Organic gardening is growing plants using vegetable or animal-based fertilizers in place of the synthetically made ones.

It is also about doing pest control naturally too without using the commercial insecticides. The pest control is a combination of beneficial insects and natural solutions to keep pests away without spraying harmful chemicals.

• Growing organically might be becoming more popular today, but it has actually been around since the beginning of gardening. Chemical fertilizers did not come on the scene until the 1840s. Farming and gardening since then has been more chemically based than organically based. In recent times though it has been found that all these chemicals are harming our environment, they are also used in greenhouses. It is now being recommended that you return to using organic fertilizers for the health of your soil and the environment.

There are many benefits to gardening organically:

The food that is grown this way has more nutrients and vitamins in them to help one fight off diseases. You are also not ingesting as many chemicals eating organically-grown food. No growth hormone, pesticides, chemical fertilizers and no added preservatives or flavoring are used either.

• Studies have proven that children have a much lower level in pesticides in their systems when they eat organic foods compared to food grown using other methods. Food grown organically gets delivered to the market with all of its nutrients intake. This food taste much better too.

Doing gardening is much more enjoyable to do organically too.

• You don’t have to protect yourself while working with dangerous chemicals. This makes gardening much more satisfying to do. It is a great way to relax or get your daily exercise too. Gardening can even be a type of therapy for people to become more emotionally fit along with improving the overall fitness of the body. Any regular physical activity including gardening lowers your risk for obesity, certain types of diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, heart disease, and stroke.

• Gardening organically can bring out your inner child. Remember your childhood when you played in the sandbox or made mud pies in the rain? Digging in the dirt and planting flowers or vegetables give you this same fun feeling that you had as a child.

Organic gardening is no more expensive to do than any other gardening method:

• If you are buying your fertilizers both types cost about the same. But if you do your own composting of you kitchen and garden scraps this can cut down on how much fertilizers are needed.

• Through the use of beneficial bugs the pesticides will not be needed as much and possibly eliminated all together. This is a natural way to control many garden pests. Many times just planting the right plants enables the plants to fight off pests, also plant or use natural elements that fight off the pest too, such as cucumber peels keep ants away.

There are many methods for gardening available today.

• Not all of the methods use the synthetic or chemical fertilizers and pesticides. You can work in harmony with nature and have a luscious garden, by doing it organically.

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A raised vegetable garden is not just a pretty ornament to make your garden look nice – they can produce an endless supply of healthy food with very little time. In this article I want to point out just how much time you save with a raised garden as opposed to traditional gardening techniques.

It is very common to see gardeners planting their veggies in long lines about 3 feet apart. However, this method requires far, far more time than necessary. Why? The answer is digging and weeding.

It’s not that most people are too lazy to tend to their gardens, but that they have so much going on in their lives already to have the time or energy for growing vegetables. Many times it’s only when the kids have left home that parents have the chance to grow vegetables – which is too bad as I know a secret shortcut….. raised bed gardens.

So why isn’t there a raised vegetable garden in every backyard? Because of tradition. Its just the way it has always been done, and nobody seems to know how much better raised beds are.

Planting in lines has been done for generations and generations, going right back to the agricultural revolution. This layout was first conceived to allow ploughs to be dragged over fields, and a scaled down version was adopted by gardeners. The problem is that for small spaces, this is really not that efficient in terms of both the space usage and the amount of time needed to prepare and maintain the garden.

Digging the ground is something that put off the majority of people who would love to grow vegetables at home. If that isn’t bad enough, you’ve also got to weed the soil. But with a raised vegetable garden, you can avoid these problems completely because the plants are so tightly packed that the weeds are shaded out.

As there are no walk ways put between rows, around four times as much plants can be grown in the same amount of space. This means that you can grow more veggies, or that you can reclaim your garden and build that shed that you previously had no space for.

There are other advantages of raised vegetable gardens such as needing 80% less water, and being able to grow on bad soil, or any surface for that matter. However, the biggest reason for building a raised bed is the huge amount of time saved. It’s no joke that as much as 90% of time spent gardening can be saved. Instead of an hour or two a day, you only need to dedicate a few minutes.

