore be planted closely together without competing for sun, water, or nutrients. Tomatoes, peppers, and basil are a good combination. Lettuce and radishes also work well interplanted.

Vegetables for the Beginning Gardener
If you’re a beginning gardener, start small. Vegetables that are good for the first-time gardener include bush beans, loose-leaf lettuce, onions, peas, peppers, summer squash, Swiss chard, and tomatoes. Plant onions from onion sets (which are immature onion bulbs) and plant tomatoes and peppers from purchased seedlings. Peas and beans are easily grown from seed, as are summer squash and Swiss chard.


Good Neighbors
Which vegetables make good neighbors, and which don’t? Companion planting is planting vegetables together that help each other grow and avoiding planting vegetables together that hinder each other’s growth. While the veracity of claims for many companion pairings may be anecdotal, research proves many common companion-planting practices are beneficial.


Timesaving Planting Ideas
For planting seeds, lay out a straight row using a garden reel – a piece of garden twine attached to two stakes. Put the stake in the ground at one end of the row, unreel the twine, and insert the other stake at the end of the row. To lay out a garden bed, use a similar technique, marking the square or rectangular perimeter of the bed using four stakes and twine.

An easy way to make a furrow for planting seeds is to lay down the handle of your iron rake or hoe and press it into the ground. For setting out transplants, use a yardstick and mark common planting distances with a permanent marker.
Why not give some of these suggestions a try and make your gardening life easier? Over time you’re sure to come up with a few planting tips of your own!