Vegetables Articles

Article / Updated 08-03-2023

To get all the best flavor and highest nutritional value from your vegetables, you need to pick them at just the right time. Some vegetables taste terrible if you pick them too early; others are tough and stringy if you pick them too late. And after you pick your vegetables, what if you can’t eat them right away? When properly stored, most vegetables last a while without rotting or losing too much flavor (of course, eating them fresh picked is always the best). In fact, you can store some vegetables, like potatoes and winter squash, for months. So in this article, I discuss harvesting and storing your fresh vegetables. You put in too much work not to do the final steps just right. When are vegetables harvested? Vegetable harvest times vary, but generally, most should be picked when they’re young and tender. That often means harvesting the plants, roots, or fruits before they reach full size. A 15-inch zucchini is impressive, but it tastes better at 6 to 8 inches. Similarly, during the growing season carrots and beets tend to get woody (tough textured) and bland the longer they stay in the ground. The table below provides specific information on when to harvest a variety of veggies. For more about harvesting and preserving what you grow, and all the phases of vegetable gardening, including preparing the soil, planting, maintaining, and much more, check out Vegetable Gardening For Dummies, 3rd Edition. Other plants are continuously harvested to keep them productive. If you keep harvesting vegetables like snap beans, summer squash, snow and snap peas, broccoli, okra, spinach, and lettuce, they’ll continue to produce pods, shoots, or leaves. When to Harvest Vegetables Vegetable When to Harvest Asparagus When spears are 6 to 9 inches long Beans, snap Start about two to three weeks after bloom, before seeds mature Beans, dried When the pods are dry and crack open easily Beets When 1 to 3 inches wide Broccoli When flower heads are tight and green Brussels sprouts When sprouts reach 1 inch wide Cabbage When heads are compact and firm Carrots When tops are 1 inch wide Cauliflower While heads are still white but not ricey (the florets are splitting apart) Celery When stalks are large enough to eat Corn When silks are dry and brown; kernels should be milky when cut Cucumbers For slicing, when 6 inches long; for picklers, when at least 2 inches long Eggplant Before color dulls; flesh should bounce back when pressed lightly Garlic Pull up stalks when the bottom leaves yellow Kohlrabi When 2 to 3 inches wide Leeks When the stalks are at least 1 1/2 inches in diameter Lettuce and other greens While leaves are tender Muskmelons When fruit slips off vine easily; while netting (raised area on skin) is even; when fruit is firm. Fruit aroma is present through the skin. Okra When pods are soft and 2 to 3 inches long Onions When necks are tight and scales are dry Parsnips When roots reach desired size, possibly after light frost Peanuts When leaves turn yellow Peas While pods are still tender Peppers When fruits reach desired size and color Potatoes When vines die back Pumpkins When shells harden, before frost Radishes When roots are up to 1 1/4 inches wide Rhubarb When it shows red streaks on the stalks Rutabagas When roots reach desired size Shallots Harvest mature bulbs when tops wither and turn brown Spinach When leaves are still tender Squash, summer When 6 to 8 inches long Squash, winter When shells harden, before frost Sweet potatoes When they reach adequate size Tomatoes When uniformly colored (varies by variety) Turnips When 2 to 3 inches wide Watermelons When undersides turn yellow and produce a dull sound when thumped A good vegetable harvesting rule for many of your early crops is to start picking them when you have enough of a vegetable for a one-meal serving. Spinach, Swiss chard, scallions, radishes, lettuce, and members of the cabbage family certainly fit the bill here. These veggies don’t grow as well in warm weather, so pick these crops in the spring when temperatures are cooler. After you start harvesting, visit your garden and pick something daily. Take along a good sharp knife and a few containers to hold your produce, such as paper bags, buckets, or baskets. Wire or wood buckets work well because you can easily wash vegetables in them. The vegetable harvest information in the above table is based on picking mature or slightly immature vegetables. But many vegetables can be picked smaller and still have excellent flavor. Pick baby vegetables whenever they reach the size that you want. The following vegetables can be picked small: beets, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers, lettuce and other greens, onions, peas, potatoes, radishes, snap beans, summer squash, Swiss chard, and turnips. In addition, some small varieties of corn and tomatoes fit the baby-vegetable mold. Be sure to avoid harvesting at the following times: When plants, especially beans, are wet. Many fungal diseases spread in moist conditions, and if you brush your tools or pants against diseased plants, you can transfer disease organisms to other plants down the row. In the heat of the day, because the vegetable’s texture may be limp. For the freshest produce, harvest early in the day when vegetables’ moisture levels are highest and the vegetables are at peak flavor. After harvesting, refrigerate the produce and prepare it later in the day. In the fall, wait as long as you can to dig up root crops, such as carrots, rutabagas, and beets, if you intend to store them in a root cellar or cold storage room. However, remember that while root crops can withstand frosts, you should harvest them before the ground freezes. They’ll come out of the ground easiest if the soil is still slightly moist. Also, don’t wash crops that are going to the root cellar; instead, just gently brush away soil crumbs. Use any blemished or cut vegetables within a few days. Putting away your vegetables You have only two choices when you harvest your crops: Eat the veggies right away, or store them to use later. Specific vegetables need different storage conditions to maintain their freshness, such as: Cool and dry: Ideally, temperatures should be between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit (10 to 15.5 degrees Celsius), with 60 percent relative humidity — conditions you usually find in a well-ventilated basement. Cold and dry: Temperatures should be between 32 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit (0 to 4.5 degrees Celsius), with 65 percent humidity. You can achieve these conditions in most home refrigerators or in a cold basement or garage. Cool and moist: Temperatures should be between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit (10 to 15.5 degrees Celsius) with 90 percent humidity. You can store vegetables in a cool kitchen or basement in perforated plastic bags. Cold and moist: Your storage area should be 32 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit (0 to 4.5 degrees Celsius), with 95 percent humidity. You can create these conditions by placing your veggies in perforated bags (vegetables in bags without ventilation are likely to degrade faster) and storing the bags in a fridge. You also can create cold and moist conditions in a root cellar. An unheated basement works well as a root cellar. However, these days, most homes have heaters or furnaces in the basement, which make the conditions too warm for storing vegetables. But if you don’t have a heater, or if you can section off a