Please click for more information on raised vegetable garden tips.

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• The Basics Of Building A Raised Bed Vegetable Patch (backyardgardeningtips.com)

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Gardening has become more popular over the years into a very interesting hobby for all ages.

More and more children these days spend all their spare time in the garden, usually with their own area of the garden allocated just for them.

Everything you need for your garden can be bought from your local garden centre, and not just plants, seeds and shrubs but also all your garden tools, some even made just for children.

Gardening tools for children range from spades and forks to trowels and even small wheelbarrows and the kids love it, helping their parents in the garden, it gives them a sense of inclusion too.

They even make small greenhouses for them to grow such things as tomatoes and cucumber for example, imagine their enthusiasm if you were to pay them for their produce, they could go out and dig up some vegetables for dinner in exchange for some extra pocket money.

One of the advantages of getting your kids interested in gardening at an early age is that they will often still be as enthusiastic when they are much older, maybe even keeping them off the streets.

People who would like to do some gardening but have not got a garden can apply for an allotment, these have been around for years, it could be as long ago as the 1700s and were initially made available to the poor to grow their own fruit and vegetables to eat.

If you live in a flat you wouldn’t have a garden so you too could apply for an allotment.

The term Kitchen Garden is a part of your garden set aside for growing your own vegetables for your own kitchen cooking.

Usually people will have their lovely lawn or landscaped garden design with flowers and plants they can see from their kitchen window, but often hiding behind a high hedge or garden wall there will be a vegetable garden and probably a greenhouse.

A nice landscaped garden with flowers and shrubs is very nice but you can’t eat flowers, well most of them.

Some people prefer to use the whole garden for growing their own produce, especially these days with the cost of buying food.

If you’re just starting out as a gardener it’s really easy to get started, all you have to do is go to your local garden centre, buy some seeds, plant them and watch them grow.

You can grow most types of vegetables more or less anywhere, you could grow them in a window box or you could have a roof top garden, these are very popular in some parts of the World .

Gardening for food and growing herbs for medicine actually goes back to our prehistory, and then there are the famous hanging gardens of Babylon.

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Tomato gardening is easy, but there are some tricks you can use to further increase the quality of the produce you reap from your tomato crops. First of all, make a decision on the type of tomato plant to make use of.

The old fashioned sweet-type variants are recommended, but some of the newer hybrid varieties are acknowledged to be more resistant  to pests and a range of fungal diseases.

Some cultivated variants are also sweeter and juicier than the rest, while other variants depend on soil type and climatic factors for their over-all quality.

You also have to think about the farming techniques you’re going to use for your tomato plots. Some gardeners pinch out the suckers, while others prefer not to. Choose a good support system for your tomato plants, or you can simply let the plants trail if you have more than enough space.

After you have chosen a type and a plant training style, the next thing to do is decide which fertilizer to apply. Tomatoes need a continual supply of nutrients. This means you have to choose tomato fertilizers that have a good ratio of the three main ingredients, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.

Before buying a fertilizer product, check the label for the NPK proportion. This corresponds to the quantity of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in the fertilizer formula. For instance, a packet with 5-5-5 on it indicates equal proportions of N, P, and K are present, while 5-1-1 means the tomato fertilizer contains five times as much nitrogen as phosphorus and potassium.

Each constituent plays an essential role in the development of your tomato plants. For greener leaves, nitrogen is crucial. For better and on-time flowering and fruiting, you need the right amount of phosphorus. Rooting and root growth can be enhanced by potassium.

If you’re set on going natural all the way, these nutrients are readily available in organic form by making use of fish emulsion. This is a liquid fertilizer created from fish waste and is exceptionally fast acting. The fast release trait is particularly significant for a heavy feeder like tomato. You can apply this organic tomato fertilizer directly on your plants, or you can use the granulated type and just incorporate this in the top soil.

