The first thing to do is determine your regional planting guide. In Arizona, it is useless to read seed packages for planting seasons. Now, other climates aren't as severe, but it still helps to tailor your planting to the specific conditions in your area. The Old Farmer's Almanac lets you enter your town and state and it will build your planting guide for 2010 based on historical frost dates. Most planting problems stem (haha) from planting at an incorrect time.
The next thing is to really learn and build your soil. Knowing about your soil can tell you how to effectively water, and even poor soils like in Arizona can be amended. Run the Jar Test to see what kind of soil you are working with. Sandy soils don't retain water well, so you should water more frequently for shorter periods of time. Clay soils don't drain well, so you should water less frequently but for longer periods of time. Silt is somewhere in between these two. Compost, along with providing more organic matter for your soil, can improve the soil's ability to retain water in the case of sandy soil and can break up clay soil to increase drainage.
In our beds, we dig 2 feet down, break up the bottom of the bed, and fill it back in with half original soil, half compost. This gives the roots lots of space and organic matter, but it also allows the water to drain so that the roots aren't rotting in sitting water. For any subsequent crops, break up the soil with a digging fork, add 2 more inches of compost and turn that into the rest of the soil. And once your nice, airy soil is prepared, don't step in your bed or you will compact the soil again! You can purchase compost for this first use, but consider building your own compost bin for future use. Everything you need for good soil you already have--and you probably dispose of it--no need to keep buying it!
Okay, that's it for now. More tips to come!
