Category Archives: vegetables

How To Build A Vegetable Garden, Or How We Did, Anyway

raised garden bed, vegetable garden

While I didn’t build the raised beds for our vegetable garden with my own hands, I supervised. I was super impatient about making choices and getting the beds built so I could start planting, but there are some important decisions to be made. You’ll want to consult with other gardeners in your area to determine the species of wood and… Read more »

How To Plant Tomatoes: Deep, Deep, Deep. Really Deep.

tomato plant

When I read about planting and growing tomatoes, books and websites say to plant them deep. So that makes me think, “OK, dig the hole a little deeper than other plants.” I learned this spring that it’s a little bit more than that. As I’ve looked more closely at photos and especially this video by Deb’s Greenhouse, I see that… Read more »

Things I’m Trying Not To Say As I Grow Vegetables From Seed

vegetable seed starting tomato

My basement seed starting experiment was going full speed ahead. Tomato, pepper, romaine, spinach and cauliflower plants were plugging along happily when I noticed a few tiny bugs crawling around on the table under the seed trays. I identified them as clover mites, which, as I now know, love to snack on plant material. I really didn’t want to spray… Read more »

We’re Building A Raised Garden Bed For Vegetable Gardening: Selecting The Options

Where will I plant these cucumber, squash and corn seeds? In our new raised beds.

Healthier diets! Fresh tomatoes! Less stress! Better life! There are so many benefits of gardening, so we’re building raised garden beds for growing vegetables this summer. There is a ridiculous amount of research on why gardening is good for you and here’s some of it. A study conducted in the Netherlands showed that gardening can reduce the level of the stress… Read more »

Lettuce Seedlings Love Grow Lights: An Update On My Fall Experiment

Romaine Freckles seedlings day 1

My lettuce seedlings are doing extremely well under grow lights. I had been having the same problem I often have with seedlings — sad, spindly growth, even after a few weeks. I put a new batch of romaine ‘Freckles’ seedlings under lights 20 days ago. Just after my last update, I noticed that the roots of the seedlings had reached the… Read more »

Using Grow Lights With Lettuce Seedlings: A Fall Test

'Freckles' romaine under lights

When I started baby spinach and romaine lettuce seeds for a fall harvest, the seedlings were spindly and sad. This has happened to me more than once while trying to start plants from seed and I never knew why. In the past, I’ve planted these sad sprouts outside (where they failed) and eventually just gave up on growing from seed…. Read more »

Is Fall Vegetable Gardening The Most Difficult Gardening?

Fall vegetables in seed tray: pumpkin, baby spinach, cucumber, romaine lettuce

I’ve never planted fall vegetables before, but I am doing it this year. Here’s my plan: Seeds: Acorn squash, cucumbers, pumpkins, romaine lettuce, baby spinach. Based on the fact that these were pretty much the only seed packets for sale at the garden center, they seem to be excellent choices for this time of year. The seed packets mainly give sowing information relevant… Read more »