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Many times we buy plants on impulse then find there is nowhere in the garden that really suits them. Before buying plants carefully examine your garden to see how much sun and shade it gets, whether the soil is well drained or waterlogged and whether your aspect is sheltered or windswept. You’ll then be equipped to go and buy the best plants for your situation; shade-loving plants for the sheltered areas, sun-lovers for the warm spots, drought-resistant plants for the parched areas which may be either sunny or shaded, and swamp plants for the poorly-drained parts.

But wait! Test your soil first, to determine the pH level of your soil and what kind of nutrients you need to add, if any. Is the soil acid or alkaline? Most plants prefer soil that is slightly acidic, but there are some that must have alkaline soil to grow.  You can alter the soil’s pH level, but it’s much easier to simply plant for the soil you have.

Now you are ready to plant. Well – almost. Will you plant in groups or singly? If you buy ‘one of everything’ your garden may seem rather spotty. Group plantings are organised, harmonious and you can vary the color for interest.

Before planting out, place your chosen plants around the garden bed in their pots to see how they will look. Re-arrange them until you are satisfied. Grouping plants in sets of threes or fives usually looks better than planting in groups of even numbers. Be sure that you have an interesting combination of colors and textures of plants. Tall plants should go to the back, or the centre if your garden will be viewed equally from all sides. Try to keep your plants away from trees. The roots of trees are fiercely competitive and will steal all the nutrients and moisture meant for your flowers.

The right color scheme is one way to maintain the harmony in your garden. Imagine the color of the flowers when they are in bloom. Some colors may clash with others, but can still be planted side-by-side if they have a different blooming season. Foliage color is also important. Many flower plants have silver, grey or purplish foliage that is just as attractive as the flower. This means that they are still attractive well past the blooming season and so have added value.

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There are lots of challenges to overcome for anyone who tries to create an organic vegetable garden. The process could take several seasons, but when you finally get results you’ll be able to enjoy homegrown veggies that are not only tasty but very healthy too. From a technological point of view, organic gardening is a return to traditions and to the old agricultural practices present in any culture worldwide. Click over here for additional information about starting a vegetable garden .

It is unimportant how large the organic vegetable garden is: it can even range from a few feet on the house roof or balcony to several acres. The first difficulty one may encounter in the attempt to start the cultivation of the plants is the crisis of organic seeds. The thing is that in order to have a real organic vegetable garden, the seeds ought to be free of chemicals or irradiation residues. Therefore, if you can’t find organic seeds in your neighborhood, try on the Internet.

One can think of many advantages to an organic vegetable garden. First of all when there are no pesticides or herbicides used in the plant cultivation, the crops remain unaffected by the chemicals, the soil preserves its quality for several years and the specific fauna will contribute to the regeneration of the garden. Furthermore, the organic vegetable garden has the advantage of covering the needs of the family in a very safe, cheap and easy way. In caseone also runs a farm together with the organic vegetable garden, there are even more benefits to it. You can obtain extra invaluable info about growing vegetables here.

The manure from the animals can be used as a natural fertilizer that makes the crops even more profitable. Moreover, everything one needs for an organic vegetable garden should be available from local stores; the costs are definitely not high and the necessary items come for very decent prices. Don’t ignore the tips available in gardening books because lots of the tradition is lost and we need to revive it. Just a relevant example here: it’s practical to grow beans and corn together; the beans climb up on the corn stocks and you won’t need any sticks at all.

The organic compost, the seeds and the soil will all have a heavy word to say in the development of the organic vegetable garden. Do not neglect any of these aspects and your home enterprise will be both successful and rewarding on the long run. You will gain heaps of additional invaluable info on starting a vegetable garden here.

