Vegetable Gardening Online:
Plan It, Plant It, Grow It

Everything on vegetable gardening online comes from a lifetime of gardening in the Willamette Valley, Oregon, and of learning about it: from books and magazines before the internet, and from looking things up ever since. 

Start with the free tools below, print what you need, and use the guides when a crop gives you trouble.

Free Garden Tools: Start Here

Personalized Vegetable Planting Calendar Type your zip code, check your crops, print your year.	What Can I Still Plant? Enter your zip code and today's date. See what still has time before frost.
Interactive Garden Planner Drag vegetables into a bed with correct spacing, then print the plan.	Zone Finder Look up your USDA hardiness zone and frost dates.

In the Garden This Month

Late September in most of the country means the last sowings of spinach, lettuce, and radishes, garlic going in during October, and tomatoes coming out before the rain ruins them.

Pull spent plants, get compost onto the empty beds, and mulch anything that will stay in the ground.

The fall garden guide covers all of it, and the What Can I Still Plant tool will tell you what your own frost date allows.

Fall Vegetable Garden Guide  ·  What Can I Still Plant?

Free Printables for the Garden and the Kids

These are the pages most people come here for.

Everything prints on a home printer, and nothing asks for an email address.

Print as many copies as you like, for home or for a classroom.

Worksheets for Kids	Garden Plans	Plant Life Cycle Worksheets
Printable Garden Planner	Planting Calendar by Zone	Coloring Books

See all free printables →  ·  Kids Garden Club →

How to Grow Vegetables

Each crop guide runs from choosing a variety to harvest, with the problems that come up along the way and what to do about them.

These are the ones people ask about most.

All vegetable growing guides →

Guides by Topic

One line each. Click through for the full section.

New to Vegetable Gardening?

Start small.

One raised bed or three large pots is enough for a first year, and it is far better to keep a small garden well than to lose a big one to weeds by July.

• Grow what your family already eats.
• Find the sunniest spot you have, six hours at least.

Then read one of these two pages and plant something.

If you can only manage a few pots on a porch, start there!

Your First Vegetable Garden  ·  Homestead Gardening for Beginners

About This Site

I was born and raised on a farm in the Willamette Valley, and I learned to garden as a little child alongside my parents. I have lived in the country nearly all of my adult life, and there has almost always been a vegetable garden close by, whether I planted it or helped with someone else's.

My husband and I usually put one in each year: some years in the ground, some years raised beds, some years containers on the patio.

Many children who are picky eaters at the table become enthusiastic vegetable lovers in the garden. My granddaughter, six at the time, told me that she now likes tomatoes, after she ate a cherry tomato for the very first time while helping in the garden one summer afternoon. That small moment captures everything that is wonderful about growing a vegetable garden with children.

I started this site in 2009 to help other gardeners find the information they needed and the encouragement to get started. I do not claim to be a master gardener or an expert.

Most of my life I have been interested in gardening and learning about it: gardening books and magazines before the internet, and looking things up on the internet since.

When I find something I think would help another gardener, I add it here.

If a page on this site helps you, the newsletter is where I mention new tools and printables first.

More about me and the farm  ·  Get the Dirt newsletter

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