There are so many decisions to be made when it comes to vegetable gardening. Selecting the right location, determining what to plant, even how many plants you might need. One topic that might not have crossed your mind is how to make the vegetable garden more water conscious. Conserving water in the vegetable garden may sound more difficult than it really is.

Eastern Nebraska tends to have high soil pH, also known as alkaline soil, which can cause problems for some plants, like river birch, pin oak, big-leaf hydrangeas and blueberries to name a few. Alkaline soil changes the availability of certain plant nutrients in the soil, often making them less available, resulting in deficiency symptoms.

When we plant a garden or flower bed, we think about sunlight preferences, color and bloom times most often, but there are other factors to think about including water requirements for the plants. All plants need water to survive, but they differ greatly in how much they need. Some plants are best planted along a pond edge or other very wet location because they like swampy, over irrigated locations. Where other plants require dry, well-drained soil. There are even some great plants used in rain gardens and similar areas that actually do well in both wet locations as well as dry conditions to overcome the changing environment when water collects during rain events and dries out between rains.

As I walk around my yard with my dog, I wonder about the impacts it has on my turf for the spring. Walking on frozen turf can have detrimental effects. During the spring and summer, we can walk on our lawns and turf fields with no damage. During the growing season, turf plants can recover from traffic through active regrowth. However, during the winter the turf is dormant and cannot recover from the damage until the spring.