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Growing your own Halloween pumpkin is it’s own adventure! The end result is your own Jack O lantern creation that you started from a seed!  While most varieties of pumpkins are fairly hardy, there are pointers that can help you produce a giant pumpkin sure to impress your family and friends when Halloween rolls around. Here is what you need to know about growing pumpkins for Halloween:

Starting the seeds. It is crucial to know when to start your seed in order to have fully grown pumpkins by Halloween.  Keep in mind that the earliest pumpkin starts are for Giant Pumpkins that require 150 days or more of growing time. Giant pumpkin growers time their starts for maximum growth in order to produce a world record fruit in time for the fall weigh offs which run from early to mid October. You should note that there is plenty of flexibility on the start date for other varieties. These can be timed to mature from September to October, and can be started indoors or out. While fully mature pumpkins are particularly hardy, new growers should take note that pumpkins are tender annuals. Frost will kill them, and cold weather will stunt their growth. You should keep this in mind when starting your plants. Recommended “ideal” starting dates for your pumpkin plants are as follows:

• Giant Pumpkins:  Start indoors from April 25 to May 15th Set outdoors after the first true leaves form. Provide cold and frost protection.
• Jack-O-Lanterns / Field Pumpkins: Direct sow into the garden from May 15th to June 15th. Start indoors up to two weeks prior to setting outdoors Provide cold and frost protection.
• Miniature Pumpkins: Direct sow into the garden from May 25th to July 1st. Start indoors up to two weeks prior to setting outdoors

How many pumpkins will you get? One pumpkin plant will normally produce three to five pumpkins. Miniature varieties have been known to produce up to a dozen or so. There will usually be several more female fruit, but some of them will not develop for a number of reasons. Keep in mind that if you are growing pumpkins for size and weight (giant pumpkins), you will eventually select one pumpkin and remove the rest from the vine. By doing this, you allow the plant to direct all of it’s energy into growing just that one pumpkin. It should be noted that a small number of growers keep a second fruit on the vine as an “insurance policy” in case disaster strikes the first fruit. You should understand however that this does not preclude the possibility that you can grow enormous pumpkins if you keep more than one on the vine.

Adding weight to your pumpkin. If you so choose you can turn your everyday pumpkin into a giant pumpkin. You will need to fuel the growth of your fruit to produce the biggest pumpkins you have ever seen. Of special note is that in August, you also need to be diligent and guard against insects and plant disease, especially powdery mildew. Here are some additional tips for adding weight to your pumpkins:

• Keep your patch well watered. This is a great way to get your kids involved. Turn over a small amount of soil and see if it is moist several inches down.
• Adding a layer of compost feeds the plant and helps to retain soil moisture. It can also help to keep weeds down.
• Keep in mind that big pumpkins have big appetites. Regular applications of fertilizer will yield the best results. Switch to a fertilizer that is high in potassium to really bump up the weight of your pumpkin.
• Cover the pumpkin vines with garden soil. This will promote secondary root growth, and results in much bigger pumpkins.

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As you begin in making your herb garden, learning about indoor and outdoor plants, being aware of their life cycle is much needed. A plant life cycle diagram can assist you in learning when your plant may flower, when you can breed your species, and when a few types of species should be watered or dehydrated. By researching the life cycle of your plants, you can ensure its longevity. In the case of unique or pricey species, this can aid to guard your investment.

A good plant life cycle diagram will include several aspects. First, it will contain all stages of a plant’s life, from the production of the seed to death. If the plant life cycle diagram is missing any phase of the development of the species you are researching, your chances of properly caring for or breeding your plant will be greatly brought low.

The most basic phases of a plant’s life cycle include the seeds phase, germination phase, the seedling stage, the vegetative stage, the flowering stage and the pollination phasee and death. Depending on the type of specimen that you are learning about, this cycle may not be the same.

Due to the nature of a plant life cycle diagram, it is uncommon that the chart itself will be linear. Expect a web chart that shows how seeds are created within the middle of the life span of a plant. As seeds grow during the flowering or pollination phase of the plant’s life cycle, you should be able to see when the plant seeds. This is particularly vital for those planning to breed specimens such as mints. Cycles will be different depending on the reproductive cycle of the species. As many species can reproduce through duplication or seeding, not every plant life cycle diagram will be equal. As a basic rule that you should follow, the more exotic or rare a plant is, the more detailed its diagram will be to show the full cycle of the specimen.

