Vegetable gardening can bring enjoyment, satisfaction and the most delicious tasting vegetables to your table. Your garden can provide you with a great variety of vegetables. Choose your favorite edibles, but also consider your climate, space, soil type and budget.

Soil
– Add lots of organic material to your garden soil.
– In Metro Detroit, it’s not uncommon to have 3 to 15% organic material in our soils, but vegetables, and other garden plants like up to 50% organic material.
– Add English Gardens soil conditioner to clay soils and sphagnum peat to sandy soils.
– It never hurts to add English Gardens Compost Planting Mix or compost to your garden soil to further enrich it.

Watering
– Most veggies prefer an evenly moist, well-drained soil.
– Improve your soil’s water retention by adding organic materials.
– Water deep to encourage a deep root system. Avoid using sprinklers to water your vegetable garden.
– Remember that most plants don’t like to have water on their leaves. This is especially true of ‘leaf crop’ vegetables like lettuce, cabbage and collards.
– The best way to water is by using a soaker hose. Weave the hoses through the garden, and leave them in place throughout the season. Attach your garden hose to the soaker, and let it run for 30 to 45 minutes. Check to make sure the soil is wet at least a foot down. Deep and thorough waterings will improve your plant’s root developments and overall growth.

Fertilizing
– Using fertilizer in your garden will help increase the yield of your vegetable plants and keep them healthy.
– Most garden fertilizers should be rich in both Phosphorus and Potassium.
– For organic gardening, use cow, sheep or poultry manure, and organic products such as Espoma Gardentone.

Extending the Season

Usually in Michigan, the gardening season begins around May 15th, and ends about October 15th. Not even half a year! However, there are ways to extend your gardening season. Here are a few suggestions:
– Start vegetable seeds indoors, especially vegetables that take several months to produce ripe fruit, like tomatoes. Starting seeds up to two months before the last frost usually can give you a considerable head start.
– Don’t plant peppers too early, however. Cold soil temperatures delay the plant’s development. Use Wall-o-Water or cold frames to protect newly transplanted seedlings.
– Plant cool season crops early, before May 15. Early cabbage, peas, radishes, broccoli and some lettuce seed can be sown up to a month before the last frost outdoors. Very often, seedlings can be planting several weeks before the last frost.
– Plant seedlings a couple weeks early. A floating row cover may help protect plants from frost damage, and help maintain a warmer air temperature beneath it. Sunlight can penetrate the cover to allow for growth, and it does not have to be removed during the day. It also allows air circulation and water to penetrate it. Use it again in the fall to extend the end of the season a couple more weeks.
– Plant another batch of cool season vegetable seeds 8-10 weeks before the first fall frost, and harvest those veggies in early fall. Many cool crop plants like broccoli, cabbage and brussel sprouts actually taste better after a frost. Mark your rows of carrots and turnips and you can dig them even in the snow!