How to Grow a Complete Mix of Vegetables

Choose which method of planting you will use. Straight-row furrow planting is when you plant seeds or seedlings in a straight line across the garden. This makes cultivation, harvesting and insect control easier, but is an inefficient way to use your land if the garden is small. Wide row planting involves spreading seeds in bands that can be as narrow as 4 inches wide or as wide as 24 inches. This can produce greater crop yields on smaller plots, but you need to take more care when pulling weeds as you can damage the seedlings. Square foot planting involves dividing the garden into plots that measure 1 foot square, with the number of plants in each plot dependent on how much space the plants need.

Sketch out the layout of the garden to determine where you will be planting different vegetables. Place the tall vegetables, like beans and corn, on the north side of the garden so they don't block the other plants from receiving sunlight. Plant the smaller vegetables, like cabbage, tomatoes and squash, in the center of the garden, and plant crops that grow low to the ground or in the ground, such as carrots, lettuce and onions, on the south side of the garden. Also, place companion plants together. These are plants which assist each other in areas like pest control and nutrient uptake, which can help improve crop yields. For instance, companion plants to onions are lettuce, cabbage and carrots. (See Resources for a more complete list.)

Stagger the planting. This provides you with food for the full season, while growing the plants in the best conditions for them. Some crops grow better in the cool weather, so they should be planted at the beginning and end of the season. These vegetables include radishes, lettuce, peas, spinach and turnips. Other plants, such as corn, beans, tomatoes, pepper and squash, need to be planted toward the middle of the season. You can extend the harvest for these crops by planting the seeds over the course of several weeks, rather than all at once.

Prepare the garden beds properly for the best growing conditions for all vegetables. Run over the sod where you're planting the garden with a rototiller. Remove the sod, then make another pass with the rototiller to break up the soil. Remove stones, sticks and trash from the soil. Add a layer of compost 2 to 3 inches deep on top of the soil. Run the rototiller over the soil in a north-south direction, then again in an east-west direction in order to mix the compost into the soil. Fertilize the soil in the garden with an all-purpose garden fertilizer. Read the packaging to determine how much fertilizer to apply to a garden of your size. Mix the fertilizer into the soil with a rake.

Plant the seeds and seedlings into the garden, following the instructions on the packaging, as different plants need to be planted in different ways.

Water the garden regularly unless your area gets plenty of rainfall. Use sprinklers or a sprinkler-head on your hose so you don't wash the seeds away and to avoid flooding some plants.

Prune the plants and weed the garden as necessary to give your vegetables room to grow. Watch for pests such as Japanese beetles and caterpillars, and deal with them promptly to protect your harvest.