If you are wanting to breed your specimens, you will want to keep the relevant data on hand. Your primary focus in the plant life cycle diagram will be on the pollination, flowering and seeding of your type of species. In planting your herb garden, all aspects of this, ranging from required temperature changes, watering changes and condition changes to promote reproduction is the most vital.

In making your herb garden, you should be knowledgeable of the reproductive cycle of your specimen, as their upkeep tends to change during this period of life. If you are properly caring for your plant, the reproductive cycle of your plant will be extended. This usually yields lasting and more frequent flowering periods.

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In making your herb garden, if you want to have a very different gardening experience, carnivorous plants are bound to get attention. From the common Venus Flytrap to the Cobra plant, these interesting plants serve several purposes. In regions that have high populations of bugs, it decreases the number of flies or other insects that annoy you. While the benefit is strictly related to the size and species of carnivorous plants that you own, these plants can grant a small level of relief while providing entertainment to adults and children alike.

There are five unique classifications of carnivorous plants. The famous type, the same family that the Venus Flytrap contains, is the snap trap family. Snap traps rely on a mouth that closes in around its victim, where the plant will eat anything it snares.

The second classification are pitfall traps. These traps require victim falling into the plant and being unable to escape. These types undergo constant evolution, as water can pool in the pitchers of the plant as well as the bugs that the plant devours. These plants range from colorful to unattractive, and do not have moving parts like their snap trap counterparts.

Flypaper traps are among some of the most interesting carnivorous plants. These plants secrete a glue which traps and breaks down insects for food. These carnivorous plants should be approached with caution in the residence, as the secretions can cause irritation to the skin.

Bladder traps are quite fascinating. These plants function through the osmosis of water to create a suction within the body of the plant. Once an insect or aquatic species has been trapped within, escape is difficult. Unlike many carnivorous plants, these are more commonly found underwater than above ground. Some classifications of the bladder traps, like the Bladderwort, don’t have roots, which makes them quite a creative addition to your collection in the garden.

Finally, the lobster pot traps are among one of the most odd appearing carnivorous plants that you can buy. These plants survive by giving bugs an easy way to gain entry, but little chance of escaping. In the case of the corkscrew plant, the innards of the plant have downward pointing obstacles and a y-shaped leaf form that halts the escape of its prey. The unusual shapes of lobster pot traps are directly related to their evolution to halt the escape of insects.

For those wanting in borderline species for their herb gardening pots, there are several varieties of plants that do not meet all of the requirements of carnivorous plants, but have sharing characteristics. Such plants include the Brocchinia Roridula and the Martyniaceae species. These types of plants do not have one of the three required aspects, which is to attract, kill and digest prey, to be considered as a proper carnivorous plant.

In making your herb garden, carnivorous plants should be tended where young children and babies cannot reach them. While some of them are relatively non-threatening to people, the consumption of these plants should not be followed, due to the digestive enzymes that the plant utilizes to eat their victim.

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When it comes time to cut firewood for that Christmas fire or do a clean up after a major tropical storm came through nothing comes in more handy than a chainsaw. When it is time to go shopping for a chainsaw, you have two options electric corded, electric cordless or gas powered. Now before start thinking “an electric chainsaw come on now! I need something that breathes fire!” You might think again, unlike in the past when electric chainsaws were a bit underpowered those days are gone. Now days electric saws have more than enough power to handle the bulk of everyday pruning and cutting.

There are a lot of advantages to owning an electric saw. Some of them are lightness. Electric chainsaws are a great deal lighter than their fire breathing cousins the gas powered chainsaws. And if you have a lot of cutting to do, especially over head cutting you’ll really come to appreciated the difference in weight.

Maintenance is another issue. electric chainsaws are much easier to maintain. Just plug them in and you’re good to go. With gas saws they’re just more complex and so there are more parts on them. The more parts you have the more parts there are to break. And let’s not forget the issues with guessing the chainsaw’s temperature and adjusting the choke  on them.