portion of your basement and keep temperatures just above freezing, you can store vegetables like root crops and even cabbage for long periods of time. Make sure your vegetables are well ventilated in the root cellar; you can store onions, potatoes, and other root crops in mesh bags. Shoot for a humidity level that’s as high as you can get. To increase humidity, spread moist wood shavings or sawdust on the floor but keep the vegetables elevated on wooden boxes. In the table below, I provide specifics on how to store your vegetables so that after you pick them, you quickly know what to do with them (that is, if you don’t eat them right away). The table also includes information on whether you can freeze, dry, or can vegetables, topics that I cover later in this article. Storing Fresh Vegetables Vegetable How to Store Expected Storage Life Comments Asparagus Cold and moist Two weeks Store upright. Freeze, dry, or can. Beans, snap Cool and moist One week Pods will scar below 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4.5 Celsius). Freeze after blanching. Can. Beets Cold and moist Five months Store without tops. Freeze, dry, or can. Broccoli Cold and moist Two weeks Freeze or dry. Brussels sprouts Cold and moist One month Freeze or dry. Cabbage Cold and moist Five months Freeze or dry. Carrots Cold and moist Three weeks Store without tops. Freeze, dry, or can. Cauliflower Cold and moist Three weeks Freeze or dry. Corn Cold and moist Five days Freeze, dry, or can. Cucumbers Cool and moist One to two weeks Will scar if stored below 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4.5 degrees Celsius). Can be stored in a cool kitchen in a perforated bag. Don’t store with apples or tomatoes. Can. Eggplant Cool and moist One week Prolonged storage below 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) causes scarring. Freeze or dry. Kohlrabi Cold and moist Two months Store without tops. Freeze. Lettuce and other greens Cold and moist One week Freeze greens such as spinach and Swiss chard. Muskmelons Cold and moist One week Freeze. Onions Cold and dry Four months Cure (let dry) at room temperatures for two to four weeks before storing. Keep green onions cool and moist for one to four months. Freeze, dry, or can. Parsnips Cold and moist Three weeks Will sweeten after two weeks at 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius). Freeze. Peanuts Cool and dry Four months Pull pods after plant has dried for several weeks. Store dried in bags. Peas Cold and moist One week Freeze, dry, or can. Peppers Cool and moist Two weeks Will scar if stored below 45 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius). Freeze, dry, or can. Potatoes Cold and moist Six months Keep out of light. Cure at 50 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit (10 to 15.5 degrees Celsius) for 14 days before storage. Freeze, dry, or can. Pumpkins Cool and dry Two to five months Very sensitive to temperatures below 45 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius). Freeze, dry, or can. Radishes Cold and moist One month Store without tops. Freeze or dry. Rutabagas Cold and moist Four months Freeze. Spinach Cold and moist Ten days Freeze. Squash, summer Cool and moist One week Don’t store in refrigerator for more than four days. Freeze, dry, or can. Squash, winter Cool and dry Two to six months Freeze, dry, or can. Sweet potatoes Cool and moist Four months Cure in the sun. Freeze, dry, or can. Tomatoes Cool and moist Five days Loses flavor if stored below 55 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius). Don’t refrigerate. Freeze, dry, or can. Turnips Cold and moist Two to four months Freeze. Watermelons Cool and moist Two weeks Will decay if stored below 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius). Can the juice or rind. If you want to store vegetables, make sure you harvest them at their peak ripeness. Also avoid bruising the produce, because bruises hasten rotting. The storage times in the table are only estimates; they can vary widely depending on conditions. Store only the highest quality vegetables for long periods of time; vegetables that are damaged or scarred are likely to rot and spoil everything nearby. If you live in an area where the ground freezes in the winter, you can actually leave some root crops — including carrots, leeks, rutabagas, and turnips — in the ground and harvest all winter long. After a good, hard frost, but before the ground freezes, cover your vegetable bed with a foot or more of dry hay. Cover the hay with heavy plastic (4 to 6 millimeters) and secure the edges with rocks, bricks, or heavy boards. The plastic keeps rain and snow from trickling down through the hay and rotting your vegetables, and it also keeps the soil from freezing solid. You can harvest periodically through winter, but be careful to re-cover the opening after each harvest. Freezing, drying, and canning veggies You can preserve vegetables three different ways — by freezing, drying, or canning them — to make your harvest last longer than if you stored your vegetables fresh. (Refer to the table "Storing Fresh Vegetables," above, for information on whether a particular vegetable can be frozen, dried, or canned.) I don’t have room to cover all the details about these different methods, but the following list gives you a thumbnail sketch of each technique: Freezing This is probably the easiest way to preserve vegetables. Heck, if you want, just puree up some tomatoes, put them in a container, and throw them in the freezer — they’ll last for months. The mix is great to use in spaghetti sauce or soups. You also can freeze some vegetables, like beans or peas, whole. But usually you have to blanch them first to preserve their color and texture. Blanching is simply the process of dipping the vegetables in boiling water for a minute or two and then placing them in ice water to cool them off. Then you dry the vegetables with a towel and freeze them in labeled plastic freezer bags. Simple. Drying This technique can be pretty easy, but it must be done properly to prevent spoilage. Basically, you dehydrate the vegetables by laying them out in the sun to dry, by slow baking them in the oven, or by using a commercial dehydrator, which you can buy online and in many mail-order catalogs (see the appendix). In hot, sunny climates like California, you can dry ‘Roma’ tomatoes by slicing them in half and laying them out in the sun on a screen. Spoilage is always a concern, so before drying your vegetables, you may need to get some additional information. You usually need to store dried vegetables in airtight containers; lidded jars work well. You can use dried vegetables to make soups and sauces. Canning Of all preserved vegetables, I like the taste of canned tomatoes the best. Nothing tastes better in the middle of winter. But canning is a delicate and labor-intensive procedure that can require peeling, sterilizing jars, cooking, boiling, and a lot of other work. I usually set aside a whole weekend to can tomatoes and other veggies. I don’t want to discourage you, but you need some good recipes, some special equipment, and probably some help if you want to can vegetables. For more help with preserving canning and preserving, check out Canning and Preserving For Dummies by Amelia Jeanroy. Your local Cooperative Extension Service office also is a good source of information on preserving vegetables. Finally, the Learning Library at the National Gardening Association’s website has a treasure trove of veggie preserving knowledge.

