Plan your garden
In zones 3-7 you can plant your veggie garden in winter or summer. In the north, you can only plant in summer. Walk around your yard at different times of day. Notice how the sunny and shady parts change in your yard as the sun rises and sets. You should plant your veggie garden in an area of the yard where there is full sun for at least eight hours a day, if you can.
Prepare your garden site.
Start to get ready in late winter or early spring.. You may want to begin a garden journal to write down your plans, put pictures of your garden and record what worked well and what you want to change next year.
Here is a printable garden journal for free.
Here is another free printable garden journal
Ilona's Garden Journal or design a garden journal scrapbook.
One way to prepare your garden spot is to lay a big piece of clear plastic on the ground and hold down the corners with bricks. The sun will kill the weeds and grass, so that after a month you can begin to mix a fertilizer, such as cow manure, in with your dirt to about six inches deep. You can cover your garden with plastic again to kill the weed seeds in the manure.
If you don't have time for this way, use a tiller or a shovel(This one is lots of exercise.) to remove the grass and weeds. Then you can mix in fertilizer.
When you are ready to plant, you can use seeds or plants from a garden center or seed catalog.
Water your garden
After you plant your garden with water. Be careful not to wash away your seeds or plants by giving it too much water. Water your garden everyday to keep it moist. In ten days or less your little plants will come up.
Pull up weeds by their roots when you are sure that they are not your vegetables.
Click on our Vegetable Power wiki table to learn about vegetables or add new ones to our collection.