Since tomatoes are one of the most popular crops for the home and community gardener, let's dive in to how to have a great harvest.

You probably know that there are hundreds of varieties of tomatoes you can grow. It's easy to get overwhelmed with what kind of tomato to grow!

In this article, we'll go through the process of selecting what kinds of tomatoes you should grow based on your goals and your growing environment. We answer 3...

Lettuce is another wonderful springtime crop. It grows well in the cool weather of the spring and it matures relatively quickly. If you really can't wait, you can harvest lettuce before it fully matures for baby salad greens. 

Lettuce Varieties

So many types of lettuce are available! You can find lettuce in different colors: almost every shade of green, red, and mixtures of red and green. There are varieties that grow in...

Carrots are another pantry staple and a much-celebrated garden vegetable. 

Early spring is the preferred time to grow carrots in most of the United States. They tolerate the cold weather of the spring well. In fact, if the weather is too warm, carrots can take on a bitter taste.  In the southern regions of the United States, carrots can be grown in the fall and over the winter. 

The vegetable we know as the carrot...

I've not been super-successful growing onions in the past, but then, I never really dug in and learned how to grow them well. 

In this article, I'll share what I've learned about growing onions, and we'll both have a great crop this year! 

This turned into a long article - if you want the summary, scroll to the bottom.

Types of Onions

Onions are an old, old crop. Humans have been cultivating onions for at least...

Peas are a wonderful cool season crop! They're one of the earliest crops you can plant in the spring in most of the country because the seeds will germinate a lower temperatures. Warmer parts of the country plant peas over their mild winter season. 

Types of Peas

There are basically 3 types of garden peas: shelling, snap, and snow. 

Shelling Peas (also called garden peas, English peas, or sweet peas) have an inedible pod. You have to...

Hooray, it is finally spring! It's getting around the time for most gardeners in the United States to start growing food crops!

In April, I'm going to profile 4 different spring crops:

• Peas 
• Onions
• Carrots
• Lettuce

These are spring crops, also known as "cool season crops." There are many more cool season crops than these, and I've written about some of them previously:

• How to Grow Beets
• How to Grow Spinach
• How to Grow Green Onions

What...

This article is more about community garden plots that you have to travel to. Obviously, if you're gardening in a plot at home, you have access to facilities!

Access to a Bathroom

It's really helpful to have a bathroom nearby. Sometimes you'll be at the garden for a few hours, and you'll need the facilities! It's important to keep drinking water (stay hydrated) when you're working out in the sun and/or wind, and the natural side...

Gardening tasks create waste. When you maintain your garden, you find yourself with organic debris like: 

• The weeds you pull out of your garden
• Trimmings from pruning your plants 
• Dead plants or plants past their prime that you pull out

We are not talking about leftover fertilizers or other garden chemicals. Those will have specific instructions on the labels for how to dispose of safely. 

We are also not talking about...

This week's topic is a little more applicable to gardens that are not close to your house or building. Your garden is located somewhere else: you rent a plot at a community garden or your plot is located far from the house. 

All gardens are going to need to water during the growing season. Rainwater is best, but it is not delivered reliably. You can have periods of drought and it can wipe out your vegetable garden. Your...

The importance of direct sunlight on your garden plot cannot be emphasized enough. Most vegetables require at least 6 hours of direct sunlight to thrive. People sometimes rationalize that 5 hours or 4 hours will do. 

Anything less than 6 hours per day is simply not good enough. Without abundant light, your plants may continue to grow, but they won’t thrive. They will not give you the results you want....