Planting a home vegetable garden can be an overwhelming task at first, but with some hard work, planning, good crop selection, and daily weeding and pruning, your home vegetable garden can be producing healthy, great tasting vegetables for you and your family.
Dreams of a Home Vegetable Garden

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One of my daughter’s resolutions this year was to grow a home vegetable garden Due to the fact that she had been thinking about and preparing for a garden for years, this decision actually made sense.

For instance, for the past few years she has been storing potting soil and has been window shopping looking for garden ideas at every lawn and garden store in the surrounding communities. There is even a barren spot in her backyard that looks perfect for a home vegetable garden.

Last year, during one of my visits, my daughter proudly showed me a few onions that had sprouted in her front yard. The onions gave my daughter an incentive for planting a garden in the back yard. "First things first", I said.

The space she chose had sunlight for about 8 to 10 hours a day but hadn’t been "worked" yet. In a word, I could see that there was a lot of work to do before she was ready to plant her garden.
Preparing For Your Garden

We started preparing the new garden area by removing the top layer of grass and weeds, removing any sticks and rocks we found, and removing about two inches of sandy soil.

image: backyard home vegetable garden
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I brought over a load of horse manure and unloaded it in the backyard by the garden. Not having a tiller, my daughter and I began to dig and turn the fertilizer in the hard dirt.

To loosen the soil, we added potting soil. Since the area we were preparing was about 8 feet by 20 feet, it took us around two or three hours to “work” the soil.

To get below the grass line that surrounded the garden, we made sure the depth we tilled was at least 8 inches. We added shredded paper around the edges of the garden because paper makes a good shield against invading roots. A paper shield not only works better than plastic or rubber, but it is also less expensive.

Our home vegetable garden was taking shape. We made 4 rows about 8 inches high the entire length of the garden. This design allowed good water runoff and made it relatively easy to weed. We also left an un-rowed patch in the corner about 4 feet by 6 feet for planting onions and garlic.
The Crop Selection

image: home vegetable garden with signAfter this, our garden was ready to plant. We visited the local nursery and purchased three healthy tomato plants, three green pepper plants, and three Yukon potato plants. We also bought a number of packages of seeds for carrots, onions, radishes, beets, and corn. To finish our purchase, we bought some garlic cloves.

We planted the tomatoes about 2 to 3 feet apart, allowing space to blossom. We did the same with the potatoes and the peppers. In one row we planted carrots, and in another we added radishes and beets. In the last row we planted corn, seeding every 8 inches. Finally we added onions and garlic to our little corner and gave the whole garden a good drink.
Your Home Vegetable Garden: Conclusion

Each day we went to visit our precious home vegetable garden with excitement, eagerly searching for new sprouts. Regarding maintenacne, about an hour of daily weeding and pruning kept the garden looking well manicured. A couple of months passed by and before we knew it we had the most beautiful, great tasting, and nutritious vegetables imaginable. We actually surprised ourselves with our first home vegetable garden and along the way, we learned first hand about the joy of gardening!

Copyright 2009 - Denny Soinski. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article as long as you leave all of the links active, do not edit the article in any way, and give the author credit.
About the Author

Denny Soinski writes about garden decor, gardening, bronze garden sculptures, water fountains, and outdoor metal sculptures. For more information, please visit http://www.water-fountains-and-garden-decor.com right away!