The first step to starting a new vegetable garden is to map out your garden. Simply draw up an approximate plan of where you’d like everything to go, keeping as close to scale as possible. Make sure you take into account paths and such.

As a rule, we choose to grow bush beans rather than pole beans. I cannot make up my mind whether or not this is from sheer laziness. In a city backyard the tall varieties might perhaps be a problem since it would be difficult to get poles. But these running beans can be trained along old fences and with little urging will run up the stalks of the tallest sunflowers. So that settles the pole question. There is an ornamental side to the bean question. Suppose you plant these tall beans at the extreme rear end of each vegetable row. Make arches with supple tree limbs, binding them over to form the arch. Train the beans over these. When one stands facing the garden, what a beautiful terminus these bean arches make.

If you’re dreaming of having fresh vegetables throughout the winter but don’t have a lot left from the summer planting, don’t despair. There are actually many vegetables which can be planted in the early fall, and still have time to ripen before the worst of the winter weather season kicks in.
Plants which grow roots and tubers can survive underground even after frost kills the tops of the plants. If you add plenty of mulch to these types of vegetable plantings, you’ll have the best success.
It’s not always easy to find …