Image via WikipediaWhen you think about vegetable gardens, chances are that you usually associate them with warmer weather. However, there is no need to feel sad when the weather gets colder, because you can bring your love of vegetable gardening inside with an indoor vegetable garden.

Indoor Winter Vegetable Gardens Require Space and Patience

The first thing that you need to do before you begin your indoor winter vegetable garden, is to figure out where in your home you would like to place it. Make sure that the area you choose has a constant temperature, and gets at least a few hours of sunlight each day.

It should be noted that there are two ways that you can create an indoor winter vegetable garden. The first way is to simply get some large pots, and get vegetable plants like carrots or tomatoes that have a not very complicated root system.

The second way that you can create an indoor winter vegetable garden is to build a box about four feet long and 3 feet deep, fill it with soil, and cultivate larger vegetable plants. However, if you do choose this method, make sure that you have a good drainage system, because otherwise mold with grow in the soil, thus making the vegetables not edible.

Of course, all of the planning cannot even take place without the actual plants! One thing that you can do for your indoor winter vegetable garden is to take a couple of plants from your summer vegetable garden and transfer them indoors so that they can continue growing.

Something else that you can do is grow the plants from seeds, starting in the summer, and then nurturing them until they are ready to harvest in the winter. For this, you can purchase them from your local gardening center, or you can get the seeds from various vegetable plants that you have already grown.

If you are lucky enough to live in a warmer climate, then you have the option of growing your vegetable garden all year. However, it also poses a bit of a challenge too, because vegetables are only able to be harvested for a certain amount of time each year.

For more information on the kinds of gardens you can grow in the winter, search the internet. There are many reputable gardening sites on this topic. You can also go to your local gardening center and ask for advice. With the proper research and planning, you are sure to cultivate an excellent garden.

Image by Will Merydith via Flickr Get Your Child Involved in Your Spring Vegetable Garden!

When spring comes around each year, it is a time of new beginnings, and nicer weather. Spring also is a time when you start to get your yard ready for your spring vegetable garden. Your child was still too young to help before, but now your child has shown an interest in helping, and you can easily find ways for your child to help with your spring vegetable garden!

Spring Vegetable Gardens: A Lesson in Patience

Children are usually quite exuberant, and throw tantrums when they do not get what they want quickly. Thus, as a parent it is important to teach them the value of patience. Indeed, getting your spring vegetable garden ready is a perfect way to teach your child this important virtue.

Begin the preparation for the spring vegetable garden by getting the soil ready for the planting. This usually means tilling the grass, and then getting rid of residual weeds. Get down on your hands and knees with the child, and together start lucking out the weeds. Your child will gain a sense of accomplishment with this task.

Once the soil is ready, the next step is figuring out what vegetables you would like to plant in your spring vegetable garden. Take your child to your local gardening center, and have your child pick out a packet of seeds and choose a vegetable to plant. Tell your child that the chosen vegetable plant will be entirely in your child’s care. This will teach your child a sense of responsibility.

When the time comes to plant the vegetables, you plant a seed, and then teach your child how to plant the next one. When it comes time to water the plants, allow your child to water them with the hose if you child wishes. This teaches your child basic gardening techniques.

The fun comes when the child watched the vegetable plants get bigger over time. The child might begin by being a bit impatient waiting for the seeds to grow, but make it into a game, where together each day you go out to the garden and see if any seeds have gotten bigger yet.

Vegetable gardening is a wonderful hobby for children and adults alike. Not only do you get to eat the results of your hard work, but what you eat is nutritious. Not only this, but gardening with your child can result in many wonderful memories, and that alone is truly priceless.

Image via Wikipedia There are many advantages to planting your crops in a raised bed vegetable garden, but the idea of building one of these structures can be an intimidating one. Where do you begin? There are many ways to create one of these structures that will allow your plants to grow in ideal conditions. You can choose to construct your walls out of wood, railroad ties, or landscaping stone. You can make your structure free standing or you can place it against a fence or the side of your house. Your choice will depend largely upon your own preferences and what will look and work best in your yard.

Step One: Finding a Spot

The first step in creating your raised bed vegetable garden will be to select a location. This is an important consideration, since it is unlikely that your structure will be very portable. Choose a spot that gets plenty of sun and will be easy and convenient for you to access. Many gardeners will choose to till the soil a bit before building the walls of the bed, to ensure that crops like root vegetables will have plenty of room to thrive.

