Overall, gardening vegetables, fruit and flowers is a worthwhile hobby, especially in central Iowa, Becker said.

“We’re very, very fortunate to live in an area that has fantastic soil,” he said. “We have such good soil.”

Knowing exactly when to start your garden can be tough to nail down.

“That’s the million-dollar question,” Becker said.

When it comes to many vegetable plants, like tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, around Mother’s Day is about when they should be planted in the ground, Becker said. Before that, and they risk late spring frost, and after they risk not producing a crop until late summer.

However, gardening vegetables is not an exact science. Veggies in the cabbage family, such as broccoli, cauliflower and kale, thrive better in colder temperatures, so those are safe to plant in the ground in early spring. Planting them too late — or an unusually warm spring — can lead to bolting, or premature flowering, reducing the crop produced.

Another mistake some gardeners make is planting things in the “wrong spot.”

“Planting a shade thing in too much sun, or vice versa,” Becker said. “You have something that just burns up, or something that just sits there and doesn’t bloom because you didn’t give it enough sun.”

Planning exactly what and where they’ll be planted is important, he said. A gardener needs to make sure that they’re not planting vegetables too closely that it crowds the roots, or that the plant isn’t going to outgrow its space.

What’s also important, he said, is making sure to move the plants around from year-to-year. Don’t plant tomatoes in the same spot in the garden each year — move them around and switch with other vegetable plants.

Although Becker said it’s too early to get most vegetables in the ground, now is the time to start them inside if you’re going to grow them from seeds. The seeds will need to sprout several inches before they can be transplanted to a garden, so starting them now gives them time to grow before they go into the ground next month.

And even when a seasoned gardener perfectly times their planting, they’re still forever at the mercy of the weather.

“You just have to plant and hope for the best,” Becker said.

Becker had advice for someone starting their first garden.

“Don’t go too big,” he said. “Because it gets hot in Iowa and you have to go out there and weed and water and there are bugs and mosquitoes. Start small, you can always go bigger in a year or two.”

Some popular tomato varieties in this area, Becker said, are the Early Girl variety, as well as the Big Boy and the Parks Whopper. Roma tomatoes, used for tomato paste and salsas, are also becoming more popular, he said.

“Gardeners kind of get their favorites pretty quickly,” he said.

One Messenger reader wanted to know of pet-safe alternatives for weed killers. Becker’s suggestion is pretty straightforward — leaves.

“I like to keep some bags of leaves from the fall and have them up in my garden and then once things kind of get going good, I’ll put six or seven inches of leaves all through my tomatoes,” he said. “And by the time fall arrives, the leaves all decompose right down into the dirt and improves your soil there.”

Grass clippings can also be used for mulch, he said, provided that dandelion killer hadn’t been used on the lawn.

When it comes to flower gardens, the planning all comes down to what the gardener wants to see. But Becker did warn that it’s important to pay attention to the tags on the plants to know how tall they’re expected to grow.

“You don’t want to put something that’s 24 inches in front of something which isn’t,” he said. “Make sure you get the taller things in the back and hopefully get something that’s blooming all summer long so you have color continuously.”

Iowa State University Webster County Extension and Outreach has a vault of resources for home gardeners to use to plan and plant their ideal gardens.

The resources cover everything from where to put a vegetable garden to suggested vegetables to plant to how to use containers to garden to proper techniques for planting potatoes and more.

Gardeners can access these resources for free by visiting www.extension.iastate.edu/webster/news/yard-gardenhorticulture.

Webster County will be participating in the fall Master Gardener ISU Extension and Outreach classes this fall. Applications will be available starting June 3 and must be submitted by July 1. The class starts Aug. 22.

And at the end of the growing season, gardeners often want to preserve their produce. Webster County Extension has support for that as well. A list of those classes can be found at www.extension.iastate.edu/webster/news/virtual-food-preservation-classes-offered.