Choosing the Right Plants for Your Vegetable Garden

You can somehow make your gardening endeavors less challenging if you know how to pick the right plant for every spot in your yard. Yes, growing vegetables at home can seem tricky since some plants can get too much sunlight or water and some get too little. Some are too small or too big for the space they are occupying, and some can get destroyed by bugs and various diseases. In other words, many unfortunate things can happen in your garden to test you and your plants. However, there are things that you can do to avoid these untoward gardening conditions by putting the right plant at the right place.

Determining Which Plants to Grow in Your Garden

Start by assessing the general environmental conditions not just for your garden but for your entire locality. Do you normally experience long, hot, humid summers? Do your conditions usually tend to be dry, wet or somewhere in between?  Knowing well the weather and climate in your area will help you which ones to plant at a certain period of the year.

1. Warm-season vegetables. Summer crops like peppers and tomatoes require both high temperature and warm soil in order to thrive well and eventually produce fruit. They are often killed by frost so it’s best to plant them after the last frost in spring. Some of the most commonly grown warm-season veggies are snap beans, corn, cucumbers, melons, and squash.
2. Cool-season vegetables. These plants tend to grow progressively at average temperatures of 6°C to 8°C below those required by the warm-season kinds. Cool-season veggies are best planted either during the very early weeks of springtime for an early summer harvest, or during later summer for harvest meant to occur in fall and winter (in mild regions). Cool-season plants include beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, lettuce, peas, and spinach.
3. Perennial vegetables. Some plants are perennials – you grow them once and then harvest the crops every year. Veggies like asparagus and rhubarb have to be provided with their own spot so they will not be disturbed when you prepare your garden soil for annual crops. Fertilize and mulch them each spring, and water them as needed during the season.

Lots of gardeners tend to get a little too keyed up at the start of the season only to end up planting more than they need; thus, wasting food. To prevent this from happening, determine how much you and your family will most likely consume over a period of time. Remember that veggies like peppers, tomatoes, and squash can provide throughout the season so you may not actually need many plants to serve your needs.

Once you have identified which plants to grow, find out how much space you need. Just bear in mind that when figuring out what kind of veggie to plant, you don’t require a large garden space to start. In fact, if you decide on growing your plants in containers, a yard will not even be necessary anymore – a balcony or a deck may already offer lots of space. Now, in terms of picking the perfect sport – simply choose that area where there is full sun, plenty of water, and good soil.

Click here to learn about some Easy to Grow Organic Crops