• A bit of "sweat equity" can improve the yield of your garden.vegetables image by dinostock from Fotolia.com
  
  A trip to the home center or browsing on the Internet will reveal thousands of ways for you to spend money on your garden. But, not every improvement that you make to your vegetable patch needs to involve emptying your wallet.
  
  

Compost

• Your kitchen provides a daily stream of valuable soil amendments. Don't send them down the garbage disposal or away to the landfill; instead, compost your kitchen waste. Composting doesn't require anything except a bit of space and a little effort. While there are dozens of products on the market and plans for enclosures you can build, none of them are needed to produce quality compost. Simply pile up all your kitchen waste and cover it with a little topsoil every day. In a few months, you'll have a rich amendment for your garden. Don't compost meat or dairy products, but all your other kitchen scraps can feed your garden. (ref 1)
  
  

Water Management

• Make sure that rain water stays in your garden as long as it possibly can. Look at the lay of the land around your garden. Put on a raincoat and take a stroll during a rain. Watch what the water is doing. Dig a gentle swale, or trough, on the uphill side of your garden to direct the water underground, right to your vegetables' roots. Fill the ditch with shredded twigs and leaves. They will slow the water dispersal and add nutrients as the water leaches into the ground. While few vegetables thrive in soggy conditions, you don't want the water to immediately run off either. Make a berm on the downhill side to keep the water from running off too fast. (ref 2)
  
  

Raised Beds

• Raised beds don't need elaborate enclosures. Simply rake the planting area into a flat topped mound, with gently sloping sides. Elevating the planting bed by 6 inches to 8 inches will improve drainage and warm the soil. Unsupported raised beds allow more intensive planting patterns than traditional rows. Mulch the space between the beds with grass clippings to keep weeds down. (ref 3 & 4)