Step Two: Choosing a Material

As we mentioned earlier, the material that you use for your raised bed vegetable garden can vary widely. The main factor to consider is whether the substance that you choose is nontoxic, so that the walls will not affect your soil or crops in a negative way. This means that the wood you choose for your raised bed should be untreated, but you are not limited to wood choices. You can also use cinder blocks, landscaping stone, bricks or fiberglass. It all depends on how much work and cost you want to put into building your raised bed vegetable garden and how decorative you want the area to be.

Step Three: Add your Soil

To ensure that you will have enough good soil for your crops, make sure the walls of your raised bed vegetable garden are between 12 and 16 inches high. If you are building your walls out of wood, it is a good idea to reinforce the corners with metal brackets to ensure that you soil will stay inside. The next step is to fill your structure with a high quality mix of planting soil and compost. Avoid using regular soil from your yard, since this will defeat the purpose of creating the best environment for your plants. Once your bed is filled, you are ready to sow your seeds and prepare for the bumper crop that is to come. Happy gardening!

Image via Wikipedia When it comes to gardening, not everyone has the time to maintain them even if they’re interested in having them. But thanks to new options in planting and growing, having a small vegetable garden is possible without having to spend the many hours per week it usually takes to grow veggies.

A Couple of Options

Because a small vegetable garden doesn’t take up much room, you have a couple of different options when it comes to planting and raising the veggies.

You can get a small area ready on your property that can house your small vegetable garden which is a viable option, but can cause some problems when it comes to the climate your veggies experience throughout the year.

Another less intense and easier option is to use planting pots to grow your small vegetable garden. This allows you to move there location when needed due to weather, and to easily navigate the garden’s soil when needed to keep the veggies healthy.

When to Start Your Small Vegetable Garden

Spring is a good time to plant most vegetables if you are starting with seeds. Otherwise, you will want to wait about a month before purchasing and planting already started veggie plants.

Make sure you’re aware of which vegetables in your small garden need more sun than others, and which veggies tend to do better in shady areas. You can choose to plant and grow similar vegetables in a garden area in the ground, or you can choose to plant and grow them in pots so that you can grow multiple kinds of vegetables, knowing you can easily separate them when needed due to climate conditions at the time.

What You’ll Need

In order to create and maintain a small vegetable garden, you’ll need to make sure you have the necessary tools in hand. Don’t worry, there aren’t many but you don’t want to overlook anything.

You’ll need a shovel to help grind the soil, and a 3 forked pitch to help with the same thing. You will also want to purchase soil. You’ll need enough to fill your big gardening pots, or to cover 6 inches worth of ground in your designated in ground small vegetable garden.

You’ll also need to read about how to care for every veggie that you choose to grow, and purchase the needed items that coincide with each choice. Most veggies won’t need anything special, but some do so you’ll want to pay close attention to the information provided about gardening the particular vegetables you choose.

Growing up I never thought about it but my parents always grew the same things in the same place year after year. When growing vegetables in the garden most people tend to grow the same crops year after year. This is not surprising really, as we grow the crops that we prefer to eat and we also tend to grow the plants that we have the most success growing.

One thing that most gardeners seem to do is grow the same vegetables in the very same place in the garden each year.

You will tend to have a spot for your tomatoes and a spot for your pumpkins and so on.

The problem with planting the same crops in the same place each year is the effect it has on the nutrients in the soil.

Plants will extract the nutrients that they need from the soil for their specific requirements each season. By planting the same crops in the same places you can get nutrient deficiencies.

This is where crop rotation can enhance the value of your soil. By rotating where you plant your vegetables each season you will be giving the soil the opportunity to produce better results as there won’t be the same demands on the nutrients in the soil when there is a different plant growing their from last season.

To improve the soil quality even more, you should dig in the remains of the crops once the season has finished allowing some of those nutrients to be put back into the soil. In the off-season you can also grow cover crops in the garden. These are crops that are grown specifically to add nitrogen to the soil. These crops have high nitrogen value in their roots and when they are ready, you dig them into the soil.

In doing this you can expect a better harvest each year as the new planting of vegetables will have more nutrients to feed them.