Want Tastier, Healthier, Less Expensive Food?
Try Backyard Vegetable Gardening!
Successful vegetable gardening requires a little bit of effort and some knowledge. If you'll provide the effort, we'll provide the knowledge. Together, we CAN make your vegetable garden a success.
Just click on the links in the navigation bar on the left to learn how to grow each kind of vegetable. We've put together tons of information that includes planting, watering, fertilizing and harvesting tips and tricks. There's also information about different varieties of each vegetable and diagnosing and curing common plant problems. Additionally, we've created recipe pages with lots of ideas for each vegetable listed. Basically, we grow a bunch of stuff in our own backyard and we're happy to share how we do it with anyone who's interested.
We're here to help and will also cover vegetable gardening topics including...
Vegetable gardening can be very beneficial - it relieves stress, burns calories and literally puts food on your table. And the best part - anyone can grow vegetables in just about every living situation. It doesn't matter if you have a small patio with a few containers or acres of land. Start with some dirt and water and add a seed. Throw in a dash of sunshine, a pinch of elbow grease and a little bit of time. Thanks to mother nature - fresh vegetables will begin to appear in your backyard like magic.
Here's a Few Reasons to Start Backyard Vegetable Gardening
There are hundreds of different vegetables to choose from - and different ways to grow them. You can choose from hundreds of varieties of tomatoes, green beans, squash, peas, peppers, etc... that you likely won't be able to find in your local grocery store or even at your local farmers' market. There are tons of delicious varieties of vegetables that you've probably never even heard of. This is because most of these varieties don't lend themselves very well to commercial agriculture production, so you probably won't be able to find them locally. A lot of these lesser-known varieties are more flavorful and have more unique qualities that most of the varieties you're familiar with. You can grow your own vegetables in a container or in the backyard. You can even grow them inside your home. You can grow organic vegetables and/or heirloom vegetables. Depending on where you live, you can plant a summer garden AND a winter garden. The possibilities are endless.
Growing your own fresh produce is much less expensive than buying it in a grocery store. One tomato plant can easily produce 15 pounds of tomatoes. It might cost you $30 (or more) to buy 15 pounds of tomatoes. It would likely cost less than half that to grow the same amount of tomatoes yourself. The same goes for almost every other vegetable you can think of. Every time we go to the grocery store, we are amazed at how much fresh produce costs, especially organic produce. We're also thankful that we have the space and knowledge to grow our own for a lot less money. We've never really kept track of how much money we've saved over the years from backyard vegetable gardening, but we'd guess it's probably in excess of $10,000.
Vegetables just taste better if you grow them yourself. You appreciate them more because you know the time and effort that went into producing them. When you grow your own vegetables, you know exactly what you are eating. You know how much pesticide (if any) was used. You know how ripe it was, because you picked it yourself. You're also likely to eat more vegetables if you can walk into the backyard and pick them right off the plant. Who among us doesn't need to eat more vegetables? In addition, growing your own vegetables naturally leads to more seasonal eating, which some research shows is much more beneficial to our bodies and our minds. Sure, canning and preserving your harvest is great and we do plenty of it. But when it comes to eating fresh picked produce, there's a time and place for all of it. Fresh peas are usually a spring and fall crop and there's a reason they are often associated with other spring and fall crops, like carrots. You've never heard of eating peas and peppers together, right? That's because they grow at different times of the year.
There's just something about backyard vegetable gardening that satisfies the soul. Maybe it's digging in the dirt. Or maybe it's creating something from almost nothing. Vegetable gardening is very primitive, but yet somehow refined. If you put in the effort, you're usually rewarded with a bountiful harvest.
A bumper crop is right around the corner. Can you already taste the fruits (or vegetables) of your labor? Let's get started...