Our Favorite Gardening Tips for a Bountiful Vegetable Harvest

If you’re getting started with your first garden, you may be overwhelmed with some of the prep work required before you can sink your first potato into the welcoming earth. There’s solarizing and double-digging and soil amendments and a whole host of other chores to do. And that’s only if you have suitable land to work with.

Container gardening starts you on the path without taking on more than you can handle. Also, you’re more likely to produce satisfying results. Unlike gardening in the ground, container gardening gives you more control of the conditions. Your plants will never get too much sun or too much rain. You can even move them under cover or indoors during cold snaps. Containers also allow you to save precious water where resources are scant. And you’ll never waste a drop of fertilizer, either.

It may be tempting to try to grow all the vegetables, but you may be setting yourself up for failure before you even get started. Choose five to eight kinds you’ve identified as suitable for your region.

If you find yourself with Spring Fever in March or April, it may be too grow vegetables from seeds. But it’s never too late when you can purchase starter plants from your local nursery. Get a head start on peppers and tomatoes with seedlings while sowing lettuce seeds. With careful timing and using starter plants, you should be able to whip up the perfect home-grown salad in no time.

You can add leftover coffee grounds and tea leaves directly to the soil for increased nitrogen. Don’t discard prepared coffee or tea, either. Water your plants with either after dilution. Many favorite vegetable plants love the extra acid. Leafy greens, peppers, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and cucumbers all appreciate the occasional cup of joe.

If you don’t have the space to nurture compost for months on end, make compost “tea.” Fill a large outdoor garbage can up to one-third full with compostable waste. Avoid animal waste or products of any kind. Choose weeds, leaves, fruit and vegetable kitchen scraps, or grass cuttings. Fill the can with water and cover tightly. Your “tea” will be ready in about two weeks and ready to feed your garden.

Some plants just belong together, and we don’t mean on your plate. Planting compatible plants together makes the most of small spaces. Intersperse your corn, beans, and squash to use the three levels of light exposure: one tall plant, one midsize bush, and a sprawling vine vegetable.

Another way to combine plants for a better harvest is to add plants that repel insects. Many dislike garlic, onions, or chives. Others find marigolds and chrysanthemums unpleasant. Slugs and snails don’t like fennel. And thyme and oregano make a good ground cover around your vegetable plants, cooling the soil while repelling many garden pests. But do allow these to flower; bees love herb flowers and will pollinate your garden.

Even among different varieties of the same plants, you’ll find varieties that mature faster than others. For example, you may like the impressive beefsteak tomatoes, but “Early Girl” will give you fruit in 50 days. Those beefsteaks will take 85 days or more. Harvest baby carrots in just about a month and grow sequential crops for a long-lasting harvest. Like green beans? Go for the bush variety for an earlier harvest at around 60-65 days. Runner beans can take up to 80 days. Or grow them both, so you’ll have plenty all summer long, plus some to freeze or can.

Harvesting your vegetables as soon as they're ripe is the best way to keep your plants producing. The whole reason a plant produces fruit is to reproduce. In nature, this fruit provides a nutrient-dense package so the plant’s offspring will have a good start. It seems rather cruel, but removing it forces the plant to grow more of them and increases your garden’s production,

Some insects in your garden are the good guys. So, if you’re squeamish about bugs, gardening might not be for you. Several species of bees aid in pollinating your crops. Ladybugs and some spiders feast on pest insects like aphids. So, make sure your environment encourages them to participate in your garden endeavors.

Add bee-attracting plants, like sunflowers. Not only do sunflowers attract pollinators, but they can also provide some shade for your more heat-sensitive vegetables. Other useful plants to incorporate into your garden are herbs, like oregano, thyme, and borage.

Another way to welcome beneficial bugs into your garden is to provide shelter. You can add a bee house for solitary bees, like mason bees. These bees don’t swarm in hives but burrow into small crevices in old logs. Spiders also appreciate places to hide, like piles of bark mulch.

Water used to boil pasta or cook vegetables retains some of the residual nutrients. Don’t let it go to waste; collect this water from your colander and use it to water your vegetable plants as long as no meat or dairy products were used in seasoning.

It’s no joke; banana peels are filled with potassium and make excellent plant food. Cut up your discarded banana peels and bury them directly into the ground around any plants in your garden.

Peppers like a bit of sulfur, but you don’t need to buy a special fertilizer for them. Plant the seedlings with a couple of matches in the hole.

Milk provides your plants with calcium and deters aphids. Adding some milk to your tomatoes, squash, and peppers can also help prevent blossom end rot. Use up expired milk in your vegetable patch. But, dilute at least 50/50 with water. Or, like some gardeners, you can just sprinkle powdered milk around your veggies and water it in.

Tomatoes are fussy about moisture by nature, and they’re very susceptible to fungal infections. However, adding a pre-1983 U.S. penny (made of 95 percent copper) allows this vital mineral to leach into the soil destroying any fungal spores.