Article / Updated 06-06-2023

Before you reach for the insecticide sprayer to attack pests in your vegetable garden, try some of these lower-impact methods to reduce problems from harmful insects and diseases. Often, a pest problem in a garden can be averted before it actually becomes a problem. Plant your vegetables in the proper locations. Many pests become more troublesome when plants are grown in conditions that are less than ideal. For example, if you grow sun-loving vegetables in the shade, mildew problems are often more severe. Choose resistant plants. If you know that a certain disease is common in your area, choose plants that aren’t susceptible to that disease or that resist infection. Some vegetable varieties are resistant to specific diseases. For example, some tomato varieties resist verticillium, fusarium, and nematodes. Know the enemy. The more you know about specific pests and diseases common to your area — when they occur and how they spread — the more easily you can avoid them. For example, some diseases run rampant on wet foliage. If you know that fact, you can reduce the occurrence of these diseases simply by adjusting your watering so you don’t wet the plants’ leaves or by watering early in the day so the plants dry out quickly. Keep your plants healthy. Healthy plants are less likely to have problems. Water and fertilize regularly so your plants grow strong and more pest resistant. Keep your garden clean. By cleaning up spent plants, weeds, and other garden debris, you eliminate hiding places for many pests and diseases. Encourage and use beneficial insects. Beneficial insects are the good bugs in your garden — the insects that feed on the bugs that bother your vegetables. You probably have a bunch of different kinds of beneficial insects in your garden already, but you also can purchase them to release in your garden. In addition, you can plant flowers that attract these insects. Rotate your plants each year. Avoid planting the same plants in the same location year after year, especially if you grow vegetables in raised beds (any planting area that’s raised above the surrounding ground level). Rotation prevents pests and diseases that are specific to certain plants from building up in your garden. Avoid harm to beneficial insects and animals If an insect or disease does get out of hand, treat it effectively without disrupting the other life in your garden, which includes everything from good bugs to birds. Control measures may be as simple as handpicking and squashing snails, or knocking off aphids with a strong jet of water from a hose.

