6 tips to start your Tri-Cities vegetable garden. WSU master gardener’s best advice

Are you itching to get out in your yard and wake your garden up after a long winter slumber?

We are Benton-Franklin Master Gardeners, we can help.

With the warming weather, daffodils and tulips are starting to poke their heads out of the ground.

Whether starting a fresh or working in your established garden, it is important to follow certain steps for improved yield from to ensure success in your vegetable garden.

1. Plant in a sunny spot

Vegetables grow better when they receive adequate sunlight.

For more sunlight, plant in a southwest corner or an area that gets 6-8 hours of direct sunshine.

2. Start small

Start small and grow eventually.

Whether planting on a flat piece of land, in raised beds or in containers, make it manageable and do not get carried away in your enthusiasm.

You can always add to it in the next growing season.

It is better to be proud of a small garden than to be frustrated by a big one.

3. Plant in good soil

Start by testing your soil, if you can.

Getting a soil test is not a prerequisite for starting your garden but it will give you an idea of the status of nutrients in your soil and provide recommendations for amendments and organic matter needed.

Spending time to improve your soil is the single most important act to ensure that your plants grow well. Plant roots penetrate soft soil easily.

Getting good advice can help improve your soil over time.

Generally, after three seasons of adequate soil amendments you will be able to get a good, healthy, and porous soil, that crumbles like brown sugar when a handful is squeezed in the palm.

4. Water wisely

Ensure there is water available for your garden throughout the growing season.

Know the right amount of water to use. Too much water can leach water soluble nutrients, foment water borne diseases, and drown the seeds or transplants.

Excessively dry soil can cause plant stress and potentially kill the plantings.

5. Know when to plant

Planting vegetables at the right time is a good determinant of how well they grow.

Use your USDA Plant Hardiness Zone as a guide when deciding what to plant and at what time.

Hint: Read the back of your seed packets.

6. Deciding what to grow

Plant what your family enjoy eating.

The joy in growing your own food is the freshness, flavor, and variety that it brings to the table.

To ensure continuous supply of vegetables, don’t plant too much of the same crop at a time.

For example, two or three successive small plantings of leaf lettuce and radishes may be made one week apart in early spring and repeated in the fall.

Sketch a plan.

Plan to plant cool season crops like peas, lettuce, onions and spinach etc. in early spring and warm season crops like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers etc. around Mother’s Day.

Happy Gardening!

More information

For more information see Home Vegetable Gardening in Washington on the Washington State University Extension website.

Also, WSU is offering a plant clinic April through October at the WSU Extension office in Kennewick, where they can answer your growing questions from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m. daily.

• Kennewick (Gardening, Horticulture,Food Preservation, Animal Science), 7102 W. Okanogan Place, Suite 102, Kennewick; 509-735-3551
• Prosser (Commerical Tree Fruit, Grapes and Small Fruit), 1121 Dudley Ave., Prosser; 509-786-5609
• Pasco (4-H, Family, Forage and Commercial Vegetables) , 404 W. Clark St., Pasco; 509-545-3511