We picked up a 6 pack of  brussel sprout plants. This is a good time of year to plant them here in Kansas.  I planted them a week or so ago and they are looking quite happy, which is nice.

According to my square foot gardening I planted one per square foot section.  It takes about 90 days for it to produce and you know when it’s ready by whether or not the sprouts pull off easily.

Depending on the variety  you buy they may all mature at the same time. Which is good in some ways and bad in others. You have a bunch you can freeze at the same time, but you also have a bunch at the same time. It’s that good old gardening catch 22.

To make sure your brussel sprouts grow into healthy plants make sure, if you are starting from seed, you star them very early. You want to make sure you have your plants out in the garden early spring. As growing in the heat of summer can turn your brussel sprouts bitter. If you are going for a fall harvest, make sure you plant at least 100 days before the possibility of the first frost.

Brussels sprouts are grown much like the related cole crops, cabbage and broccoli. Apply one side-dress application of nitrogen fertilizer when the plants are 12 inches tall and water to keep the crop growing vigorously during the heat of summer. Without ample soil moisture, the crop fails. Insect control is also very important at this stage to keep the plants growing vigorously. Cultivate shallowly around the plants to prevent root damage. The sprouts form in the axils of the leaves (the space between the base of the leaf and the stem above it).

Commercial gardeners remove the leaves to accelerate harvest, but this practice is not essential in the home garden. Some gardeners believe that the sprouts develop better if the lowermost six to eight leaves are removed from the sides of the stalk as the sprouts develop. Two or three additional leaves can be removed each week, but several of the largest, healthiest, fully expanded upper leaves should always be left intact on top to continue feeding the plant. About 3 weeks before harvest, the plants may be topped (the growing point removed) to speed the completion of sprout development on the lower-stem area.

I hope you try growing brussel sprouts this year, I’ll let you know how my crop is doing as the year goes on.

I currently have 1 large raised vegetable bed. It’s 3 X16 I think ~ or however long the boards were I was using. I decided to create one more of these, the same size. I will also be building a few 4×4 beds for some new “experiments”.

I have a lovely helper in my building projects. She is terrific at holding and counting out screws while I work, as well as posing when we are done.

Step 1 to building a raised vegetable bed.

Where to get the wood?

I got my wood from a demo my husband did of an old porch. Yep, I know it’s probably not the best thing to use for a vegetable garden, but we’re all still here. If you don’t have access to any previously used wood you can get some at a local lumber yard. Make sure you don’t get treated wood, as you don’t want the chemicals to leech into your soil and your plants.

You can also use plastic, in fact, you can get raised vegetable bed kits from many different places. These are nice because they are all precut and you just have to slide the corner pieces on and you’re done. If you have the cash I’d  go for those ~ save you time and they will last forever.

Step 2 to Make a Raised Vegetable Bed

Measure out the length of boards you want to use. Make sure you can reach the middle from both sides. This means usually not going more than 4 feet across. Cut all your pieces and lay them where they will need to be.  You will also need to cut 4 posts for the corners. The posts are what keep the bed together.  I used 4×4 posts for this part. I did a terrible job cutting them, but hey ~ it’s not a beauty contest.  I have read you can use a height of 6 inches for your bed, but I always use two 4x6s on top of each other. Since I use lasagna gardening the materials shrink substantially through the year, and the 12 inches we start with gives me plenty of planting material at the end of the season.

Step 3  Connect Your Raised Vegetable Bed

Connect the pieces. We used screws, but you can easily use nails as well.  We connected the end pieces first, since they were smaller and easier to handle. Once we had the ends all put together it was easier to position the longer boards so we could screw them together.

Step 4. Shore up the sides of your Raised vegetable bed

My boards had been laying around for a while and were pretty warped. I used a 2×4 cut to the length of the 2 boards to pull them together and strengthen the long sides.  I did this for my first one and his has held up quite nicely.

I did one on the inside and one on the outside only because one set of boards was VERY warped and doing it on the inside was the only way I could get them to go together. I generally put the support boards on the outside of the bed.

So there you have it, how to put together a raised vegetable bed. Here’s our final project, with a proud toddler in the middle.