Article / Updated 04-24-2023

After clearing your garden area in preparation for planting, you need to take a close look at your soil — give it a good squeeze, have it tested, amend it, and then work it out to make sure it’s in shipshape. Good soil gives vegetable roots a balance of all the things they need: moisture, nutrients, and air. And knowing your soil type enables you to counteract problems that you may face when gardening on that piece of land. I explain the basics in the following sections. Distinguishing different types of soil Three main types of soil exist, with a lot of variations in between. Hard clay is at one end of the spectrum; soft, sandy soil is at the other end; and loam is in the middle. Being familiar with your soil helps you know what to expect when gardening. Clay soil tends to have a lot of natural fertility but is heavy to work with and doesn’t drain water well. Sandy soil, on the other hand, drains water well (maybe too well) but doesn’t have a lot of natural fertility. Loam, the ideal soil, is somewhere in between the two. Here are general characteristics of the three basic types of soil: Sandy soil is composed of mostly large mineral particles. Water moves through this soil quickly, taking nutrients with it. Sandy soil is well aerated, quick to dry out and warm up, and often lacks the nutrients that vegetables need. Clay soil consists of mainly small particles that cling tightly together and hold water and nutrients. It’s slow to dry out and warm up, and has poor aeration, but it’s fertile when it can be worked. Loam soil is a happy mixture of large and small particles. It’s well aerated and drains properly, but it can still hold water and nutrients. This is the soil to have for a great vegetable garden. The squeeze test To find out what type of soil you have, grab a handful of moist soil and squeeze it. Then use these guidelines to determine what type of soil you’re working with: Sandy soil falls apart and doesn’t hold together in a ball when you let go. It feels gritty when you rub it between your fingers. Clay soil oozes through your fingers as you squeeze it and stays in a slippery wad when you let go. Rubbing clay soil between your fingers feels slippery. Loam soil usually stays together after you squeeze it, but it falls apart easily when you poke it with your finger. If you have sandy or clay soil, don’t despair; you can improve your soil and make it more like loam by adding organic matter, such as compost, sawdust, animal manure, grass clippings, ground bark, and leaf mold. To learn more about this, check out my book Vegetable Gardening For Dummies, 3rd Edition. Testing your soil's chemistry Vegetables are kind of picky about soil chemistry. Too much of this nutrient or too little of that nutrient, and you have problems. If you don’t believe me, see what happens when tomatoes grow in soil that’s deficient in calcium; they develop blossom-end rot. Yuck. Sometimes too much of a nutrient, such as nitrogen, causes lots of leaf growth on plants (such as peppers) but few fruits. Getting the levels just right is important for the best harvest. In addition to nutrient levels, soil pH also is an important factor in plant growth. The right pH enables vegetables to use nutrients from the soil. Soil is rated on a pH scale, with a pH of 1 being most acidic and a pH of 14 being most alkaline. If your soil’s pH isn’t within a suitable range, plants can’t take up nutrients — like phosphorus and potassium — even if they’re present in the soil in high amounts. In addition, if the pH is too low, the solubility of certain minerals, such as manganese, may increase to toxic levels. Most vegetables grow well in a slightly acidic soil with a pH between 6 and 7. Potatoes, including sweet potatoes, prefer a slightly more acidic soil, in the 5 to 6 range. But in general, if you aim for a soil pH between 6 and 7, your vegetables should grow well. The only way to find out whether your soil will be to your vegetables’ liking is to test it. Don’t worry; analyzing your soil isn’t complicated, and you don’t need a lab coat. Here are two ways that you can test your soil: Use a do-it-yourself kit. This basic pH test measures your soil’s acidity and alkalinity and sometimes major nutrient content. Buy a kit at a nursery, follow the instructions, and voilà — you know your soil’s pH. However, the test gives you only a rough picture of the pH and nutrient levels in your soil. You may want to know more about your soil. Have a soil lab do a test for you. A complete soil test is a good investment because a soil lab can thoroughly analyze your soil. Here’s what you can find out from a soil lab’s test in addition to the pH level: Your soil’s nutrient content: If you know your soil’s nutrient content, you can determine how much and what kind of fertilizer to use. In fact, many soil tests tell you exactly how much fertilizer to add; see Chapter 15 for more on fertilizer. Soil problems that are specific to your geographic region: A soil test may help you identify local problems. The soil lab should then give you a recommendation for a type and amount of fertilizer to add to your soil. For example, in dry-summer areas, you may have salty soil; the remedy is to add gypsum, a readily available mineral soil additive. Of course, soil labs charge around $20 to $30 for their basic services. Your local Cooperative Extension Service office or a private soil lab can conduct a complete and reliable soil test. To locate a private lab, search the Internet for soil test labs around the country. You also can ask your Cooperative Extension Service office for recommendations. Fall is a good time to test soil because labs aren’t as busy. It’s also a good time to add many amendments (materials that improve your soil’s fertility and workability) to your soil because they break down slowly. To prepare a soil sample to use with a do-it-yourself kit or to send to a soil lab, follow these steps: Fill a cup with soil from the top 4 to 6 inches of soil from your vegetable garden, and then place the soil in a plastic bag. Dig six to eight similar samples from different parts of your plot. Mix all the cups of soil together; place two cups of the combined soil in a plastic bag — that’s your soil sample. After you’ve collected your sample, consult the instructions from your soil test kit or the testing lab. If you’re testing a soil imbalance — a known problem that you’ve identified in either pH or nutrients — you may want to test your soil every year because changes in pH and most nutrients are gradual. A home testing kit is a good way to test a pH imbalance. For nutrients, you may want to do a yearly test at a lab until the imbalance (high or low levels of a nutrient) is fixed. To maintain balanced soil, test it every three to five years. Adjusting soil pH Most garden soils have a pH between 5.5 and 8.0. This number helps you determine when and how to adjust your soil’s pH level. The following guidelines help you interpret this number: If the number is below 6, the soil is too acidic, and you need to add ground limestone. If the measurement is above 7.5, the soil is too alkaline for most vegetables, and you need to add soil sulfur. In the following sections, I explain how to figure out how much lime or sulfur you need to add to your soil and how to apply the materials. Calculating how much lime or sulfur you need All Cooperative Extension Service offices, any soil lab, many lawn and garden centers, and the National Gardening Association website have charts showing how much lime or sulfur to add to correct a pH imbalance. The charts tell you how many pounds of material to add per 1,000 square feet, so you need to measure the size of your vegetable garden first. Then use Tables 1 and 2 to figure out how much lime or sulfur you need to add to your soil. Pounds of Limestone Needed to Raise pH (per 1,000 square feet) pH Pounds for Sandy Soil Pounds for Loam Soil Pounds for Clay Soil 4.0-6.5 60 161 230 4.5-6.5 50 130 190 5.0-6.5 40 100 150 5.5-6.5 30 80 100 6.0-6.5 15 40 60 Pounds of Sulfur Needed to Lower pH (per 1,000 square feet) pH Pounds for Sandy Soil Pounds for Loam Soil Pounds for Clay Soil 8.5-6.5 45 60 70 8.0-6.5 30 35 45 7.5-6.5 10 20 25 7.0-6.5 2 4 7 In general, soils in climates with high rainfall — such as east of the Mississippi River (particularly east of the Appalachian Mountains) or in the Pacific Northwest — tend to be acidic. West of the Mississippi, where less rainfall occurs, soils are more alkaline. But regardless of where you live in North America, you should easily be able to find the lime or sulfur that you need at your local garden center.

