Tips on Planting a Vegetable Garden  

Once you've planned out your vegetable garden fully, it's now time to start planting. And if you're planting a vegetable garden outside in the ground, there are some simple ways to make your gardening experience more enjoyable for the entire growing season. 

1. Before planting your vegetable garden, you'll need to prepare the garden area. Since you chose the location for your new garden during the planning stage, this should be a simple matter of going to the location and turning the soil. 

Dig in with a shovel to loosen the dirt in your new garden area, and pull out any weeds, grass or roots that may be uncovered as you're turning the soil. Once you have as much of the debris out of the way, you may want to add some nutrients or other preparations to your soil if it's not already healthy and fertile. Since you're planting vegetables here that you and your family will eat, I'd recommend you not put any chemicals into this garden soil. Instead try mixing in some organic compost. Once you have the soil fully prepared, use a rake to even it out a bit. 

2. Make your vegetable garden rows. Vegetables are grown in rows because it makes it much easier to weed and water the produce as it's growing. Making rows is easy though, you simply use your hands, a hoe, or a small garden trowel to scoop some of the garden dirt into a mound. You'll have rows of mounded soil, which is where your vegetables will actually be planted, and the "valleys" between each row will be where most of the water goes each time you water your vegetable garden. Since the valleys are lower than the row mounds, the roots of your vegetable plants will be able to easily absorb liquid each time you water them. 

3. At the top of your mounded rows is where you'll plant your vegetable garden seeds. Now, how far apart these get planted will usually depend on the particular vegetables you're planting. Whether you're planting seeds or starter plants will make a difference as well. 

Generally you want your vegetable plants to be at least six inches apart. So if you're planting small starter vegetable plants, it's easier to make sure they're far enough apart. If you're using vegetable seeds though, you sometimes end up with multiple seeds in one planting location because the seeds are small. If this happens, you can simply pull out the extra plants once they've started growing. 

And this is a very easy way to plant very small seeds too: Simply sprinkle the seeds in a line atop your mounded row, and cover them with soil. Then once they've started growing a bit, you can pull out the extras so your vegetable plants won't be too crowded. 

4. Once you have all your starter plants and vegetable seeds in the ground, be sure to water your newly planted vegetable garden well. Since you have valley areas between the rows of planted vegetables, you can simply flood those lower lying areas using a standard water hose. You may want to spritz a bit on top of the mounded rows though, to make sure your soil is firmly in place and won't blow away. 

Related Articles:

Planning a Vegetable Garden

Vegetable Garden Soil Preparation

Vegetable Garden Layout Tips

Creating a Raised Vegetable Garden