Planning A Vegetable Garden - Everything You Need To Know For A Successful Garden

The first step is to choose a spot for the garden. If you don't have much room you will have to have a container garden, which is much better than no vegetable garden at all.

However, we will assume space is not a problem. Therefore you will need to choose a location that gets at least six hours of sunshine a day.

The best location will be one that has a southern exposure. This will provide the maximum amount of sunlight. You will plant your vegetables in rows running from north to south. This way the plants will get the sunshine all morning on the eastern side and all afternoon on the western side. This will help to keep your plants from becoming lopsided.

You want the sunshine to be as evenly distributed as possible and for as long as possible.  If the sun shines more on one side of the plants than the other, you plants will become lopsided. If you ever grew plants in your windows you will have seen this happen.

If you plan you garden out on paper first, remembering that the sun will need to shine for half of the day on one side of the plant and the other half of the day on the other side of the plant, you will be able to work it out before you actually start planting your vegetable garden.

The southern exposure is ideal since the sun will shine nearly half the time to one side and then the other. A nothern exposure will mean an almost entire cut-off from sunlight. Southwester and northeastern locations will always receive an uneven distribution of the sunlight, no matter haw carefully you plan out your garden.

Now you will need to remove the sod, assuming there is any. If your yard is just dirt, like mine was, then you can skip this step. Stake out the area and line it off. Divide it into strips about a foot wide. The line will give you a straight and accurate course to follow.

Next, take a spade and cut the edges along the line. After the sod has been cut through, just roll it up like you would roll up a carpet.

Don't throw the sod away. It is full of rich nutrients.

Cut it up into squares and pack them grass side down one square on top of the other. Make sure you place the sod out of your way. Leave the pile of sod to weather and rot. After is has rotted it can be used as an excellent fertilizer. This is called a compost pile. During the summer add green vegetable matter to the pile. In the fall add the leaves that have fallen off of the trees. By the time the next planting season has arrived you will have an excellent source of organic fertilizer.

Next, you will have to turn the soil in order to loosen it up, with a rototiller. The rototiller is always the prefered option since you will be able to get the soil to a finer consistency.

If you cannot afford a rototiller than you can use a spade to turn the soil. However, the spade will leave large lumps of soil which you will need to break up. You can do this with a heavy duty rake or a hoe. It is important to get the soil broken up as much as possible.

The seeds tiny root hairs cannot penetrate large lumps of soil. This is why you need to make sure the soil is as fine as possible.

When I say you need a heavy duty rake, I'm talking about the rakes that have tines so thick you cannot bend them with your fingers. No the kind of rake you use for raking up leaves on your lawn.

After you have broken up the lumps with your rake or hoe, use the rake to make the vegetable garden bed nice and smooth.

Now you should test the ph level of your soil. The easiest way to do this is to take a sample of the soil to your local nursery and ask them to test it for you.

If they tell you the ph level is fine your ready to start planting. If the ph level is wrong, ask them what types of products to add to the soil and then add them.

Once the soil is prepared, you are ready to start planting.