Convenience is another major advantage. No mixing and storing gasoline. No gasoline means you don’t have to worry about spilling it all over your saw. Not to mention the hassles of storing gasoline and going out to buy it. And then there are the problems associated with mistakes mixing the gas and oil mixture. If you don’t get the gas oil ratio right, the saw might not start.

Remington makes fairly good smaller saws that are ideal for light duty jobs like pruning smaller limbs. Remington electric chainsaws aren’t terribly powerful but if all you need to do is some light cutting then they work pretty well and they’re quite affordable. Some are as cheap as .)

But if you need more power than I recommend stepping up to a Makita electric chainsaw. You’ll pay more for this saw – easily twice but they last much longer have more power and are more reliable. There is a pretty good reason why you see them on so many work trucks. The brand name of Makita is associated with rock solid reliabiltiy and high quality.

Buying an electric chainsaw is a great investment when you add up all the advantages that lighter cheaper saws offer.

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There are many ways that you can help the environment and one of them is to plant your own produce. You can to select from lots of many different types of fruits or vegetables that you might want to plant right in your own backyard and one of those little things that interest people is tomato. Growing tomatoes in your backyard not only provide your family with nutritious home-grown tomatoes but you can also extend a helping hand in helping Mother Earth in your own little way. If you want this kind of idea and it is your first time to do so, you can always go to the Internet and find some kind of learning tool like a book guide to help you with your tomato-growing.

I have always been a lover of tomatoes and my greatest weakness is Italian dishes especially pasta with lots and lots of tomato sauce. There are many things that you can enjoy from eating tomatoes or tomato-based meals and drinking tomato juices. They contain lycopene and they can help in preventing cancer and for men like us, it is a good defense against prostate cancer and preventing prostate to become enlarged. But other than that, there is another benefit if you think about growing your own tomatoes and learning some good tomato growing tips- you can sell them for a profit.

That’s right, I have my own garden of tomatoes in my own backyard and this year, I’m actruallyu thinking about trying to sell them to people like my friends, relatives, neighbors and to anybody else and surely, they know that my tomatoes are healthy and organic and free from all chemicals like pesticides and all. I have learned how to grow tomato plants without using any of those and the thing that taught me how is a book guide that I’ve downloaded right through the Internet. It’s a little investment that can really help you earn a lot of revenues and to think that you are helping people adapting a healthier lifestyle through your tomatoes.

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I love gardening magazines that teach me things that are useful to me. I can sit and scan through them for hours at a time, just looking for new and interesting things I just have to learn. They make great gifts, well I like getting them. A cheap way to make some one happy month after month. Buy them a subscription to a gardening magazine.

I used to be able to walk down to the local used books and magazine store and pick up magazines for my hobbies at about a dime a magazine but a couple of years ago they stopped taking magazines and they don’t have any gardening related books either, so that’s when I started looking at getting a couple of garden magazine subscriptions at Amazon.

I really enjoy my Fine Gardening magazine and find so many great articles and examples that make us better backyard gardeners. But that’s only one magazine out of so many. You really need to look through the list and choose the one that works best for you.

I like Amazon for Gardening Magazines because they have a ton of them. So remember yourself and your gardening friends.

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Providing yourself and your family with safe and healthy food from your own organic garden is very popular these days. Some people however, don’t start with this activity because they find it very time consuming. But by using organic seedlings straight from the garden center you make it much easier. Without spending extravagant amounts of money and time. The drawback of normal gardening as a hobby is that the whole process has been a slow and time consuming process. But as in all things in this modern world, time is becoming a major factor in every form of activity and so the instant organic garden was born. The term instant organic gardening is still relatively new but we do know some of the techniques for years in the form of using organic seedlings and plants. this type of vegetable growing is also very suitable for children.

The downside to organic food

The last decade has seen a huge upswing in the demand for organic fruits and vegetables and all organic food stores and most supermarkets stock them. Unfortunately, these items are often brought in from vast distances and the transportation adds to the already huge problem of vehicular pollution. Besides this, these foods are often frozen for transport and this, besides consuming lots of electricity, has a detrimental effect on the foods nutritional value.