Article / Updated 07-25-2022

Whether you're a novice or experienced gardener, embrace water-conservation methods even if you don't live in a water-restricted area. Conserve water as you garden, and you'll help save this precious resource and save some money, too. Keep these water-saving pointers in mind when tending to your garden: Grow plants that perform better under low water conditions: Some drought-resistant food crops you might try include herbs and hot peppers. For flowers and other ornamentals, consider native plants and wildflowers, ornamental grasses, and succulents. Plant closer together: Doing so allows you to conserve soil moisture and shade the ground, keeping it cool and moist. Consider the time of day that you water, especially if you use a sprinkler: You lose less water to evaporation (an important consideration in hot, dry climates) if sprinklers operate in the cool of the morning rather than during the heat of the afternoon. Watering in the morning also gives leaves a chance to dry off before evening; wet foliage is an ideal fungus-growing medium. Frequent, shallow waterings do more harm than good: They cause roots to develop mainly in the upper few inches of the soil, where they're susceptible to drying out. Instead, go for occasional, deep waterings. Deep waterings allow moisture to penetrate deeply into the soil. The roots will follow the water, and the plant will be deep rooted and less likely to be effected by dry conditions. You'll water less frequently; maybe deeply once per week. If your garden has heavy clay soil or is on a slope, and you find that water begins to run off before it penetrates 6 inches deep in the soil, try watering at intervals: Water for 10 to 15 minutes, let the water soak in for 15 to 20 minutes, and then water again. Try to use soaker hoses and drip irrigation to direct water to the plants and not waste it on pathways: Use a timer to turn on the system during cool parts of the day for only as long as needed. Collect rainwater from roofs and store it to be used in the garden: Rain barrels (often used with rain gardens) are becoming more widely available. In some areas you can even use gray water from your home in your yards. Check with your local water municipality for regulations on using gray water. Apply mulch, which helps retain moisture and keeps soil from drying out quickly.