Growing broccoli can be fun and very rewarding. It can also be a great way to get your finicky eaters to eat this nutritious vegetable. It so much more fun to eat something you’ve grown with your own hands. Kids barely think about the fact it is BROCCOLI!!

Here’s some tips that will have you growing broccoli like a master gardener and keeping it delicious once it’s grown.

* Broccoli seeds are best started indoors 7 to 9 weeks before the last frost, at a temperature of 70 to 75 degrees F. They can also be sown outdoors 2 weeks before the last frost. For a winter crop in zones 8 and warmer, sow in late summer. Expect germination in 10 to 14 days.

*Don’t allow your transplants to get too mature before moving them to your garden. If you do, they may become stressed by transplant shock.

* During broccoli harvest choose broccoli where the head is fully developed, but before the individual flowers start to open, cut the central head along with 5 or 6 inches of stem. Removing the central head will stimulate development of the side shoots, which will allow you to continue your harvest for several weeks.

* Store fresh, unwashed Broccoli in your refrigerator’s vegetable crisper for 3 to 5 days. Put it in a loose or perforated plastic bad, being sure not to store it if it’s wet — wet Broccoli will quickly become limp and can get moldy. Its best flavor and nutritional value will be maintained if storage is brief.

* Aphids are often found on the underside of leaves. You can wash them off with a strong stream of water or use an insecticidal soap (be sure to follow the label instructions). Check the plants regularly, as aphids can be a recurring problem.

* Cabbage worms tend to attack the leaves and heads of related cole crops. Cole crops are crops that belong to the mustard family and have similar cultural requirements. They’re hardy plants that prefer cool weather. The most commonly grown cole crops are Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Kale, Collards, and Kohlrabi.

* Beets, Onions, and Garlic are all good companions for your Broccoli.

* There are three species of cabbage worms — imported cabbage worms, cabbage loopers, and diamond back moth worms. They’re very destructive to plants, as they have a voracious appetite. Covering the plants with screening or a row cover can prevent the presence of these pests.

* Broccoli is high in vitamin C and soluble fiber and contain several nutrients that have anti-cancer properties.

* Broccoli leaves are edible and have more beta carotene than do the florets.

If you are ready to start growing broccoli, now is the time to get started!! Getting your broccoli seeds started now will give you some yummy, nutritious broccoli on your table in just 45 to 60 days!

The first year you plant a vegetable garden you will be filled with excitement. You will have energy and gusto and be excited about the whole thing. As the year moves on, the weeds encroach on your veggies and the weather gets hot you may find your huge vegetable garden is not only overwhelming, but just impossible to manage.

There are the weeds, and the weeds and the weeds, as well as the pest control to deal with.  This can be seriously overwhelming for a beginning vegetable gardener.

Your best bet to have success  is to start with a small vegetable garden. Choose your favorite veggies to plant. The ones you really eat and will use are a good way to start. Think about how big the plants will be when they are full grown. If you are thinking about planting squash (which is a great beginner plant ~ very forgiving) remember it is a BIG plant. If you plant more than one or two or them you are no longer talking about a small vegetable garden

Tomatoes are pretty big too, but you can always find smaller varieties to use. If you choose a few basic vegetables to start with, say tomato, cucumber, squash and maybe some green beans you will find you have a very nice small vegetable garden. You can also throw in some herbs to round out the garden.

If you really have a small space and want to grow a LOT of vegetables you can get the book  Sqaure Foot Gardening. It will show you how to grow tons of vegetables in a very small space by planting them closer together and using a square foot grid to plant your vegetables in.

If you are a beginner vegetable gardener, don’t really like your summer weather, or only have a small amount of space I highly suggest you start with a small vegetable garden. Having a successful garden under your belt will make it even easier next year to expand.

My garden is going to be a bit bigger this year, so it will take a little bit more planning. Even if you only have one container of veggies you can do a little bit of planning.  There are some vegetables that work well together, and some that just don’t. There are some vegetables that will help keep certain bugs away and some that will attract them.

I am planning to get a garden diary this year so I can keep track of my vegetable garden plan for this year as well as know what I planted where for next year. I love the idea of being able to keep track of my gardens from year to year, take notes so I know what worked and what didn’t. You think you will remember, but so much goes on and I have found I can barely remember where I had things planted from one year to the next, with an even bigger garden this year and a toddler to chase after I bet it gets even harder.

