Introduction

Everyone loves good food. Fresh, tasty, nutritious food is our birthright. And what better way to have great food than to grow it yourself? You don't have to be a farmer to do so either. Whether it be a plot of land in the yard that's tilled up to grow vegetables, a few vegetables planted amongst your flowers and shrubs, or containers loaded with attractive, edible choices, growing your own food is a satisfying and rewarding activity.

Vegetable gardening isn't rocket science either. Heck, people have been growing their own vegetables for thousands of years. Like any pursuit, you just need some direction, good advice, and inspiration to get started. Vegetable Gardening For Dummies, 2nd Edition, is for anyone who already grows vegetables or who has ever dreamed of growing some of their own food. All it takes is some resolve to get started. You're already halfway there just by picking up this book!

About This Book

In this book, you can find all the basic information you need to grow a vege-table garden. It's great to read the book from front cover to back cover, but each section and chapter is complete in itself. So feel free to browse the vegetables or topics that you want to focus on first. I've been vegetable gardening my whole life, so throughout the book I try to impart some practical wisdom that's easily accessible. I also include some special tips and tricks that I've learned over the years and information on hundreds of vegetable varieties, many of which are beautiful to look at as well as tasty to eat. Of course, none of this matters if you can't grow the vegetables successfully. That's why a large part of this book is devoted to building soil, starting seeds, maintaining the garden, controlling pests, growing through the seasons, and harvesting. I like to encourage happy, healthy, successful gardeners who are willing to experiment, make mistakes, and enjoy sharing their bounty with their friends, family, and neighbors.

Conventions Used in This Book

To help you navigate this book, I include the following conventions:

All references to temperature are in degrees Fahrenheit. As a reminder, I include the label with the first reference in each chapter. After that, I save space (and paper!) by leaving it out.

Variety names for each vegetable are indicated by single quotation marks. These are the common names you'll see when buying vegetable seeds and plants.

Italics highlight new terms (which I define right away) and the Latin names of vegetables, which I use only when necessary.

Boldfaced text highlights the keywords of bulleted lists and the action part of numbered steps.

Web addresses appear in monofont.

When this book was printed, some Web addresses may have needed to break across two lines of text. If that happened, rest assured that I haven't put in any extra characters to indicate the break. So, when using one of these Web addresses, just type in exactly what you see in this book, pretending as though the line break doesn't exist.

What You're Not to Read

I may think every word I've written on vegetable gardening in this book is intriguing, but I realize you have a life and may want to just get on with it. If you want only the basics, keep in mind that sidebars (in shaded gray boxes) and information tagged with the Technical Stuff icon aren't necessary to your basic understanding of vegetable growing and can be skipped, if you really have to.

Foolish Assumptions

Before I even put one word to the page, I was thinking about who may read this book. Here's what I assume about you, the reader:

You want to create a vegetable garden that's filled with healthy, nutritious, beautiful plants to eat.

You want to understand the basics of vegetable gardening and, for experienced gardeners, find new tricks to help you garden better.

You want to grow vegetables in an environmentally friendly manner.

You want to try vegetable gardening even if you only have a deck or patio to grow a few plants.

You want to share your love of gardening with friends, family members, and neighbors because you feel that if more people grew some of their own food, the world would be a better place.

How This Book Is Organized

Like all For Dummies books, this book is broken into parts. Each part has a number of chapters related to a theme. Here's an overview to get you oriented with the organization.

Part I: Digging Into the Basics of Vegetable Gardening

Vegetable gardening is about more than just growing tasty food. You can find many other reasons and benefits of vegetable gardening, and I explain them in this part. I also cover information you need to know to plan your garden, such as determining the importance of sun and soil, deciding what to grow, and exploring some sample garden designs.

Part II: Vegging Out

Each chapter in this part explores vegetables grouped by botanical family (such as the squash family) or commonality (such as root crops). Each chapter is loaded with the best varieties to grow and specifics on how to grow them. I also provide information to help combat specific pests that may attack each crop. Chapter 12 is all about other edibles, such as berries and herbs. Food comes in many forms, and berries and herbs are some of the easiest and most reliable producers in your yard.

Part III: Getting Down and Dirty in Your Vegetable Garden

Now for the good stuff: building your garden and getting it growing. In this part, I talk about starting seeds; improving your soil; maintaining your garden with proper watering, fertilizing, and mulching; using some extra-cool gardening techniques, such as succession planting; applying pest and disease controls; growing in containers; and harvesting and storage. Whew, that's a lot of great information!

Part IV: The Part of Tens

This book wouldn't be a For Dummies book without the always-popular Part of Tens. The final chapters in this book look at the ten best tools to get the job done and nearly ten great season-extending techniques that enable you to garden earlier in spring and later into fall.

Icons Used in This Book

Like all For Dummies books, this book has icons that highlight great tips, warnings, and other specific topics. Here are the ones in this book:

container_vgard.eps Are you interested in growing plants in containers? If so, look for these icons throughout the book.

kidfriendly_vgard.eps One of the best parts of vegetable gardening is involving kids. This icon marks plants that kids love or special gardening tips you can try with your little ones.

remember.eps This icon highlights important information that helps you garden better. Don't forget this stuff!

technicalstuff.eps If you want to go a little deeper in your knowledge of a plant or technique, read information marked with this icon.

tip.eps This icon highlights information that saves time and money. Even experienced gardeners can learn something from these tidbits!

warning_bomb.eps Sometimes you can make mistakes in the garden, and that's okay. To help minimize your mistakes, this icon alerts you to potential pitfalls.

Where to Go from Here

Start with the basics by taking in the information in Part I about seeds, plants, soil, your site, and garden planning. Then dive into your list of dream vegetables that you want to grow in your garden. Come back to the book periodically throughout the growing season to find out more about pest solutions in Chapter 17 and season extending in Chapter 21. And don't forget to keep harvesting the fruits of all your fine work.

This is just the beginning of your vegetable garden experience. Many resources are available for vegetable gardeners (the appendix can get you started). The key is to get started and keep learning. After tasting one of your first homegrown peas, you'll be hooked for life.