Article / Updated 03-29-2022

When deciding where to plant your vegetable garden, assess sun exposure, soil quality, and water access. Choosing a garden site that's best for growing vegetables is based on good old common sense, as these tips reveal: Keep it close: Plant your garden where you'll walk by it daily so that you remember to care for it. Also, a vegetable garden is a place people like to gather, so keep it close to a pathway. Make it easy to access: If you need to bring in soil, compost, mulch, or wood by truck or car, make sure your garden can be easily reached by a vehicle. Have a water source close by: Hauling hose around to water the garden will cause extra work and frustration. Keep it flat. You can garden on a slight slope, and, in fact, a south-facing one is ideal since it warms up faster in spring. However, too severe a slope could lead to erosion problems. A sample yard with possible (and impossible) sites for a vegetable garden. Considering garden size and sun exposure If you're a first-time gardener, 100 square feet is plenty of garden to take care of; start small and build on your success. However, if you want to produce food for storing and sharing, a 20-foot-by-30-foot plot (600 square feet total) is a great size. Fruiting vegetables, such as tomatoes, peppers, beans, squash, melons, cucumbers, and eggplant, need at least six hours of direct sun a day for good yields. The amount of sun doesn't have to be continuous though. You can have three hours in the morning with some shade midday and then three more hours in the late afternoon. If your little piece of heaven gets less than six hours of sun, you have some options: Greens, such as lettuce, arugula, bok choy, and spinach, produce reasonably well in a partially shaded location where the sun shines directly on the plants for three to four hours a day. Root crops, such as carrots, potatoes, and beets, need more light than leafy vegetables, but they may do well getting only four to six hours of sun a day. A site that's sunny in midsummer may later be shaded by trees, buildings, and the longer shadows of late fall and early spring. If you live in a mild winter climate ― such as parts of the southeastern and southwestern United States ― where it's possible to grow vegetables nearly year-round, choose a spot that's sunny in winter and summer. Multiple sites could be the answer You can have multiple vegetable garden plots around your yard matching the conditions with the vegetables you're growing. If your only sunny spot is a strip of ground along the front of the house, plant a row of peppers and tomatoes. If you have a perfect location near a back door, but it only gets morning sun, plant lettuce and greens in that plot.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-25-2021

Everyone loves good food, and food grown in your own vegetable garden is simply the best. You just need a few essential elements for a successful vegetable garden: a properly sized site with a good selection of veggies, fertile soil, and plenty of sun. And to keep your vegetable garden productive, you can use a few easy methods to prevent pests and other problems.

Article / Updated 06-18-2019

You can break down the essential elements of a successful vegetable garden into five words, all starting with the letter S. Here’s a foolproof formula: Selection: Grow what you like to eat! While the easiest vegetables to grow are bush beans, lettuce, tomatoes, and squash, grow vegetables that you know you and your family will enjoy. That being said, grow a variety of vegetables and try a few new veggies each year. You never know who may acquire a taste for Brussels sprouts! Site: Locate your garden near a walkway, next to the house, or someplace where you pass it each day. If it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind. By visiting the garden for ten minutes each day, you can keep it in good shape. Make sure that your site also has easy access to a water source and is relatively flat. Size: Start small. A 3-foot-x-6-foot raised bed and a few containers are plenty to get started in a small area. If you have the room, try a 10-foot-x-10-foot garden. It’s better to have success with a small garden the first year, and then graduate into something larger the next year. (For example, if you want to produce food for storing and sharing, a 20-foot-x-30-foot plot is a great size. You can produce an abundance of different vegetables and still keep the plot looking good.) Soil: The best garden has fertile, well-drained soil amended with compost annually. Building raised beds allows the soil to drain faster and warm more quickly in spring. (Raised beds are kind of like wide, flat-topped rows. They’re usually at least 2 feet wide and raised at least 6 inches high, but any planting area that’s raised above the surrounding ground level is a raised bed.) Plus, you won’t be compacting the soil by stepping on it, so your plants will grow stronger. Sun: Most vegetables grow best with at least six hours of direct sun a day. If you have only three to four hours a day, try growing leafy green vegetables, such as lettuce, mesclun greens, and Swiss chard, or root crops like carrots, beets, and radishes. You can also consider planting a movable garden. Plant crops in containers and move them to the sunniest spots in your yard throughout the year.

