Planning Your Home Vegetable Garden

Growing a home vegetable garden offers a family several benefits. Reducing food expenses from needing to buy less, a chance to get out in the sunshine, and a way to give to neighbors and family. Before you begin planting your home vegetable garden, you need to plan what you will do. No garden is complete without effort, time, and forethought.

Location of Your Home Garden

The first thing gardeners need to consider if where around the home they will plant. Location is very important to vegetable gardens. You need to find a space that will get an average of six hours sunlight each day. It should also be near a water source to make watering easier for you, however also look for an area that drains easily to prevent excess water from pooling and drowning your plants.

Soil is very important for home gardens. The area that you choose to grow a garden in needs to have good soil for growing plants. The soil needs to be free of large rocks, silt, and garbage. Dark, crumbling soil is the best for growing a garden in. You can improve your soil by adding compost to it.

What Vegetables Should You Plant

The types of vegetables you plan to grow in your home garden need to be determined next. Make a list of the vegetables that you family loves to eat. This list will help you to plan what you will grow in your home garden. Once you have a list prepared, begin to research each plant. Make notes about what each one will need to grow successfully, what the typical yield is, and how large the full sized plants will become. You can skip any vegetables that will not grow well in your area or that you do not have enough room for in your home garden.

Plan a Garden Arrangement

Once you know where your home garden will be and what vegetables you plan to plant, it is time to plan the arrangement of your garden. Some plants grow well near each other, some do not. There are simple tips to use when planning where your vegetables will be in your garden.

• Plant taller vegetables on the northern side of your garden, the shortest plants on the southern side. This will make sure taller plants do not steal sunshine from shorter ones.
• Plant vining and spreading vegetables, such as squash and cucumbers, near the edges of your garden space. Keeping them on the edges will let them spread out without taking space from other plants.
• Grow vegetables that work well together. This is called companion planting. There are several good companion charts that can be used to determine what vegetables help and hurt each other.

With proper planning anyone can grow vegetables in their own home garden.