Getting the Most Out of Your Garden

To make the best use of your gardening space you need to make a plan on paper. This helps you make sure you plant what you want, and that you give it the best chance of growing well. It also helps you make changes from year to year so you can try new plants and vegetables! Start by making a bird's-eye view drawing of your yard and house area. Note the growing conditions in the different areas: where there is the full sun, partial sun and shade; where the soil is wet or dry, where you are likely to get strong winds. This will help you choose the right plants for the different spaces.

Next, decide where you want to grow flowers, and where you want a vegetable garden, then sketch in those areas. Make sure you leave some space between your plants to give them a little elbow room. Put taller plants in the back, shorter ones up front. Remember, you can use all different kinds of plants, from trees and evergreen shrubs, to perennials and annuals. You can even use ground covers where you have shade or where it is inconvenient to use a lawn mower.

When it comes to your vegetable garden, arrange your vegetables in straight lines. This makes it easy to take care of them and to harvest your crops! Make sure you choose crops that are compatible with the spot you choose. For example, tomatoes and peppers need full sun to grow vigorously and ripen in the fall. Peas and beans grow fast and you may be able to harvest your first crop and then plant something else in the same space and get another crop by the end of the growing season. If you are short of space, you might place the garden next to a fence so you can grow vines like cucumbers, and zucchini up the fence. You an even plant low-growing, cool season vegetables such as lettuce and beets right next to vines growing verically. This way the vines will shade the lower growing vegetables.

Your garden plan will help you make the best use of your growing space and conditions.

To have gthe best chance of success with your garden, you need to know your soil. While different kinds of plants can tolerate different kinds of soils, most garden plants like a nice, well drained soil that is slightly acid or neutral. To get your soil to this state you need to analyze it and possibly add certain ingredients.

First, see what kind of soil texture you have. Pick up a handful and squeeze it. If you can squeeze it into a tight, sticky mass, it it probably too high in clay. If the soil won't hold any shape and just crumbles, it is probably too high in sand. You want a soil that will mold into your hand, but will crumble apart when you squeeze it. However, most gardens do not have the ideal soil. You can still grow plants, as long as you choose the right plants. If you want to change the soil you can add humus (a general name for organic soil material), most commonly peat moss or manure. Humus will help make clay soils lighter, and sandy soils more able to retain moisture.

To find out the acidity of your soil, called the pH, you need to test it. The first step is to get a good representative sample of the soil. Take small amounts from different spots in your garden and mix them together. Or you can collect soil from several different areas to be tested independently. You can test it yourself with a soil testing kit available at most garden centers, or you can send it to a soil testing service, which may be more accurate. Once you learn the results, you can consider adding lime to the soil to change the pH. Speak with an expert to find out how much lime to use.