Planting a basic vegetable garden can be a very rewarding hobby. There are many reasons why people decide to take up vegetable gardening. Some people feel it’s a relaxing way to lower their stress levels. Some just enjoy growing their own food. Others get satisfaction from knowing that they know where their food is coming from.

But most people can’t handle caring for a very large garden. It’s hard work. It can be very relaxing, but it can be back-breaking work in extreme heat. You have to contend with dirt, bugs, heat, bending, lugging, pulling, hoeing, and weeding. For these people, a basic vegetable garden is an excellent way to get the benefits of home grown food without giving up your life for it.

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When you’re planning a basic vegetable garden, you need to decide how large you want your garden to be. You may be tempted to buy dozens of different vegetables and all sorts of varieties, but this may be more work than you’re really prepared for.

In can be miserable work if you create a garden that is larger than you’re prepared to handle. If you go overboard, your fascinating hobby can quickly turn into a nightmare. So with your goal in mind of creating a basic vegetable garden, be sure to choose only those varieties which you really believe you’ll enjoy, and which you can’t easily find locally.

First, you should make a list of all of the different vegetables you’d like to plant in your basic vegetable garden. Write down anything that comes to mind. Don’t worry about whether or not you’ll have time to plant or take care of something, or whether you can afford it, just write down everything you’re interested in.

Once you’ve completed your list, you’ll start narrowing it down. The first step is to eliminate anything that you can get locally at a reasonable price. Potatoes and cabbage, for example, are usually very inexpensive in most locations.

Then you should eliminate anything that you can get locally that won’t see a significant improvement in flavor over the store-bought version. Again, cabbage and potatoes probably won’t taste significantly different if you grow them yourself in a basic vegetable garden.

What you want to have on the list for your basic vegetable garden is the produce you can’t get locally, is generally too expensive to purchase, or would taste significantly better when grown in your own garden.

For example, you may choose to grow fresh herbs because they are very expensive in stores. You might want to grow tomatoes because it can be extremely difficult to find tomatoes that taste good in stores. And you might want to grow a variety of specialty lettuces that are hard to find locally, or are generally quite expensive.

If you only eat peas once per month, don’t plant a whole row! If you detest tomatoes, don’t plant them just because you think you should for some reason. Some people plant things they think look pretty in the seed catalog, even though they know they won’t enjoy the produce! Note: This is not a basic vegetable garden!