Cool Project of the Month

Grow Your Own Vegetables!

What fun it would be to bring your own fresh vegetables that you grew all by yourself to your dinner table! 

It's easy and "You can do it!"
All it takes is a little planning and now is the perfect time to start thinking about what you might like to grow in your very own vegetable garden.

First you need to determine how much space you will have for your garden. Some vegetables take more room to grow than others so, depending on your space, you can choose different vegetables. Corn and potatoes, for instance, take up more space than tomatoes or carrots. You can save space by growing certain crops on trellises or planting "bush" varieties.

Next you can pick which vegetables you want to grow. It's most fun to have a few seed catalogs on hand to look through when you are planning your garden. Many seed companies have free catalogs that they will send to you – you just have to call or visit their website and ask for one. Most also have in-depth websites where you can find detailed descriptions of their different vegetables. Sometimes it's fun to look through all the different varieties, and then choose your favorites! Click here for a list of companies that sell vegetable and annual seeds. Visit our friends at Yardlover.com for lots of interesting vegetable seeds.

Once you pick out the vegetables you want to grow, you can order your seeds or visit your nearest full service garden center to purchase it. Most of the time when you purchase your seed at a garden store, you won't have as wide a selection of different varieties as you will when you order from a catalog, but you can usually find some good ones to grow. If you have your heart set on some unusual vegetables, you best bet is to order the seed directly from the seed company.

Some vegetables, like tomatoes and peppers, do best when they are started indoors 6-8 weeks before they can be planted outside. This gives them a head start in the garden and gives you vegetables much earlier in the season. For these vegetables, it is important to have your seed in time to get them started at the right time.

It's also fun to grow annual flowers from seed. Many of these can be started early indoors and then be transplanted outside into beds, window boxes, planters, or hanging baskets.

It's a fun project to grow your own vegetables and flowers from seed and how rewarding to bring in a big basket of vegetables or a pretty bouquet of flowers grown right in your very own garden!

You can do it!