Many people think that the first criteria when picking the "best spot" for a home vegetable garden is good soil; however, although good soil is important, good soil is made, not found. You can rebuild the soil once the spot has been chosen. When you are choosing where you want your home vegetable garden patch to be, you must focus on its convenience and exposure.

Convenience means your home vegetable garden should be "close by" or as close to your house as possible. You may think that a difference of only a few hundred yards cannot be that significant; however, if you have to largely depend upon spare moments for working in and for watching the home vegetable garden, convenience will be much more important than you think.

Don't wait till you have had to make a dozen time-wasting trips for forgotten seeds or tools or gotten your feet soaking wet by going out through the dew-drenched grass to gather those "vegetables of the day" to realize that "close access to your home vegetable garden" is important.

Another point to remember is that the "home vegetable garden patch" does not have to be set in an ugly spot in your backyard or hidden behind the barn or garage. If you carefully plan, plant, and care for your home vegetable garden, this little patch can end up not only producing very nourishing vegetables for you, but it can also end up being a most beautiful and harmonious part of your landscape. Thus having this home vegetable garden in close proximity to your house can lend a touch of comfortable homeliness that no shrubs, border, or flower beds can ever produce.

The next most important criteria when picking out your home vegetable garden spot which is to give you hours of joy and yield delicious vegetables all summer, or even for many years, is the exposure.

Pick out the "closest" spot or plot you can find where your home vegetable garden will slope a little to the south or east, will catch the sunshine early and hold it late, and will be, as much as possible, out of the direct path of the chilling north and northeast winds.

It's important to get seedlings growing as soon as possible and to keep them growing; therefore, if a building, or even an old fence, protects your home vegetable garden from the chilling north or northeast winds, your vegetables will be helped along wonderfully.

If this home vegetable garden patch is not already protected, a board fence or a hedge of some low-growing shrubs or young evergreens would be most helpful. The importance of having such a protection or shelter is greatly underestimated by the amateur.

To summarize, when you are choosing that "best spot" for your home vegetable garden, make sure you consider these basics: Find a spot which is convenient and close to your house and make sure your home vegetable garden is positioned so that it gets lots of sun and is somewhat protected from the elements.