Considering a home vegetable garden? We can help

To plant a garden is to believe in the future. Still, you don't have to be an optimist to enjoy homegrown goodies. Tomatoes, peppers, corn, cucumbers. Everything tastes better when it comes from your personal produce department, right? 

And you don't have to be a mathematician to appreciate the budgetary savings a garden can reap.
A Burpee Seeds study claims that for every $50 spent on gardening supplies, about $1,250 worth of produce can be yielded. 

Plus, maintaining a backyard garden is an eco-friendly thing to do. You get to enjoy organic foods while nourishing a corner of the planet. And when your food source is local that means less products will be shipped from great distances, saving on fuel expenses. 

Still, maybe you're like a lot of people and this is all new to you. If you're considering planting a vegetable garden for the first time, whether to help the environment, your pocketbook or your health, we can help. 

First, consider the sun 

"Any vegetable garden has to have a minimum eight hours of direct sun," said Mike Reihsmann, grower at Saunoris Brothers Inc. in Frankfort. Next, consider the soil, Reihsmann said. In these parts, soil, especially soil that is new to vegetables, needs to be amended with organic material. Peat moss, mushroom compost and manure will do the job, Reihsmann said. 

Once you have conditioned the soil in a six to eight inch deep bed, Reihsmann said, you're ready to add some gypsum, a good source of calcium, which will help break up the clay. Clay is a particular problem in areas where housing is fairly new. 

Granted, soil conditioning can cost some money. But, Reihsmann said, that cost goes down each year. Simply growing plants in a garden helps enrich that soil for the next year. 

Once your soil is soft and improved, you're ready for plants. 

What to plant? 

Good crops for beginners, Reihsmann said, include lettuce from seed, radishes, tomatoes, peppers and beans, which are easy to grow but require staking. 

If space is a premium, Reihsmann said consider growing tomatoes and peppers in containers. 

"Anything can be grow in pots," he said. "Even cucumbers, but you'll need a trellis." 

New upside down pots are also good for small spaces, so a re tomato bags, which do not need a trellis, he said. 

The start-up work and the upkeep can be well worth it, from an investment point of view, he said. 

A tomato plant, for example, may cost $1.50, he said. "But you can get a lot of tomatoes from that one plant." 

Plus, he added, they taste better. 

When to start? 

"It used to be that didn't plant our gardens until Memorial Day," Reihsmann said. But a lot of people get anxious to start digging around Mother's Day. Just make sure Jack Frost isn't planning any surprise visits. 

Just to be sure, he recommends gardeners start with broccoli and cabbages, which can actually go in the ground right about now. They're hardier than tomatoes and peppers, which shouldn't go in the ground until mid-May at the earliest. 

Got soup? Get seeds

Through June 21 (or while supplies last), each household that purchases any variety Campbell's condensed soup and enters the code on the can at HelpGrowYourSoup.com can request a free packet of Campbell's tomato seeds to plant in their own backyards and windowsills.--With each request, Campbell will donate the seeds being used to plant community gardens and achieve the 1 billion-tomato goal.

Need help?

The University of Illinois Extension offers lots of help for beginning gardeners, including the page "10 Steps to a Successful Garden."

Learn about garden layouts, proper watering and how to plant vegetables right.

Top 10 easy-to-grow vegetables 

The following is a top 10 list of easy-to-grow vegetables and their recommended varieties. 

1. Carrot. Plant seeds several times throughout the growing season, early spring into fall for a continuous harvest. Soil should be loose and deep. Varieties: Nantes, Chantenay-- Touchon, Short n Sweet. 

2. Cucumber. Wait until warm weather to plant seeds. Varieties: Sweet Success, Fanfare, Lemon. 

3. Green Beans. Plant seeds after frost danger. Bush types are easier to manage, but pole types are more productive in an equal space (because they're taller!). Varieties: Blue Lake, Contender, Kentucky Wonder. 

4. Lettuce. Plant seeds as soon as soil can be worked - hot weather ruins the plants. Varieties: Black Seeded Simpson, Buttercrunch, Deer Tongue, Nevada. 

5. Onion. Timing the planting of seeds or the miniature onion bulbs called sets can be tricky. Also consider mail-order onion seedlings. Check locally for availability. 

6. Peas. Sow seeds early in spring as soon as you can work the soil. Varieties: Alderman-- Sugar Snap, Oregon Trail, Super Sugar Mel. 

7. Radish. Sow seeds during the short, cool days of spring and fall. During these times, radishes are perhaps the easiest and fastest vegetable to grow. Varieties: Cherry Belle, White Icicle, Scarlet Globe. 

8. Summer Squash. Sow seeds after weather warms up. Grow bush types to save space. Varieties: Sunburst-- Yellow Crookneck-- Scallopini. 

9. Sweet Pepper. Plant seedlings in warm weather along with tomatoes. Varieties: Bell Boy-- California Wonder, Sweet Banana, Gypsy. 

10. Tomato. Set out seedlings after the air and soil have warmed up. Tomatoes come in countless varieties; among the best: Celebrity, Big Rainbow, Brandywine and Enchantment. Tomatoes are one of those rare plants that actually benefit if seedlings are planted deeper than they grew in the nursery pot. Plants will be more anchored and sturdier, and roots will develop along the buried portion of the stem. Pinch off lower leaves once you plant.