Whether you are a new gardener or have been gardening for some time now, there are ways by which you can increase your vegetable garden yield. These steps can help you get more vegetables out of your garden this year.

Improve Soil Quality

The most important way in which you can increase your vegetable garden yield is by improving soil quality. This can be done without too much work by covering the vegetable garden plot with compost and hay at the start of winter. By the time you are ready to plant, the compost would have been worked into the soil by the snow and rain as well as insects, ensuring nutrient-rich soil for your vegetables with less effort on your part. The deeper the layer of composted soil, the healthier the plants.

Use Raised Beds

Another way of increasing vegetable garden yields is to use raised beds. This has multiple advantages. The raised beds reduce the amount of space taken by paths. Moreover, the soil can be made more nutrient rich much more easily as compost can be worked into it. Both these benefits will increase the yield of the vegetable garden.

Round Out the Beds

When you use raised beds, you can also round them out. This increases the surface area available for plants. When multiplied by the length of the beds, the amount of additional space is significant enough to increase yields. Plant greens and similar plants at the edges of the raised beds, making them easier to harvest as well.

Stagger the Plants

Another way of saving space when planting vegetables is to stagger them. Instead of planting them in straight rows, plant them in triangles. This will enable you to plant more in the same area while still ensuring that all of the plants get sufficient sunlight, water, and nutrients to grow to their maximum potential.

Use Vertical Space

Fix vertical trellises and poles at the sides of the raised beds and train vines of beans, melons, and similar plants on them. This will help save garden space and ensure healthier plants as well. The vertical plants will escape fungal diseases. Harvesting is also easier as you will be able to spot the crop of vegetables much more easily.

Interplant

You should also interplant or mix up the plants in your vegetable garden to maximize the use of available space. Compatible plants can be grown together to ensure that weeds are kept out and all available space is used by vegetable plants. For instance, if you plant corn, pole beans, and squash together, the corn stalks will support the pole beans and the squash will grow on the ground in the space between them. You can also grow tomatoes, onions, and basil together or plant carrots, radishes, and onions together.

Plant Successive Crops

Another way to make the most out of your vegetable garden is to plant and harvest successive crops. If you select quick growing plants, the first lot can be harvested before a second crop is grown in the same area. Before planting the second crop, ensure that you add more compost to the soil to make it nutrient rich.

Stretch the Growing Season

In order to grow two crops, you will also need to stretch the growing season. This can be done by growing seedlings in your greenhouse or garden shed before the start of spring. Once the weather becomes warmer, transplant the seedlings to the garden. The head start will enable them to mature faster, leaving you with the time to start a second crop. This too should be started in the greenhouse as the first crop starts to mature.

Move Plants Indoors

Toward the end of the growing season, you can prolong the growth period, by simply moving some of the plants indoors to your garden shed or greenhouse. For instance, if the tomatoes have yet to ripen and the weather turns chilly, all you need to do is cut the vines and hang them indoors in a warm area. The tomatoes will continue to mature and ripen, ensuring a bountiful harvest.

Enjoy Your Increased Vegetable Garden Yield

If you love gardening and want to increase the supply of fresh vegetables that your garden yields, you do not have to look for more ground space. Instead, simply improve soil quality, plant quick maturing plants, space the plants properly, and transplant seedlings.

Each of these steps will help increase your vegetable garden yield. Additionally, the labor and materials used is not significantly higher. By spacing the plants closer together, you will be able to spend less time watering, weeding, and harvesting, maximizing the productivity of your garden with ease.

Select the plants that are best suited for the soil and climate around your home, and reduce the amount of labor you need to put into it.

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Vegetable garden If you have plenty of open space around your home and want to spend a productive time outdoors, you should start a vegetable garden. This will enable you to enjoy growing your own vegetables and obtain fresh produce for your kitchen, canning purposes, or just by giving them away. The first steps when planning a vegetable garden are locating the site and determining its size. You should start small and expand your vegetable garden over the years.

How to Plan a Vegetable Garden

Size and Location

Choose a level plot about 16 feet by 10 feet in a sunny spot. When deciding on the size of your vegetable plot, error on the side of caution and fix on a smaller plot first. Once you are sure you can manage this and also make use of the vegetables you grow, you can expand it in the future. Vegetables require between six and eight hours of sunlight a day, so make sure the plot you select receives plenty of sun and is away from trees that can cast a shadow or take away vital nutrients. If possible, select a plot that is close to the house since this will discourage garden pests and wild animals.

Soil Quality

Vegetables require plenty of nutrients, so the soil should be loamy. Before you begin planting, get the soil tested and add mulch, compost, and other fertilizers as recommended.

Picking the Plants

Once you have decided on the plot you need to pick the plants you want to grow. Consult with the local horticultural organization about the best vegetables to grow in your area. Also factor in your tastes and requirements and only plant those vegetables that you will use. Some of the easiest plants to grow for beginners are tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, bush beans, cabbage, carrot, beets, lettuce, radishes, and chard. You should also plant marigolds around the vegetable garden to keep out rabbits.

Vegetable Rows

A garden that is 16 feet by 10 feet can accommodate 11 rows each of 10 feet in length. This spacing of the rows will give you sufficient space to walk between them to water, weed, and harvest the crop of vegetables.

Raised Beds or Tilling

Another decision that you need to make regarding the vegetable garden is whether you will be tilling the soil or planting on raised beds. Raised beds are recommended if the soil is of poor quality or if you have a bad back.

Building a Raised Bed

You can build a raised bed using four feet width lumber. The four feet width of the beds is ideal for growing most vegetables and will provide you with space to walk between the raised beds to tend to your plants, whether you are watering them or weeding the beds. When selecting lumber opt for natural woods with oil such as cedar that will not decompose easily even when exposed to soil and moisture. This will ensure that the raised beds last for around ten years. Alternatively, you can use pressure treated wood as long as it is not CCA pressure treated. When selecting lumber for your raised vegetable bed, ensure that it will not leach harmful chemicals into the soil. It is also possible to build raised vegetable beds using concrete blocks. However, this will likely increase the pH of the soil over time and you will need to treat the soil to combat this. When building a raised bed, the depth should be at least 6 inches while 12 inches is ideal. Drive wooden stakes into the ground to support the raised beds. The stakes should be spaced all along the length of the raised bed. Next, the wooden beds can be fixed to the stakes using galvanized screws and the beds filled with a mix of soil, compost, and manure.

Watering

While all vegetable gardens require at least an inch of water a week, raised beds might need to be watered more frequently, especially in summer. To prevent the soil from drying in summer, it can be covered with mulch, hay, or other organic material. It is possible to start a vegetable garden even if you only have a small open space, as long as the plot receives plenty of sunlight. All other aspects of the garden can be controlled. For instance, after getting the soil tested, you can add compost, manure, and fertilizer to improve its quality, build a raised bed, and increase the frequency of water if needed.

Gardening Tools

Once you have decided to start a vegetable garden, you should order the seeds or plants you require as well as a set of gardening tools. The basic gardening tools you need include a garden fork, spade, watering hose, hand weeder, hoe, and bucket or wheel barrow. Just as you need to order quality seeds, consider paying extra for high quality gardening tools since they will last longer―certainly if you take care of them. For instance, leaving tools in the weather, in the sun all day, is not conducive to long tool life.
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