Planning where you want to put your plants, how many you’re going to need based on the amount of space you have, where you planted things last year these are all important parts of a vegetable garden plan.

I have found some great books that help me with my plan the two I use every year for my garden are Square Foot Gardening and Lasagna Gardening.

Square Foot Gardening is an amazing book. It is easy to understand and this method uses raised beds, just like I like. He does use a very specific mix for his “dirt” which was a little more than I wanted to mess with. Which brings me to Lasagna Gardening~ this is where you basically build a compost bin within your raised bed and then just plant.

Square foot gardening will show you how you can plant a huge garden in a very small amount of space. It will show you exactly how much space each plant will need, how many plants you can put in a square foot, how long each will take until harvest, and which plants you can plant before and after. You will end up having produce the whole season through using this method, and you will have next to NO weeds to deal with.

It’s a very good plan, and the book is well worth the small amount it costs.

That being said, I still didn’t want to mess around with all the ingredients I had to buy to make his “dirt” when I had tons and tons of compostable materials all around here. Lasagna Gardening shows you how to use your compostable materials and build a raise vegetable garden in no time flat that you can plant in right away. So I ended up mixing the two for a hybrid garden, a lasagna square foot garden.

It’s been working for me quite well for the last couple years and I look forward to planning more beds this years, and expanding the vegetables I’ve been growing as well.

Make sure when you’re making your vegetable garden plan to add in a row or a square foot for your local food bank.

When you use raised vegetable beds you can put them wherever you want them, wherever you have room (as long as there’s sun).

You can also make the soil just the way you want it. You don’t have to worry if your soil has too much clay or too much sand.

It’s raised which means you can actually have it at any height you want it. If you have bad knees or a bad back you can put your raised bed as high as you want it, even on a table.

I personally put my raised beds on the ground and eventually the plants work their way into the real ground ~ at least that’s what I imagine happens at the bottom.

You can easily rotate crops.  This year I am added a couple extra raised beds to my garden. I have been using one raised bed about 16 foot by 4 foot for the last couple of years. I am adding a couple extra beds this year because I want more produce to can and give away. I have been making sure I switch up where I plant the tomatoes and squash, so each year  I switch which end they are planted on.

I also use containers for some fruits and veggies. I had great luck last year with sweet potatoes in a half barrel ~ it used to have oil in it. My husband just cut it in half. The big hole in the bottom where the oil used to pour out was perfect for drainage.

I’m digressing I see.  As you can see there are quite a few benefits of to the raised vegetable garden. Oh I forgot the biggest one ~ WEEDS.

In a raised vegetable garden, especially if you put something like cardboard or newspaper on the bottom of the bed, the weeds are almost non existent. I love that. So if you are thinking an in ground garden seems overwhelming ~ you don’t have access to a tiller or something to turn the soil a raised vegetable garden might be the perfect option for you!

A raised bed is also a very easy way to begin an organic vegetable garden. With the ability to easily decrease the amount of weeds, and add compost to the bed instead of fertilizer it is a great way for beginners to test the organic waters.

Every year we have a vegetable garden. The first year we lived here we had no idea what we were doing. We rototilled a HUGE area, and went crazy. That was not a good garden lol. Yeah it was great in the spring, when the weather was nice and I still had the motivation to get out there and work in the garden. Come summer, that poor neglected garden was a mess. We still got a lot of produce out of it, but it was the ugliest garden ever.

Over the next few years we tried different things, different sizes and finally found something that works great for us ~ well me mostly now. My husband’s pretty much given up on the whole vegetable garden idea.

The last few years I have had one relatively small raised lasagna bed. It has been just right. During that time I was pregnant, had a newborn and we had some veggies through all of it. This year she’s going to be 3 and loves to garden. I’d also like to have more produce to can at the end of the summer so I am going to build a few more raised beds and do them up lasagna garden style.

I also have a couple ideas I want to try out for some larger plants that I would like to grow but don’t really have the space right now, like pumpkins, and watermelon.

This blog is going to be a diary of a home vegetable gardener. I hope to give you all some tips, and hints that have helped me along the way, and answer any questions that I have had and had to answer to move forward.

If I’ve learned one thing from growing a vegetable garden it is this: it is all about the journey.