Cottage-Style Small Vegetable & Lettuce Gardens for Zone 8

Start your planting process in early spring, before the last frost. Small vegetables like lettuce, broccoli and peas, and root crops like carrots, radishes and beets, survive well as seedlings even through a few early-season frosts. In Zone 8, begin planting in mid-March, and plant before the last frost hits in early April.

Prepare several in-ground vegetable beds. Choose spots that sit in full sunshine all day, and get good air and water drainage, even if they aren't rectilinear. Set aside as much space as you want in these beds for each species, using the look of the mature plants as your main guide. Turn under the top 6 inches of each bed, and add 3 inches of organic compost for nutrition and drainage. Mix starter fertilizer into the top 2 inches of soil to encourage good rooting.

Set out unique containers to create a charming cottage feel in the garden. Use small wheelbarrows, tin buckets, open-neck vases, bushel baskets, wooden boxes, decorative pots or even small bookcases laid on their backs. Put these containers around your yard, in haphazard placements that still get ample sunshine. Mix organic compost and quick-draining potting soil in equal parts, and fill the containers 3/4 full of this mixture. Add starter fertilizer, per manufacturer directions.

Plant small vegetables from seeds or seedlings in your containers and prepared beds. Scatter seeds and let them come up as they will, or plant them in loose, disorganized patterns. In Zone 8, where long summers reign, plant according to your personal tastes, literally; the season is long enough to support growing almost all vegetables to full maturity and harvest.

Water the garden with 2 to 3 inches of water every week to keep the soil moist and conducive to vegetable growth.

Thin seedlings when they emerge to give individual vegetable plants adequate space. Crowded growing results in unhealthy, small vegetables. Thin seedlings to every 6 to 7 inches, but not in straight rows. Pull seedlings up in a disorganized manner to maintain the look of an unregulated pattern.