Planning Your Vegetable Garden

• Proper planning and placement will make your vegetable garden a success:
  

·        Your vegetable garden needs sunlight. All vegetables require some sunlight and most require about 8 hours of direct exposure.

• Consider the availability of water. Make sure you can easily deliver water to your vegetables, as they will require regular watering.
  
• Select a well-drained garden site to prevent damping off and other problems associated with we soil. Raised beds also help with drainage.

• Southern peas such as blackeye, purplehull and other peas make a great, edible summer cover crop for building the soil and providing food. The pea vines can be mowed and rototilled under while still green for extra soil building benefits or allowed to produce peas and then tilled under.

• Tomatoes and peppers need to be planted soon – in early
  August - if they are going to make a good crop before first frost.

• Timing is very important for a successful fall garden. Heat tolerant/cold sensitive crops need to be planted in time to mature before cold weather slows and stops growth, while cool season/heat sensitive crops are planted late enough to avoid the heat, but early enough to take the first frosts of winter

• Grow fast maturing tomato varieties for the fall harvest. Look for varieties with less than 75 days to maturity. Tomatoes such as 'Merced', 'Bingo', 'Celebrity', 'Whirlaway', and 'Carnival'. 'Surefire' is a smaller, processing tomato variety (with thicker skin), which sets and matures all of its tomatoes very quickly, giving you a "surefire" harvest that beats the first freeze. Most cherry tomatoes will bear within 65 days of transplanting.

• Properly spaced plants also make insect and disease control easier.  The size of mature vegetables dictates distance between plantings. For example, larger vegetables such as cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, eggplant, cantaloupe, okra, squash and tomato require 12 to 24 inches or more between plants.