Mulch is any material, organic or inorganic, that you place over the surface of soil, usually right over the root zone of growing plants. (Click here for you all you need to know about mulch) Choosing a mulch and deciding when to use it in your vegetable garden depends on the type of vegetables that you grow and when you plant them. Here are some mulching tips for different types of vegetables:

• Cool-season vegetables planted in early spring: Young plants get off to a fast start when they have a great deal of sun. Lay down organic mulch when the soil starts to warm and when the plants need regular water. If you mulch too early, the soil stays too cold and wet for proper root growth. In areas with short growing seasons, plant broccoli, cauliflower, and cool-season plants through plastic. Cover the plastic with organic matter when the weather warms.
• Cool-season vegetables planted in late summer or early fall: These vegetables need the cooling effect, so put down an organic mulch right after planting. When the weather starts to cool, rake off or remove the organic mulch so that the soil warms. You can plant through plastic late in the year, but cover it with an organic mulch immediately so that the soil doesn’t get too hot. Remove the organic mulch when the weather cools and let the plastic warm the soil through harvest.
  You can store many root crops in the ground well into winter by covering them with a thick organic mulch, such as straw. Applied before the ground freezes, the mulch keeps the soil loose and unfrozen so that you can dig the vegetables later into winter.
• Warm-season vegetables planted in spring: With these vegetables, keep the ground clear if you’re planting really early — the more heat the better. Planting through plastic works in early spring. In hot climates, apply an organic mulch when the weather starts to heat up.

Fertilize

Editor’s Note: Although fertilizers are a garden or yard-improvement option, they are also a major source of water pollution. The nutrients in fertilizers, such as nitrogen and phosprous, are bad for humans and the environment when they leach into surface water and underground drinking water. Excess nutrients in the soil can also harm crop production. Compost and other environmentally-friendly soil-improvement techniques can be used in place of fertilizer. For more information, click here to visit the EPA's website for "Greenscaping."

Even if you have the healthiest soil around, growing vegetables is an intensive process that takes many important nutrients from the soil. So you need to add some fertilizer to your soil to keep it in optimum shape to feed your plants. How much fertilizer you add depends on the soil and the plants you’re growing. That’s why it’s hard to generalize across the board on what and how much fertilizer to use. Soil tests are a great way to know what to add. (Click here for more about soil tests)

Depending on the type of fertilizer you use, the crops you grow, and the type of soil you have, you may need to add repeat doses of fertilizer throughout the growing season — a practice called side-dressing. You can use both chemical and natural fertilizers for side-dressing.  ....read more