Article / Updated 04-25-2017

You need lots of room when you grow vining vegetables like cucumbers, melons, squash, and pumpkins. Don't have the growing space for vining vegetables? No worries; you can plant the smaller, bush (nonvining) varieties of some of these plants. The vining vegetables belong to the cucumber family (Cucurbitaceae) of plants. They all love heat; grow long stems; have separate male and female flowers on the same plant; produce lots of fruits; and take up a great deal of room in the garden. First, choose a full-sun area of your garden. Plant seeds about 1 inch deep in the soil, and space them so they have room to ramble. For vining varieties, plant hills at least 6 to 10 feet apart. For bush varieties, plant seeds about 2 to 4 feet apart. Here are some other growing tips: *Fertilize: Add a 3- to 4-inch layer of compost to each planting bed. To increase fruiting, add a side-dressing of 5-5-5fertilizer after the plants begin vining. Water: To get the best-sized and best-tasting vining crops, give your plants a consistent supply of water. The general rule is to water so that the soil is wet 6 inches deep. Hand-pollinating vining vegetables Proper pollination is a key to growing cucumber-family crops. Poor pollination can cause problems; for example: zucchini rotting before it starts growing, too few fruits on squash plants, and misshapen cucumber fruits. Pollinate the plants by hand to ensure a bountiful crop yield. Just follow these steps: Identify the male and female flowers. Male flowers are long and thin, whereas female flowers are short and have a minifruit behind their flowers. Before noon on the morning that the male flower opens, pick the male flower and remove the petals to reveal the stamen, which contains yellow pollen. Swish the stamen around inside a female flower that has just opened. Repeat with other female flowers, using the same male flower. Stay awake for some cuddling. Enemies that target vining vegetables Here are a few diseases and pests that love vining crops: Anthracnose: This fungus loves cucumbers, muskmelons, and watermelons. During warm, humid conditions, the leaves develop yellow or black circular spots, and fruits develop sunken spots with dark borders. Space plants a few feet further apart than normal so the leaves can dry quickly. Destroy infected leaves and fruits and rotate crops yearly. Bacterial wilt: Sure signs of the disease are well-watered plants that wilt during the day but recover at night. Eventually, the plants wilt and die. To control this disease, plant resistant varieties and control the cucumber beetle, which spreads bacterial wilt in your garden. Cucumber beetle: This 1/4-inch-long, yellow- and black-striped (or spotted) adult beetle feeds on all cucumber-family crops. The adults eat leaves, and the larvae feed on roots. To control cucumber beetles, cover young plants with a floating row cover or apply a botanical spray such as pyrethrin on the adult beetles. Squash bug: These 1/2-inch-long, brown or gray bugs attack squash and pumpkins late in the growing season. They can quickly stunt your plants. To control these pests, crush the masses of reddish-brown eggs on the underside of leaves. Also, rotate crops and clean up plant debris in fall where the squash bugs overwinter. Squash vine borer: In early summer, the adult moths lay eggs on squash or pumpkin stems. After the eggs hatch, white caterpillars tunnel into the plants' stems. They can cause well-watered vines to wilt during the day and eventually die. Look for entry holes and the sawdust-like droppings at the base of your plants. To control these pests, slit your plant's stem lengthwise from the entry hole toward the tip of the vine with a sharp razor, and remove the caterpillar. Then cover the stem with soil; it will reroot itself.

