The Editors of the National Gardening Association

Everyone loves good food, and food grown in your own vegetable garden is simply the best. You just need a few essential elements for a successful vegetable garden: a properly sized site with a good selection of veggies, fertile soil, and plenty of sun. And to keep your vegetable garden productive, you can use a few easy methods to prevent pests and other problems.

If gardening space is limited at home, you can still grow vegetables — just plant your vegetable seeds or seedlings in containers and place the pots on your deck or patio. With containers, you can plant seedlings or seeds a little closer together because you’re concentrating water and nutrients in a small space; therefore, the seedlings and seeds, not the general soil, get more of what they need to grow.

Putting together your perfect landscape starts with making a wish list customized to your needs, planning out your landscaping, and purchasing plants best suited for your landscape plan and hardiness zone. This Cheat Sheet can help you keep track of these details.Creating a landscaping wish listMake a wish list when you begin landscape planning and use your imagination to customize it around your needs.

You can create beautiful container gardens with a little planning and some ongoing attention. It all starts with picking the right plants and arranging them in an attractive container. Then, after you’ve got things growing, you’ll want to keep the plants pest-free to keep them looking their best.

If you have the space for it, you can start your own seeds. Starting seeds indoors is easy and a lot less expensive than buying plants from a nursery. When you start your own seeds, you can grow unusual varieties of the plants you want to have in your garden.Choose a seed-starting mix for your seeds.Seed-starting mix (or germinating mix) is a specially formulated growing medium that promotes healthy seedlings.

Planting just one variety of bulbs per pot ensures that all the bulbs in the pot will bloom at the same time. Mixing varieties in a container, on the other hand, results in flowers coming at different times, which has much less impact. If you want different flower colors and bloom times, grow different varieties in separate containers.

Strawberry pots, also called strawberry jars or pocket planters, have holes cut into the sides as well as an open top. The pots come in a range of sizes, but most have between 8 and 15 pockets sized for small plants, including herbs and flowers. Alternating themes or repeating patterns work well if you don’t want a different plant in each slot.

Planting wire baskets isn't as easy as planting plastic hanging baskets. But whichever type of basket you are planting, begin by choosing the right type of soil. A successful soil mix for hanging baskets must be lightweight and able to retain moisture.Make your planting mix.One way to achieve a suitable mix is to start with a bag of high-quality potting mix and add perlite or vermiculite at the ratio of three parts soil mix to one part additive.

When deciding where to plant your vegetable garden, assess sun exposure, soil quality, and water access. Choosing a garden site that's best for growing vegetables is based on good old common sense, as these tips reveal: Keep it close: Plant your garden where you'll walk by it daily so that you remember to care for it.