Once you’ve picked a place for your garden, you only need to do two more things to get your garden underway: prepare the soil and acquire seeds or baby plants to populate your garden plot! Preparing the soil is critical – probably the most important step in the entire gardening process – and the next article in this series will be dedicated to soil preparation. But right now is a good time to approach the question of seeds vs. plants, and to decide which vegetable varieties you are going to put in your garden.

Tomato Plants

Tomato plants are practically synonymous with vegetable gardening; you’d be hard pressed to find a vegetable garden without them! Here are a few things to keep in mind, especially with regard to young tomato plants:
  Removing the sappers: As your tomato plant starts to grow bigger, you will notice that there is a main stalk, with composite leaves coming off the main stalk at various intervals. Now, take a closer look: You will see that at the juncture of every leaf coming off the main stem, little shoots are sprouting. Left alone, these secondary shoots will also grow into large stalks – with even more secondary stalks branching off here and there – and this will result in a “bushy” plant.

May is here and slowly but surely the weather is turning warmer. Spring flowers are everywhere and trees have put out their buds and are showing their new spring coat of leaves. The grass has begun to grow once again (oh no, time to mow), and the wild spring onions have shot up, competing with the other unplanned growth as to who’s tallest. And when the ants appear on your kitchen windowsill, it’s a sure sign that all living things have come awake to take advantage of the warm and welcoming growing season. Deep within the gardener’s soul, the latent spark that has lain dormant during the cold winter months is also awakening. It’s time to get out into the garden and set out our plants and seeds.

 This third article will cover the final preliminary step before you are actually ready to plant outdoors and launch your vegetable garden on its journey towards making the best vegetables you have ever tasted! This third step is the most critical one of them all; if it is not done correctly, then anything else you have done or will do is practically for naught. And, this step is the hardest one of them all – here is where we separate the proverbial men from the boys; okay, women from the girls, too! Ummm… no offense, boys and girls.

An article on gardening – in January? It’s the middle of the winter, and the temperature this week has dipped into the teens, but we diehard gardeners are nevertheless always thinking about our gardens and spring thaw, which is not too far down the road. In fact, now in the dead of winter is really the perfect time to start thinking and planning for this year’s vegetable garden.

  A lot of us really do think about making a vegetable garden: Who doesn’t want to adorn their table with homegrown and fresh-picked produce from the garden? You just can’t compare

Here we are in late August, and the growing season is coming to an end. We have prepared our soil, planted our seeds, nurtured our plants, and fought off many garden adversaries – and now is the time to bring in the fruits of our labor. Now is also a good time to look back and see what went right and what didn’t go quite according to plan. Gardening, like so many of life’s endeavors, is a learning experience – and every year, no matter how experienced you are – there are lessons to be learned and new adventures to