Article / Updated 04-25-2017

Tomatoes require a long growing season, so your best bets are to buy plants or start seeds indoors 4 to 6 weeks before your last frost date. Either way, you want a stocky, 6- to 10-inch tall transplant ready to go into the garden after all danger of frost has passed. To jump-start tomatoes, preheat the garden soil by laying a plastic sheet over the garden bed, pull it tight, cover the edges with soil, and let the plastic heat the soil for 2 weeks before transplanting. Planting, trellising, and pruning tomatoes To get the best tomatoes, you need to plant properly, keep the fruits off the ground, and prune them. Here are the basic steps for planting tomato plants: Dig a hole twice the diameter and depth of the tomato root ball. Place a small handful of all-purpose organic fertilizer or compost into the hole. Plant the tomato transplant up to its two top-most set of leaves. Roots will form along the buried stem. Bury the stem vertically or horizontally in the ground, leaving at least two sets of leaves poking out. So soon after you transplant, you have to decide which trellising method to use: Staking: Drive a wooden or metal stake into the ground next to the tomato transplant. Fasten the main trunk of the tomato to the stake with plastic ties. Caging: Insert a three-ringed metal cage into the soil around your tomato transplant. Keep branches inside the cage as the plant grows. Stake or cage your tomatoes. To keep tomato plants vigorous, remove extra side branches. When these suckers are 3 to 4 inches long, remove them by pinching them out or by cutting them back to the main stem with scissors. Remove suckers from tomato plants. Fertilizing and watering your tomatoes Side-dress your tomato plants with a complete organic fertilizer, such as 5-5-5. Apply the first side-dressing when the tomatoes are golf-ball sized, and then side-dress every three weeks. Use fertilizers with lower rates of nitrogen; higher rates cause tomato plants to sport lots of dark green leaves and produce few tomatoes. Tomatoes need 1 inch of water a week, but they may need more in areas with hot, dry, windy summers. Eliminating pests and other problems Here are a few insects that are a problem with tomatoes: Tomato hornworm: These huge, green caterpillars, which sometimes grow to 4 inches long, have a horn-like "tail." A few hungry hornworms can devastate a tomato plant quickly. If you see a hornworm that has what looks like grains of rice stuck on it, leave it alone! The "rice grains" are actually the cocoons of its natural enemy, a parasitic wasp. Pick off hornworms and drown them in soapy water. Tomato fruitworm: This green, 1-inch-long caterpillar with white or yellow stripes feeds on foliage and fruits. They can be handpicked from plants. Stink bug: These 1/2-inch-long gray or green shield-shaped insects primarily feed on fruits, causing hard, white or yellow spots on the tomato skin. To control stink bugs, keep your garden weed-free.

Article / Updated 04-25-2017

After you prepare your garden beds and harden off the seedlings, it's time to transplant your seedlings into the garden. Transplant seedlings on a calm, cloudy day, if possible. Late afternoon is a good time because plants can recover from the shock of transplanting without sitting in the midday heat and sun. Your garden soil should be moist, but not soggy. If the weather has been dry, water the planting area the day before you plant. Moisten the soil in your flats or pots so it holds together around the plants' roots when you remove the plants from their containers. When setting out plants in biodegradable peat pots, make slits down the sides of the pots or gently tear the sides to enable the roots to push through. Make sure that no part of the peat pot appears above the soil; the exposed peat acts as a moisture wick and can dry out the soil quickly. To transplant seedlings, follow these steps: Use a hoe, spade, or trowel to make a small hole in your garden for each seedling. The hole should be deep enough so the transplant is at the same depth in the ground as it was in the pot (except for tomatoes). Make the hole twice as wide as the root ball. Unpot a seedling (unless it's in a peat pot) by turning its pot upside down and cupping the seedling with your hand. Be sure to keep the root mass and soil intact. If the seedling doesn't come out easily, gently tap on the edge of the pot or gently press on the bottom of each cell of the flat with your fingers. Whatever you do, don't yank out a plant by its stem. Check the root ball's condition. If the roots are wound around the outside of the pot, work them loose with your fingers so they can grow out into the soil. Unwind larger roots and break smaller ones (this won't hurt them) so they all point outward. Try to keep as much of the original soil intact as possible. Mix a diluted liquid fertilizer into the soil of the planting hole to help the plants get off to a fast start. Reduce the recommended strength on the fertilizer container by half. For example, if it says apply 1 tablespoon per gallon of water, use only 1/2 tablespoon. Put each prepared seedling into the holes that you made. Plant seedlings at the correct depth. Tomatoes prefer deeper planting. Remove all but the top 3 or 4 sets of leaves, before planting. Tomatoes grow extra roots along the lower portion of their stems and thrive with this treatment. After firming the soil around the roots with your hands, form a shallow soil basin around the base of the transplant. The soil basin serves as a moat around the seedling to hold water. When you water or when it rains, the moisture stays in the moat and drains to where the roots are located. Depending on the conditions, water the bed that day or the next. If the weather has been dry or if the soil is sandy, you may want to water the entire bed; if it's rainy or the soil is already very wet, wait until tomorrow to water. Keep the bed moist while the seedlings get established and begin to grow strongly. Mulch after the seedlings become well-established. In extreme hot, dry weather, provide temporary shade for transplants with paper tents or wooden shingles pushed into the ground on the south or west side of the plants. If you don't get an ideal transplanting day and the weather is hot and sunny, shade the plants until the sun goes down. And don't be alarmed if your plants look a little droopy after you set them out; they'll soon recover. Cabbage seedlings can droop and look almost dead, for example, and be up and growing in a day or two.