Who Wants to Start a Vegetable Garden?

You do?  Well, you are not alone. Beautiful spring weather inspires many of us to want this.  If you want a summer vegetable garden, and yes, now is just about the time to begin planning and planting your summer vegetable garden, here are some pointers to help you in that endeavor. 

1.  The time to plant the summer vegetable garden - meaning the heat loving vegetables like tomatoes, corn, beans, eggplant, peppers, okra - is when all danger of frost is past.  In Alpharetta and Milton this is generally regarded to be at or between time period of April 9 to April 15.  It does not matter what is sitting on shelves in the box stores or the plant nurseries.  Inventories do not trump mother nature.  If you plant a tomato on April 1, you may be the fool.  

2.  If you must go out today and plant something then by all means plant lettuce seed!  It will love the cooler temps of April and May.  And home grown lettuce may give you an epiphany as to why salads are delicious. 

3.  Some veggie seed - like corn and southern peas - want warm soil temperatures before they are planted.  Lucky for us, the University of Georgia maintains a website that will give you exact data on soil temperatures.  It can be viewed here.

4.  This seems simple - yet everyone seems to forget to do it - but read the package of seed to get the pertinent information you need about best time to plant and dates to maturity (or when something is ready to eat).  Or, if you bought a plant start at a nursery or box store, refer to the most knowledgeable source in this state for information on vegetables - the University of Georgia's Cooperative Extension Service.  Simply go to their publications website and enter your key word.  For instance, if you type in "tomato" you will get tons of publications.  One of the best for your purposes might be this publication, "Georgia Home Grown Tomatoes".  

5.  And finally, the key to vegetable gardens is not necessarily what you do during the glorious days of spring when the flowers are blooming and the temps are mild and comfortable but what you do during the dog days of summer when it's ridiculously hot, you are tired, tomato horn worms have eaten half of your tomato plant, bermuda grass is all over your garden and it hasn't rained in 4 weeks.  It's what you do during those days that determines the success or failure of your vegetable garden.  

May you have all the vegetable gardening success in the world!