Vegetable Gardening is fast becoming a favorite way for people concerned about food safety and cost to get quality fresh vegetables right at home
. If you do some planning of crops you can arrange to have plants producing in early spring right through late fall.
With container plants you can move them indoors when weather gets rough and keep them in the garage, a small plant light may do the trick. But you will need to provide those indoor plants with some light about 6 to eight hours a day but if you can leave the lights on do so for the plants don't need to sleep.
As with any garden you'll want to keep up on the watering whether the plants are indoors or out. Also I recommend the use of a fertilizer mixed into the water for container plants or broadcast for a garden plot.
Keep your eyes open for garden pest and at the first sign manually remove them if possible or you can have a real problem on your hand that could require a pesticide and if you like me you want organic not chemical food. Organic gardening is the healthy option. If you must use pesticides make try and not use it close to harvest time. After the harvest if you have space you can start a compost pile, or better yet invest in a com-poster they are sanitary and you'll avoid rodents that way.
If you have a garden plot and can put up a fence you may save yourself some heartache over dogs and other animals trampling your garden . I had a very high fence around one garden I had and it seemed to be a favorite climbing toy for a family of raccoons so there is no guarantee. You may want to tie plants to the fence, like vine tomatoes for example and that would be another pay off.
When working the garden area prepare your soil for your plants. Work towards the perfect mixture of sand, silt, and clay. A 40 percent sand, 40 percent silt, and 20 percent clay mixture is usually ideal. However for containers I am comfortable with the pre-mixed bags of potting soil from the local superstore. Test the soil by compressing it in your hand. To much sand and it will sift away add more soil and clay. Make a ball of soil in your hand if it doesn't fall apart with a slight pole then your may have to much clay add a little more sand.
Starting a vegetable garden will be a rewarding quality time if you do it with your children, they always get a kick out of getting their hands in the dirt and watching new life grow and produce is a good experience for them.