**A spring vegetable garden is when it all starts**

Spring is the start of the growing season so spring is the time to start your vegetable garden. But be careful because if you start too early a quick and deadly early frost could take out your

seedlings. If you are saving your newspapers then you are ready for an early frost but the safest way is just to wait till the weather is warm then start. If you like, start a few early plants like broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, onions, peas, potatoes, spinach not NZ spinach and turnips.

These plants handle frost pretty well, get the seeds in early as soon as it starts to warm up and you’ll have fresh veggies on the table well before mid summer.

Other plants you can plant early are beets, carrots, chard, mustard and radishes. The golden rule is don’t plant too many. Space out your plantings and then you should have a constant supply of vegetables. Just remember the slugs, snails and other pests will be coming out too so be ready for the onslaught. A lot of plants are not frost hardy at all and the frost will wipe them out like snap beans, NZ spinach, squash, sweet corn, tomato, eggplant, peppers, sweet potato, cucumber, watermelon and zucchini as well as most beans. These plants will not tolerate frosts at all so plant well after the last frost date.

Some you can plant along the fence or around the house while others do better in full sun.

I don’t like to plant in rows or have the same vegetables planted together because if one plant gets a disease they all get it. If you plant the seeds at random with different plants growing throughout the garden you can have less problems with pests and diseases. So for your spring vegetable garden just get the vegetables in the ground so they can grow.

Check out our Vegetable Gardening page and see what you think, but now is the time to stop thinking and just throw a few seeds around the house to see what happens.