Planning and planting a successful vegetable garden

There is NOTHING better than fresh vegetables picked straight from your own garden - not too mention the extreme satisfaction of serving up meals made with vegetables that you grew in your own backyard garden. Do you agree?

Planning your Vegetable Garden

Planning is a must as there are many factors that can affect the success and manageability of your vegetable garden as well as your enjoyment of it. Planning and Designing your garden can be a lot of fun. It’s something you can do during those boring, cold winter months (assuming you have boring, cold winter months - - we’re in Wisconsin - so that part is a given).

Grab a piece of graph paper and start plotting your layout. It’s a very practical thing to do. It makes seed ordering more efficient because you know exactly what you need instead of guessing. It aids in remembering what was planted where so that you can make certain to do rotation planting (This is important to minimize garden pest problems and to switch plants using different nutrients from the soil). Also, the plan makes a good old point of reference for future gardens. I make notes on my plan of what went right, what went wrong.

Even better? Do it up on a computer like I did below:

**** = various Herbs

You can plant the herbs in the garden corners and at the very front for easy access.

Putting some extra effort into preparing your beds before planting will save you a lot of time and effort in the future. Dig the bed up to break up compacted soil (this will help with drainage) and removing rocks and weeds as you go. Try to pull out as much of the weed roots as possible so that they will not come back to haunt you later. This is also a good time to amend your soil.

There are some plants that, when planted close together, will benefit each other. Likewise, there are certain combinations of plants that will inhibit the growth of one or both types of plants. Here are a few combinations to avoid:

• Potatoes – inhibit growth of tomatoes and squash
• Beans – inhibit growth of onions
• Broccoli – inhibits growth of tomatoes
• Carrots – inhibit growth of dill

This isn’t to say that you can’t grow these plants together in the same garden, just don’t grow them right next to each other.

Consistent watering of your vegetables will produce fantastic results.

Good luck and let us know what works best for you!