Vegetable & Herb Gardening Resource

northeast ohio

vegetable & herb gardening

Welcome to Petitti’s resource center for all things Vegetable & Herb Gardening – a collection of how-to info created by our team of horticulturists for the Northeast Ohio gardener. Whether you’re new to gardening or you have a “green thumb”, these pages are for you. We’ve covered every milestone in the journey: planning a garden, growing in raised beds, preparing your soil, planting up the garden, companion planting, overcoming common issues, differentiating between cold crops and heat lovers, harvesting the garden, and putting the garden to bed. Scroll to explore!

planning a garden

We all get super excited to run out and plant our gardens. But it’s always going to serve you well to slow down and dedicate some time to planning. What location is best? Will you garden in the ground, in a raised bed, or in containers? What’s an ideal size & layout? What does ‘preparing soil’ mean? How will you irrigate? What plants will you grow?

get the answers

spotlight on raised beds

Raised bed gardens are trending and for good reason – they work well and they look great. Over the past year, we produced a 14-part video series that shows you exactly how to create and maintain a productive raised bed vegetable & herb garden in Northeast Ohio. We covered: Constructing the bed, filling it with soil, planting & harvesting cold crops, protecting from deer, planting tomatoes & peppers, watering & irrigation, controlling insects & other common issues, harvesting summer veggies, seeding for fall crops, sowing winter wheat as a cover crop, and putting the garden to bed.

solutions & controls

Each year brings new opportunities and new challenges for vegetable & herb gardener, depending on what conditions Mother Nature is serving up. Whether you’re running into issues with weeds, insects & pests, mildew & disease, deer & rabbits, or other rodents, we’ve got solutions to solve common problems.

find your solution
weed control
rabbit control
deer control

harvesting the garden

Things get really fun, really fast, once the garden starts yielding food midsummer. At that point, you’ll want to harvest continually to ensure continuous production through summer and up until the fall frost. Learn more about the importance of continual harvesting and get tips for harvesting cold crops, summer veggies, and herbs.

How to Harvest

putting the garden to bed

At some point in October, we arrive at the time where we put the garden to bed for the year. Taking the right steps now will reduce your workload next spring and support a healthier, more productive vegetable garden. In fall, it’s best to harvest & hasten the ripening of green tomatoes, remove spent plants, eliminate existing weeds, test for soil pH, replenish soil nutrients, and prevent cool-weather weeds from developing. Click through for details on these important garden tasks.

Off to a great start

Thanks for taking the time to visit our Vegetable & Herb Gardening resource center. Our goal is to help give you a foundation for success. If you have a question that is not answered by these resources, or if you have an idea for educational content we might produce, please Contact Us and let us know. As always, we welcome you to visit us to talk gardening with one of our knowledgeable team members and horticultural experts. For vegetable & herb gardening, visit the Annuals greenhouse at any one of our 10 Petitti Garden Center locations!

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We have ten locations across Northeast Ohio, spanning the Cleveland, Akron-Canton, and Youngstown communities. Search here to find the location most convenient for you.

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