The advantages of using organic seedlings

When you use organic seedlings or even organic plants you will create an immediately present garden, it its almost instantly ready to harvest. You do not need to seed and wait before anything is visible. You just buy healthy organic seedlings and plants and you are ready to go. This quick and easy type of gardening is also suitable for children.

The author of this article, Hank Gordon, writes at his website gardeners Info Point. com about Patio Landscape Design and for example the indoor herb garden.

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Are you eager to try your hand at flower gardening or vegetable gardening but a little afraid you’ll fail miserably? Ha, we felt the same way and put it off for many years. When we finally did start gardening we soon found that it wasn’t nearly as scary as we had made it in our minds.

A few helpful gardening tips from a good friend of my wife and we were on our way to being gardeners in our own backyard, finally.

I am happy to tell you that we did pretty good for our first year as beginner gardeners and are looking forward to the next growing season. We have started planning and it’s only the first of January.

Note that I haven’t said anywhere that we didn’t make any mistakes because we did but that didn’t take away from the joy we experienced and next year we will do better and grow even more great produce. We don’t get too worked up over mistakes, we just try not to repeat them.

Now I would like to share some of the gardening tips that others shared with us.

1. Plant Hardiness Zone – Know The Plants That Will Grow Best In Your Area.

Nothing about gardening is more depressing than watching your plants shrivel and die and not knowing why. That’s where my first tip comes in. Knowing what you can grow where you live is important so that you don’t try to grow things that require a very hot dry climate when you live in an area that gets a lot of rain.

It’s good to start with flowers, shrubs, trees and veggies that do well where you live and that’s where knowing the hardiness zone you live in will help. When you purchase plants or seed they should have a tag that tells you the growing conditions and hardiness zone. Stick with plants in your plant hardiness zone and you should do quite well.

Just go to your favorite search engine and type in: plant hardiness zone for [your location]. Once you know the zone you will be able to look up plants for your zone.

Make your gardening experience more enjoyable by know what grows best in your area. Once you have the hang of gardening you can move onto some things that need more attention and maybe even a longer growing season, but that’s for another day.

2. Know The Growing Season Where You Live.

Here we have to deal with frost so it’s important for me to know when the threat of frost is over. Knowing that June 10th is usually the last of the frost threats I can plan my planting around that date.

Knowing when the season is over helps as well because then you have a good idea of how many days you have from the time you plant until your season is done. So, if June 10th is the starting day and Sept. 15th is the last day then you just add up the days and you have a good idea of how long a growing season you have. Approximately that is.

Once you know the number of growing days you have you can check each plant or seed package to see the length of time it takes to grow to harvest. Of course this doesn’t apply to plants that have a very short growing season, like radishes or lettuce.

It may seem strange to say know your growing season but it can be really disheartening when you plant too early only to be hit by a frost that kills all you planted. So know when your area usually is safe from frost. Here we usually say after June 10th but that doesn’t mean you can’t plant and prepare before that.

Using June 10th as an example I would still plant before that but I would protect my plants by covering them at night or by having them in containers and move them in and out of the garden shed until the threat of frost has pasted.

3. Know Where You Will Get The Best Sun For The Summer.

I made some major blunders when we first started growing flowers in our yard. I didn’t pay attention to where the sun was going as spring turned to summer and found a lot of my plants that needed sun light were in the shade after their first month.

Take note of the buildings and trees that may block areas of your yard. Know where the sun is going to be tracking across your yard during the growing season and plan for it. Put the shade loving plants in the path that gets shaded at the hottest time of the day. And of course you will want your sun loving plants to get the most of the sun you have.

I love raspberries and bought two stalks but I put them on the opposite side of the yard than I should have. We still had raspberries but after I moved them to the other side of the yard where they will get the sun we will see if they yield a lot more.

