Plan Now for Summer Vegetables

If you’ve decided to plant a vegetable garden this year, now’s the time to get busy. Here are some tips to help you get going.

* Get a grow light and plant some seeds indoors so that you’ll have seedlings to plant out as soon as the weather warms up. Your local hardware store has lots of seed tray options. Make sure you use organic potting soil. And don't forget to water regularly.

*Those of you with vegetable beds should get out there and weed them. Turn the soil and add in some fresh organic compost.

* If you don’t yet have a kitchen garden, it's easy to set up raised beds for your vegetables. You won't need to dig up your yard or tear up of the lawn.

* Before you go wild buying up all the seeds in the store, sit down with the family and make a realistic list of what you like to eat. There’s no point planting cauliflower if nobody’s going to eat it.

* Some vegetables take up so much space that I don’t bother growing them. Like cantaloupes and watermelons. I tried it one year and they took over my entire garden. I buy them in the store.

* Everybody loves zucchini but the plant is susceptible to a pest called a vine borer, which destroys the plant. Since locally grown zucchini are inexpensive and plentiful at the farmers’ markets, I don’t bother growing them either.

* Here’s a list of what I do grow in my garden. We eat our own veggies from early summer until late in the fall and there’s always plenty for the freezer. I plant various types of lettuce, like romaine, mizuna, arugola and mesclun, spinach, beans, carrots, onions, garlic, beets, eggplant, dandelion greens, kale, radicchio, tomatoes, Swiss chard, scallions, winter squash and parsnips.

Are you planning your vegetable garden? If you need help, leave me a note below or email me at fpearson@mainstreetconnect.us

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