Start Your Own Vegetable Garden

Starting your own vegetable garden can be a great idea.  Window boxes are one way to start a simple vegetable garden that can easily be accessed from a window, deck, or patio.  Get some ideas about starting your own vegetable garden and learn about window box gardening.

Gardening is a pleasure for both the gardener and the chef who will prepare the fresh fruits and vegetables. Now that summer is winding down, your garden will need a little special care in order to produce a banner crop.

Now is the time to plant additional vegetable seeds for the fall harvest. Peas, spinach, lettuce, endive, beans, carrots, turnips, swiss chard, and beets are all excellent late summer plantings. These vegetables do better when temperatures are cooler and when there is more moisture in the air.

Continue harvesting vegetables when they are young and tender and cook them as soon as possible. This will increase your yields and extend your harvest. Keep your eyes peeled for insects and diseases and treat accordingly. Any plant that is heavily infested should be removed from your garden and destroyed.

With the rainfalls we have received this summer, you will need to give your garden an extra boost of fertilizer. Rainfall leaches the nutrients from the soil and robs the plants of vital nutrition needed to produce. Now is a perfect time to side dress the plants with granular fertilizer or to water with liquid plant food.

Afterwards, what do you do with all of your vegetables that have been planted and are now ready for harvest? Freezing and canning is the answer. You will have vegetables in your freezer or on your shelf to enjoy long after frost ends the season. Almost everything you plant can be frozen or canned. Blanching or steaming is very important in freezing all vegetables. All vegetables need to be heated to kill the bacteria and then cooled immediately before freezing.

And of course, weed your garden now. The weeds are robbing your plants of moisture and nutrients and are encouraging insects and diseases in your garden. After the garden is weeded and side-dressed with granular fertilizer, water thoroughly and apply Preen or Concern to prevent weeds from returning. These weed killers should keep you "weed-free" through the end of the growing season.