4. Proper Drainage And Soil Preparation.

When we started digging up the spot where our vegetable gardening would go we knew the soil was clay and had very poor drainage. We knew that because ducks would land in our yard like it was a pond. But the area we have our garden is the area we get the most light for the summer and it needs to be there.

We hadn’t started composting at that time so we bought peat moss and topsoil, plenty of it and I started removing the lawn in that area. Then I dug the clay out to about a foot deep and started mixing it with the topsoil and peat moss until it became the garden soil we needed, that would also drain better.

This year we had the most rain we have had in recent history so our little veggie garden got tested beyond anything we thought it would need to do and it did well.

Focus on making your soil the best it can be and you will have won half the battle of gardening right there.

5. Learn About Garden Pest And How To Deal With Them.

An example that makes me laugh is about growing zucchini. I would go out each day and look at the zucchini plant and wonder when it was going to get some zucchinis growing but all I could get to grow was beautiful yellow flowers and then they would just fall off in the night.

We I soon learned that my problem was slugs. They love coming out at night for party time with my zucchinis. Once I learned a few methods of getting rid of them I actually got to see the flowers extend into little green zucchinis.

Just putting out a couple of lids, I used peanut butter jar lids, with some beer got those darn slugs so loaded the just drank themselves to death. I also picked a few off at the start and squashed them but I liked the beer idea better.

I used some damp cardboard and placed a few small pieces around the edge of the zucchini. The slugs would crawl in or under the damp cardboard once they were done munching my zucchinis for the night and were waiting for me to dispose of them in the morning.

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According to a 2009 study conducted by the National Gardening Association, it was discovered that the average vegetable gardening household saved just over 500 dollars per year by growing plants and cultivating their own harvest. Most couples used just 70 dollars to get started with their garden supplies, seeds and garden tools. It is estimated that 34% of all American households now grow some of their own food – a number that rose 10% from 2007-2008, and another 19% from 2008-2009.

The first thing you’ll need to do when designing a vegetable garden is selecting the right size and location. First, be sure your site gets a lot of sunshine. The majority of vegetables need at least six to eight hours of direct sunshine each day for the best outcome. If you have a more shaded area, you can stick your spinach and lettuce there. As you assess your yard, make sure to take into account the shade cast by the deciduous trees and the house during specific times of the day.

Ideally, the garden will be handily situated in close proximity to the kitchen, so you can tend to it with less effort and gather your crop without hiking long distances. The best soil will be full of nutrients and drain well, so you may have to add compost and use garden tools to aerate the earth before you start.

When choosing what goes into your garden, you’ll need to consider how much space the crops you want take up. Vegetable gardening items like corn, winter squash and tomatoes tend to take up a lot of room, so you’ll need a 20 x 20 garden at least. If you want to grow a few herbs, peppers, cucumbers and greens, a 12 x 16 plot should be sufficient. Garden guides from the National Gardening Association recommend growing plants in succession in three foot wide beds with 18-inch paths between each row. It’s also a good idea to add a few flowers (such as marigolds) into your garden to add some beauty, deter pests and attract helpful pollinating bees.

There are several strategies when it comes to choosing which plants to use in your vegetable gardening endeavor. Some vegetables are grown from seeds in a method known as “direct-sow.” A few weeks before the last frost (check the Farmer’s Almanac to get this date), sow your beets, carrots, parsnips, peas, radishes, chard, turnips and salad greens. After the last frost, sow your beans, corn, squash and herbs like dill and cilantro. Next, you may want to use some transplants for broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, eggplant, parsley, peppers and tomatoes. Your summer squash, lettuce and broccoli will grow equally well from seeds or transplants, so that choice is up to you. Growing plants like beets, chard, green beans, lettuce, parsley, peppers, tomatoes, radishes and summer squash is rather easy in most parts of the country, so you may want to include a lot of these crops to start.

The benefits of a vegetable garden can’t be beat. You’ll get to enjoy fresh picked produce and you’ll get some great exercise at the same time! From the organic vegetable garden to herb gardening, you’ll find the information you need at the Vegetable Gardening Site.

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