Vegetable Garden Varities

Starting a vegetable garden is an excellent way to get fresh produce at home. It’s also a good exercise and a fun activity for the whole family.

Zones, Seeds & Location

Vegetables grow best in well-drained soil that has good nutrient levels. To learn what your soil needs, have it tested through your county extension office.

“That was the most exciting day,” says Styles, who chose a mix of seedlings and plants from Eden Brothers. She wanted to devote one raised bed to flowers, one to herbs, and another to vegetables. Of course, the best laid plans don’t always pan out. “I ended up going to the nursery and falling in love with everything, and wanting to buy everything. I just threw my square-foot gardening plan out the window, and freestyled a little bit more than I was anticipating,” Styles says. 

For herbs, she planted parsley, dill, chives, mint, basil, cilantro, thyme, and rosemary. “I had really all the herbs that I needed for my cooking, and they really thrived,” Styles says. “Every week, I go down and cut big bunches of each herb and keep them in mason jars on my kitchen counter.”

For vegetables, she leaned into multiple varieties of squash, which “completely took over the beds like they were in Little Shop of Horrors.” She planted tomatoes and peppers, which didn’t do too great, ultimately. But her floral bed, filled with zinnias, allowed her to have fresh-cut flowers on her dining room table all the time. 

The DIY raised garden bed endeavor proved to be an important lesson for Styles: Don’t stress over plants that didn’t make it versus those that did. “I decided that I would have the most fun with it if I just kind of planted what I was drawn to and what I was excited by, and really approach it as an experiment,” Styles says. “I wasn’t really going to sweat the small stuff over the things that maybe didn’t thrive.” Naturally, she’s already at work planning her spring garden. 

Source: architecturaldigest.com