Picking a good location for your garden is absolutely key

• Sunny spot: Most vegetables need 6 to 8 hours of direct sunlight daily. A few veggies (mostly leafy ones) will tolerate some shade.

• Drains well and doesn’t stay wet: If you have poorly draining soil where water pools, plant veggies in a raised bed or raised row for improved drainage. Wet soil means wet roots, which can turn into rotted roots. If you have rocky soil, till and remove the rocks as they will interfere with root growth and make for weaker plants.

• Stable and not windy: Avoid places that receive strong winds that could knock over your young plants or keep pollinators from doing their job. Nor do you want to plant in a location that receives too much foot traffic or floods easily. Plant in a location that would make Goldilocks smile—somewhere “just right.”

• Nutrient-rich soil

• If planting in the ground, a 10x10-foot garden (100 square feet) is a manageable size. Pick three to five of your favorite vegetables and buy three to five plants of each one.

• If planting in a raised bed, a 4x4-foot or 4x8-foot is a good beginner size

• As a beginner, start by choosing easy vegetables that are also productive. Below, we’ve listed some of the easiest vegetables for beginners. Most are best started by seeds planted directly into the soil.

• Choose what you (and your family) like to eat.

• Not all vegetables are planted at the same time. Cool-season vegetables such as lettuce, broccoli, and peas grow in the cooler weather of early spring (and fall). Warm-season vegetables such as tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers aren’t planted until the soil warms up in late spring and summer.

• Plant tall veggies (such as pole beans on a trellis or sweet corn) on the north side of the garden so they don’t shade shorter plants. If you do get shade in a part of your garden, save that area for small, cool-season veggies. If shade is unavoidable in parts of your garden, save those areas for cool-season vegetables that appreciate shade as the weather heats up.

• Most veggies are annuals (planted each year). If you’re planning on growing perennial crops such as asparagus, rhubarb, and some herbs, provide permanent locations or beds.

• Consider that some crops mature quickly and have a very short harvest period (radishes, bush beans). Other plants, such as tomatoes, take longer to produce but also produce for longer. The “days to maturity” are typically listed on the seed packet.

• Stagger plantings. You don’t want to plant all your lettuce seeds at the same time, or all that lettuce will need to be harvested at around the same time! Stagger plantings by a few weeks to keep ‘em coming!

• Every region has a different planting time based mainly on the weather, and every vegetable has its temperature preferences, too