Vegetable Gardening Tips

Growing vegetables is a highly rewarding form of gardening. With the right preparation, you won't need to spend long hours doing tedious jobs.

Follow these steps in order to yield the best results:
>Choose seedlings rather than sowing seeds. They may be more expensive, but planting advanced seedlings saves time and avoids the uncertainties of sowing seeds. Additionally, staggering plantings of seedlings over several weeks will provide variety and extend your harvest, so you won't have to be eating the same sort of lettuce two weeks in a row.

>For a terrace or small garden, buy single plants. This means you can buy as many different varieties of each plant as you please. Look for small, early-cropping varieties for pots. Opt for fast crops or ones that can be harvested over a long period, such as spinach, silverbeet, soft-hearted lettuce or aromatic herbs, especially if you don't have very much space, instead of filling your vegetable garden with crops that take a long time to mature, such as onions, potatoes, pumpkin and cabbage.

>Try cultivating sun-drenched tomatoes, perfumed strawberries and crisp little radishes for their superior flavor. It'll mean easy access to fresh produce and fewer trips to the supermarket.

by the Editors of Reader's Digest