Vegetable Gardening Tips

Here’s some real good sound vegetable gardening tips that will help you produce the best and highest yielding vegetable crops.

Follow these vegetable gardening tips and improve your vegetable growing.

You will have bigger and better vegetables.

You can grow more vegetables in the same plot without effecting size and yield.

You will harvest earlier.

The All Important Tip: - Grow your vegetables in the sunniest spot in your garden. Choose a plot that receives full sun for the longest periods throughout the day.

Benefits are:
You can sow and grow your crops earlier.
You will have plumper juicier crops.
You will have more vegetables to harvest.
You will be able to harvest earlier.
Your vegetables will taste better.

The Next All Important Tip - Rotate your crops every year.

If you don’t you’re likely to end up with eel worm, club-root and all manor of other horrible vegetable destroying diseases.

For best results rotate as follows:

Year One
Row 1 - Green Vegetables
Row 2 - Root Vegetables
Row 3 - Potatoes
Row 4 - Onions, Peas, Beans

Year Two
Row 1 - Onions, Peas, Beans
Row 2 - Green Vegetables
Row 3 - Root Vegetables
Row 4 - Potatoes

Year Three
Row 1 - Potatoes
Row 2 - Onions, Peas, Beans
Row 3 - Green Vegetables
Row 4 - Root Vegetables

Year Four
Row 1 - Root Vegetables
Row 2 - Potatoes
Row 3 - Onions, Peas, Beans
Row 4 - Green Vegetables

Then start again at year one and rotate through to year four.

More Vegetable Gardening Tips.

Provide the best soil for your crops.

Green Vegetables need a good rich soil improved with plenty of well rotted manure or compost each year. The soil needs to be free draining.

Root Vegetables need a deeply dug soil with a good general fertilizer added.

Potatoes need a soil which has been deeply dug and most of the lumps broken down. Add plenty of well rotted manure or compost every year. The more the better.

Onions need a soil that has been dug over into a fine tilth. Add plenty of well rotted manure or compost every year.

Salad Crops need a well prepared soil that is well drained and has had well rotted manure or compost added the previous year. Don’t add manure or compost the same year as you grow salad crops.

Properly prepared and conditioned soil helps you produce the best highest quality and the healthiest crops.

Cabbage seed should be sown in shallow drills 150mm (6inches) apart. If the soil is dry water the drill before sowing the seeds.

Water the row well after sowing.

Thin out seedlings when they have three leaves, usually within seven weeks from sowing, to a spacing of 300mm (12inches) between each plant and between each row.

If you are going to re-plant the seedlings you have thinned out water them thoroughly a couple of hours before you lift them to avoid damaging the fine roots.

Water the seedlings thoroughly after thinning out and transplanting.

Water the growing plants continually throughout the growing season. Don’t let them dry out.

Pick the right seeds or pre-grown plants for the right seasons.

There are different cabbages for spring, summer and winter.

Cauliflower need a real deeply dug soil which is very fertile to provide food and retain moisture as they grow.

Provide plenty of water during the growing season.

They are not one of the easiest vegetables to grow as they are difficult to look after in extreme weathers. So its probably best not to grow cauliflowers until you have a couple of years vegetable growing under you belt.

Brussels Sprouts seed should be sown 25mm (1inch) apart and rows should be 150mm (6inches) apart.

Sow them under cover, a polythene or glass cloche, in February for early cropping.

Water them only if the weather is dry, they don’t need loads of water.

Celery should be “earthed-up” every two to three weeks leaving the leaves above the soil level.

Only earth-up when the soil is damp, not when it is dry.

This will prevent any soil getting into the heart of the celery.

Broad Beans should have the top 150mm (6inches) of the growing tip pinched out when they are in full flower to reduce the risk of aphid attack.

Grow them in double rows for bumper crops.

Provide plenty of water during the growing season.

French Bean seed should not be sown if the ground is wet and too cold. Wait until the soil dries out and warms up in spring.

Dwarf types don’t need any support so they are easy to grow and usually provide bumper crops.

If you grow climbing French Beans use wigwam cane supports for maximum crops.

Water well in the growing season.

Peas should be protected from birds, especially pigeons. Sown seeds and seedlings should be protected.

Use “pea sticks”, old tree branches, for support of growing and mature plants.

Keep the soil free from weeds as the peas grow.

Water well during the growing season.

Onion leaves should be bent over at the beginning of September if they have not already fallen over by themselves. This helps the onions to ripen.

Salad onions are just normal onions that have not matured. Grow them close together to stop them growing to big.

Carrots need a real deeply dug soil that has been broken up into a fine tilth.

Watch out for carrot fly, use a barrier of plastic to help prevent an attack.

Stored correctly, frost free, but in cool conditions, under cover and in the dark they will last for months.

In milder areas they can be left in the ground and harvested as needed. If severe frosts are expected just cover them with a mulch of straw, bark or compost.

Parsnips need a deeply dug soil that has been broken down to a fine tilt.

Don’t sow the seeds in cold wet weather. Wait for the soil to warm up before sowing.

Don’t lift parsnips and store them, leave them in the ground and dig them up as needed.

Frost will not harm them.

Potatoes will grow in almost any type of soil.

But to get the best and biggest crop dig the soil real deep and add plenty of well rotted manure or compost.

“Chit” the potato tubers in early February for planting in March.

Water the ground before and after planting the tubers.

Earth the plants up as they grow every two weeks to a height of around 300mm (12inches).

Use the right tubers for the right time of year.

There are first early, second early and main crop potatoes.

Store potatoes in boxes, frost free, inside a cool but dry building. Don’t store damaged potatoes.

More Vegetable Gardening Tips

Sow your vegetable seeds in “succession”.

Only sow a third or a half of a row at a time, then two weeks later sow another third or the final half.

If you sow whole rows at the same time your crops will mature all at the same time. You will have too many ready to harvest at the same time and some may go to waste.

Sowing in successions means your crops will mature ready for harvesting every two weeks.

Vegetables such as carrots and especially salad crops are best sown in succession.

This A Real Good Vegetable Gardening Tip:

“Interplant” your vegetables to maximize the crops in your vegetable garden.

Some vegetables mature and are ready for harvest more quickly than others which means there will be gaps in your vegetable garden at certain times of the growing seasons.

For example, grow quick maturing vegetables like spinach in between rows of slower growing leeks. You don’t waste any growing space with interplanting.

Interplanting is especially suited to quick growing salad crops grown in between slower growing greens, potatoes, onions and root vegetables.

Don’t have much space in your garden for growing vegetables?

Then grow them in containers, pots, tubs, troughs, anything that will hold potting compost and has drainage holes in the bottom.

Follow these vegetable gardening tips and watch your crops grow bigger and better!

If you want any more vegetable growing tips please feel free to contact us

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