When growing a vegetable garden, it’s easy to make mistakes. Before you get tough on yourself for making a poor decision, realize all gardeners make mistakes — and learning from our mistakes is the main way we become better gardeners. Following are five common gardening mistakes that you can hopefully avoid:

1. Planting too much. It’s easy to go overboard when it comes to growing vegetables. The idea of harvesting basketsful of delicious vegetables can tempt you to plant crops you don’t really like. If your kids won’t eat Brussels sprouts, don’t plant them. Use the space in your garden to grow veggies everyone will enjoy.

There’s no reason to grow everything you find at the garden center if all you really need are some tomatoes, lettuce, onions, broccoli, cucumbers and peppers. And there’s no need to grow 20 tomato plants when three or four will do. Having too many vegetables takes time and energy, and could cause you to cut back on weeding, watering and other chores.

2. Planting too close together. Some vegetables, such as spinach, lettuce and Swiss chard, don’t mind growing close together. However, most vegetables do best when they aren’t planted too close. Tomatoes require good air circulation, so be sure to space them at least 2 feet apart. If planted too closely, your plants are more likely to be stricken with blight or mildew. Other vegetables that need a bit more space include potatoes, peppers, green and yellow beans, cauliflower, broccoli, eggplants, and sweet corn.

3. Watering too much or too little. Consistent watering is essential for good harvests. Most crops do just fine when they receive about an inch of moisture a week. Buy a rain gauge to monitor rainfall. Plants that are deprived of water will show obvious signs of wilting and yellow leaves, and the fruit will be stunted or deformed.

Vegetables receiving too much water will be fine as long as your soil drains well, although melons and tomatoes may crack if watering is inconsistent. If excess water puddles in your garden, your crops will suffer and the leaves will turn yellow. The only way to fix this is to improve your soil by working in several inches of organic matter. Mulching will also help keep soil moisture consistent.

4. Not feeding your crops. It’s just as important to feed your vegetables as it is to water them. Besides adding compost or dry manure to your soil before you plant, it’s a good idea to add some compost every time you sow or harvest a new crop. Granular, slow-release fertilizers are also helpful and will feed your plants for up to 90 days. Simply sprinkle the granules around your plants according to label directions, and every time it rains, your plants will get a quick meal.

On the other hand, be careful that you don’t overfeed your plants. Tomatoes, for example, will produce more leaves than fruit if they receive too much nitrogen.

5. Letting weeds grow. Not only do weeds choke out your crops and compete with them for moisture and food, but they also can produce thousands of seeds that can lie dormant in the soil for years. That’s why it’s important to eliminate weeds as soon as you see them.

To keep weeds at bay, start by spreading mulch over the surface of the soil right after planting. Then, if any weeds start to break through the mulch barrier, pull them or use a hoe to cut the plants off at the roots. Don’t use chemical herbicides in a vegetable garden.

***

Will La Niña push out El Niño this summer?

El Niño is expected to soon transition to La Niña, it’s opposite atmospheric and oceanic pattern, according to meteorologists.

The active spring weather pattern with rain, hail, high winds and tornadoes was typical of El Niño, but that is expected to begin shifting this month with La Niña in play by late summer or early fall.

“The official forecast from the National Weather Service is fully expecting La Niña to develop by July to September 2024,” said Brad Rippey, analyst and drought monitor author for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “When we categorize El Niño or La Niña, we break it into three-month packets, and so when I say July to September, it just means you average those three months. It’s likely that we’ll see La Niña by that time.”

El Niño is a warming trend of waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that often brings increased rain changes, cloudier days and cooler temperatures. The El Niño pattern that the southern U.S. experienced this year has been in play since last fall.

La Niña typically brings a warmer, drier weather pattern to the southern U.S.

For the U.S., the transition usually means a more active tropical storm and hurricane season, which is also predicted for this year.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said this year has an 85% chance of having an unusually high number of tropical storms and hurricanes.

“It looks like this season is going to be an active one,” Tom Bradshaw, National Weather Service meteorologist, told the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network. “There are a couple reasons for that. One is the very, very warm sea surface temperatures out there in the Atlantic Basin, in the Gulf of Mexico, and also, some larger scale wind patterns, which seem to be conducive to tropical development.”

NOAA is forecasting 17 to 25 named storms with winds of 39 miles per hour (mph) or higher.

Of those, NOAA predicts eight to 13 could become hurricanes with winds of 74 mph or higher, including four to seven major hurricanes of at least Category 3 status with damaging winds of 111 mph or stronger.

In an average year in the Atlantic region, 14 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes are recorded.

Other La Niña associated weather traits should become more evident in late fall, meteorologists said.

A drier and warmer winter in the southern U.S. and a colder winter in parts of the northern U.S. is expected. La Niña typically reaches its peak in the winter. That’s when it will likely have the strongest impact on weather patterns.

Between now and when La Niña officially takes over, the U.S. experiences a situation described as “ENSO neutral,” meaning neither El Niño nor La Niña is in place.

Regardless of the weather pattern, national weather forecasters are expecting an abnormally hot summer for Texas and nearly all parts of the U.S.