Vegetable gardening is nutritious in both body and mind. It’s exciting to watch a little seed turn into a sprout, then into a small plant, and eventually, into a big ole squash plant that’s bursting with bright yellow gourds and giant green leaves. Digging your hands into cool soil is meditative. Smelling the basil and dill is heavenly. And you don’t have to live on a country estate to grow your own food at home, either.
City dwellers can plant vegetables in patio container gardens. In cold climates, you can start a small garden indoors or even grow vegetables outdoors most of the year if you have a greenhouse.
When it comes to planning a backyard vegetable garden, ideas are easy to come by. There are plenty of pictures of elaborate gardens with rows of sun-ripened tomatoes, entire sections devoted solely to peas, raised beds for root vegetables, and, of course, a fountain and seating area. We don’t all have gigantic yards, though. As nice as it would be to have row after row of heirloom tomatoes and cucumbers, it’s just not realistic when your backyard garden is a two-foot by four-foot rectangle between your driveway and the foundation of your house.
The thing is, you can create a really nice garden in that small rectangle of space. It’s a simple matter of timing, design, and plant selection. But if you have a large backyard, even better!
In the articles below, we dive into everything you need to know about vegetable gardening. You can learn even more in our How to Grow a Vegetable Garden: 10 Things Every Gardener Needs to Know Before Starting a Food Garden freebie. Enjoy!
In everyone’s most recent memories, Michelle Obama planted the White House vegetable garden on the South Lawn in 2009 with big applause, which was then reinforced to be made permanent by Melania Trump, and had a peaceful transfer of vegetables to Jill Biden in 2021. In fact, Jill sent Michelle a basket of veggies from […]
The idea of growing your own food year-round is appealing. I don’t mind going to the grocery store, but I also don’t know how much I’d miss it if I didn’t have to go so much. And let’s be honest, those out-of-season strawberries just aren’t the same as the juicy, sweet, transcendent berries that you grow in your own garden in late spring.
I’ll admit that I never thought much about soybeans until recently. I certainly hadn’t given much thought to Rhizoctonia root rot. While the disease can impact other plants, it’s somewhat common among soybeans. Soybeans are one of the largest commercial crops in the U.S., with farms growing between 76 and 90 million acres yearly. In […]
As someone who loves to cook and does it a bit for a living, I always need fresh ingredients, especially herbs. As much as I love going to the garden in the summer and fall to pick vegetables for dinner, I also love sorting through my stored vegetables in the depths of winter. Planting for a late season harvest means I can enjoy a butternut squash soup anytime I want. And for a tray of roasted root vegetables, all I have to do is grab some beets, carrots, rutabaga, and parsnips from my basement.
According to the Disney/Pixar movie called WALL-E, you can grow your own pizza garden. If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s really adorable and fun. The film centers on the adventures of a small waste-collecting robot stranded on earth hundreds of years after humanity has covered the planet in garbage and left to live on a massive spaceship. I won’t go into details that might give away the plot, but the humans are so far removed from nature that when they eventually return to earth, they believe they can plant a literal pizza, and it will grow.
I try my best to love all the seasons. They each have their unique joys: there’s nothing quite like the quiet of a snowstorm or the brilliant colors of the trees during fall in New England. But somewhere around the time when the thermometer starts dipping lower each day, I start thinking about how to […]
Garden vegetable plants have a secret double life that no one is talking about. Sure, homegrown veggies taste delicious in a yummy seasonal recipe. And yes, it feels good to supplement your grocery trip with some pesticide-free vegetables. But why is no one talking about the flowers?
One of the best things you can do for your kids is to help them start a business. Even a simple lemonade stand teaches them leadership skills, social skills, how to manage money, and boosts their self-esteem. This year a good friend of ours launched a kid’s entrepreneur fair. The idea was that kids would come up with a small business idea, and sell at their own booth.
I’ll do just about anything to keep pests out of my vegetable garden. I’d even use Home Alone-style booby traps if I thought they’d keep insects and other pests from devouring my veggies. But alas, swinging paint cans and hot irons are not the solutions. Trap crops, on the other hand, are more subtle than Kevin McAllister’s burglary deterrents.
I’m a barefoot gardener, and until I posted a video online of my daughter and me in the garden picking veggies for dinner, I never considered any issues with that. I prefer to be barefoot when outside as much as possible, so what could be wrong with going into the garden barefoot?
