Creating a small vegetable garden is not as hard as you might think. There are many advantages to planting small gardens. You might have been forced into having a small garden due to the amount of space you have available, but don't think of it as a disadvantage. While you might not be able to grow as much, there is less to do, and it seems to me that the larger the garden, the amount of work seems to go up exponentially!

The key to planting small vegetable gardens is forward planning. Just don't go out there and do it - put a little prep work into the design of your garden. The easiest way to plan your garden is to grab some graphing paper and map out how much space you have. Then you can just draw in your plants as you see fit.

If you don't know how big the various plants are, do a Google search. Google Images can be very helpful here.

Plant the largest plants towards the middle of the patch. Then you can surround them with smaller plants. You could even add some herbs if you want here (herbs are pretty small). It's important that you leave enough space in your garden. Don't bunch up all the plants together in one great big lump. Vegetables do like to spread out slightly, so give them that space to grow. Rows tend to be the most efficient use of space, as well as helping you to keep organised with your planting.

If you have vegetables that can grow upwards (such as pole beans, cucumbers or melons) then you can build little towers for them to go up. I suggest that you place these at the back of your garden so that they don't shade the rest of your garden when the sun moves around.

You can also add a few things to your garden to make it a little prettier. For example try painting some rocks with the names of the vegetables in your garden. While little white tags are functional, I prefer the rocks. If your garden is one that you can walk on (as in it's a dug out garden) then you can try experimenting with some different rocks. Try visiting your local stone mason and seeing if there's any interesting offcuts you could get your hands on.

When it comes to growing a small vegetable garden, planning is perhaps the most important part! Just working the design out on paper first will really help you to grow your garden in an organised way.