The size of your yard will determine your final vegetable garden layout. What can be fun is the planning of the garden and the decisions surrounding the kind of garden you want. One of the very first decisions is whether it will be a ground level or raised bed garden.

The ground level garden is the cheapest form of vegetable garden layout. Why? Because all you need to do is plow up the area that you have elected to turn into a vegetable garden and remove the grass. Well, it’s never as easy as it sounds, of course. You will have to get the soil out of the clumps of grass and then churn up a good 2 feet deep in this plot to loosen up the compacted earth. We’ll talk later about adding soil and conditioning amendments.

The second type of vegetable garden layout uses a raised bed. The advantages of a raised bed are that it generally warms up quicker in the spring, has excellent drainage and you can tend to the weeds sitting on a stool! The disadvantages lie in the cost of constructing the sides of the bed initially, including the additional dirt necessary to fill the upraised plot.

There are companies that have created an entire business around selling you vegetable garden layout kits. You can study the plans they provide and use these ideas to build your own layout or you can buy one of their kits.

The advantage of the kit is that a good quality cedar is used for the sides. Western red cedar withstands infestations and lasts a good long while even when wet. It also comes pre-drilled and all necessary hardware is provided in packages, so your thinking is done for you. Your only decision is the relative costs associated with doing your own materiel buying versus the cost of the vegetable garden layout kit.

Regardless of which kind of garden you choose, you will want to line the edges of your selected vegetable garden layout area with a grass barrier. The battle with encroaching grass will be eternal if you don’t just give in and buy one of the products on the market that are impenetrable to the most invasive grass, which is bermuda. Line the edges of your selected area to a depth of 8 inches and all should be well.

One word of caution: make sure that however you plan your vegetable garden layout that you leave a pathway all around it. Like an aisle, a path will enable you to pick your vegetables without tromping all through the garden. Not that tromping can’t be fun, it can; but it compacts the soil around your plants and will make nutrients more inaccessible to growing roots.

Now to the soil amendments. It is likely that your converted grass patch needs additional nutrients before it produces great vegetables. Regardless of the vegetable garden layout, you’ll need help.

You can take a sample of your soil to your nearest Soil Conservation office and have it tested for about $15. Or, the cheapskate method: head for your largest garden center and ask them what to add to your lawn soil to convert it to a super-productive vegetable garden layout.

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If you live in an apartment or town home, you probably think you don’t have enough space to grow vegetables. Lack of space is no longer an excuse since many modern vegetable varieties are perfect for growing in containers on a sunny window ledge or patio.

You can grow salad vegetables and herbs in almost any sunny spot and enjoy fresh ingredients all year round. Snipping off a sprig of fresh herbs from the window ledge garden in the kitchen while you are cooking cannot be bettered.

Here are some tips for the perfect container vegetable garden.

Choice of container. The easiest choice is to go to your local garden center or home improvement store and pick any gardening container that takes your fancy. There’s a wide variety available in plastic, ceramic, wood or clay. Before you pull out your credit card though, take a look around your home and see whatever containers you have lying around. Almost anything that will hold soil can be used for growing, whether it is an old bucket, an empty margarine container or an empty coffee can.

Any container you use must have sufficient drainage holes in the bottom. Make additional holes in containers that do not drain quickly after watering. Waterlogged soil will lead to soil-borne diseases and stunted plants. Stand the containers in a tray if these are indoors.

Using regular soil is not advisable for container plants, since soil is likely to have plant disease organisms and weed seeds. Soil less potting mixes are lighter, less likely to compact and hold moisture and plant nutrients well. These potting mixes can be purchased from any garden center.

Choice of plants. Almost any herb is suitable for a container vegetable garden. Basil, thyme, mint, parsley, chives and oregano are all good choices. Most salads can also be grown in containers. Consider lettuce, young salad carrots, radishes, and green onions, for smaller containers. Tomatoes, eggplant and peppers do well in a larger container on a sunny patio or balcony. Choose dwarf varieties where these are available.

Seeds can either be planted either directly into the container or started in a smaller pot and transplanted once large enough to handle. Always plant more seeds than you need in each container since there will seldom be 100% germination. During the winter, seeds can be encouraged to grow early when placed next to a water heater or other warm (not hot) place. Make sure that you move these to a sunny position as soon as they appear above the soil.

Ideally, containers should be placed where they receive at least 6 hours of sunlight per day. Plants that bear fruit, such as tomatoes, peppers and eggplants require the most sun. Many herbs and leafy vegetables will tolerate more shade. Plants growing in containers require frequent watering especially if outdoors. During the hot summer months many will require daily watering.

Plants will need fertilizer during the growing season. The easiest way to add fertilizer is to use a commercial mix such as Miracle-Gro. Follow the directions and do not over feed. Most potting soils will have sufficient nutrients for the first few weeks.

Harvest when the plants are mature but still young and tender. Small sprigs of most herbs can be clipped as needed and the plant will continue to grow.

Vince Apps is the editor of a number of gardening sites including Manual of Gardening and Home Vegetable Gardening.

All your hard work has paid off, and now you are presented with a dilemma, too many vegetables! After sharing your wealth with friends, family, co-workers, neighbors and anyone that happens to come to visit, there are alternative options of what you can do with your extensive supply of tomatoes, zucchini and other bountiful crops that will bring great joy to the community around you.

There are many different ways to approach this, the easiest would be to look up in your local phone book for organizations that you could donate your vegetables to. A good place to start would be food banks, women’s shelters and half-way houses. Don’t be discouraged if at first you are turned down, some community resources have to follow guidelines that will not allow them to accept fresh fruit or vegetables. You can also look up on the internet for locations near you that would find great joy in being the recipient of your sharing.

Another great idea is to do a “vegetable exchange” with other gardeners, you neighbor could have a bumper crop of beans or corn and not a great harvest on tomatoes, exchanging them will give you the best of both vegetables! The only thing of caution here is that it’s a good idea to exchange with people that have the same basic gardening ethics, if you grow organic vegetables then you may not want to exchange with someone else that prefers to use chemicals or pesticides in their garden.

Preserving your vegetables for the rest of the year is also a great option. There are many sources online that can walk you through step by step on how to preserve your vegetables, either by canning, freezing or making something more specific like salsa sauce with your tomatoes. You can use the same approach to this as the idea above as well, have a variety of vegetables gathered from people around you and have a harvesting party. Get each person to bring enough of something from their vegetable garden that each person that attends will have an item to go home with. (For example if you have zucchini, another has tomatoes, and yet another has beans, you would walk away with at least two other types of vegetables)

The first hint that you need to find alternative options is to realize that when your friends, family, and neighbors start running in the other direction and turning off all the lights and pretending they are not home when they see you walking towards them with more of your delicious vegetables, that there are alternatives that will not only help others in your community but make all your hard work in your vegetable garden go a little bit further in spreading the joy to others.

For more gardening tips you can go to www.gardening-tips-n-tools.com