Best Locations for a Spring Vegetable Garden

Series Summary

Eating homegrown tomatoes is a special treat, especially when they come from you own garden. But starting your own garden is no easy chore. It takes planning, dedication and hard work. And without the proper planning, your dedication and hard work may amount to nothing. Knowing when and what to plant in your vegetable garden goes a long way toward determining the success of your gardening endeavor.

In this series of free gardening tips, our horticulture expert will tell you how to plant the perfect garden. David Rodriguez tells you where to plant, how to prepare the land and gives you advice for raising the land with railroad ties for better irrigation. He discusses the ideal bed width and the right compost mix and mulch for your garden. Not sure how often to water? Wondering about the best fertilizer? Learn how to till and nurse your vegetable garden to get the ideal results. Watch these excellent videos and you'll be enjoying fresh vegetables from your very own garden in no time at all!

Video Transcript

"Hello everybody I am David Rodriquez, horticulturist with Texas Agricultural Extension service on behalf of Expert Village and we are going to show you some gardening steps in preparing your vegetable garden for the spring planting. Location, location, location one of the first steps that you need to do in getting your vegetable garden ready for the springtime or getting a new vegetable garden started is no shade trees. Vegetables need to be in eight to ten hours of all day full sun. Don’t let the vegetables or vegetable garden compete against the root system of the tree, which can go two times out from the main canopy of the tree or from the shade of the tree. All vegetables that have fruit or seeds in them need full sun. Now some vegetables such as cauliflower, spinach or your root crops can take a little bit less sun, four to six hours, well all vegetables will be happy. So the first step is location, location, location, don’t be planting your vegetable garden in a shady location. "