In article ,
"Seeker" wrote:

Well, over the weekend I planted my first vegetable garden. I have wanted
to do this for several years but being an apartment dweller has prevented
this. Now that I am an official homeowner, it was one of my first projects.
Here are some things I learned:

- Trees have lots of roots. I planted the garden by a large willow and it
has roots everywhere. There was nary a spot I could dig without
encountering roots. I fear these tree roots till compete with the plants.
Maybe I'll need a raised bed next year.

Watch the tree. I was a rookie last year, and my first big mistake was:
planting too near the trees. This was bad because, in very early spring,
the locusts had not yet leafed out. What I thought was a sunny spot
became a shady spot that vegetables would not grow well in. Then the
mulberries set fruit, right above the garden, and dropped hundreds of
mulberry seeds which became a huge weed problem. Next, the moles moved
in. Moles may not eat vegetables, but something was running around in
their tunnels that ate everything- even garlic and onions. Finally,
anything that survived all this was killed by the twigs and branches
that drop off the locusts like flesh off the zombie-corpse in the horror
movie.
Location, location, location. I decided I didn't really have a good spot
for a vegetable garden, so I'm sticking with fruiting trees, shrubs and
vines and mixing some herbs in with my flower beds. I may change my mind
later, but delicious farm-fresh vegetables are so plentiful in West TN
that it's hardly worth the space it takes to grow my own. I'll leave
that to the pros and grow things I wouldn't be able to just buy off the
farm.