Have you ever wanted to grow your own food, but just didn’t know where to begin or how to start a vegetable garden? Trust me we’ve been there, but we’ve got a secret for you- it isn’t as hard as you think! We’re going to share our best tips and tricks that we’ve learned from years of gardening to help you get started.
Gardening for us is a way of life, something we’ve been doing for generations. Some of my earliest memories are watching my grandmother tend her rose bushes, they were her pride and joy. So for me, gardening is a mixture of the love of being outdoors working in the soil and happy memories. It’s something I love, and am passionate about sharing with others.
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How To Start A Vegetable Garden
So where to begin on your quest to learn how to start a vegetable garden? With the basics. Find a place in your yard that has plenty of light, and is relatively flat (if you need to you can use a tiller to create a flatter place). Next up decide if you want to plant straight in the ground or build raised beds.
Some resources for having a raised bed garden:
How To Start A Vegetable Garden: Garden Planning
The best place to start when you are learning how to start a vegetable garden is with a plan. This is a great thing to when it’s too cold or wet to get outside and work in the soil.
What you will need to start planning a spring garden?
- A simple journal or garden planner
- Pen or pencil
- Calendar
- The date of your last frost
- Your garden zone
- Seeds
Start planning a spring garden by figuring out your planting zone, and the date of your last frost. Mark the date of your last frost on the calendar and write it in your journal for future use. Next figure our exactly what you want to grow in your spring garden make a list of them in your planner and journal and begin buying what you don’t have.
Tips For Garden Planning
- The most important thing when it comes to planning your garden is knowing your frost dates, whether you are starting a spring garden, or a fall garden these dates will be important to know.
- Do some research on companion planting, and group your plants together that like each other.
Related article: Beginner’s Guide To Companion Planting
- Start a gardening journal, keep plant notes and your garden planning sketches all one place inside the journal.
- Plan to plant things you know you’ll eat.
How To Start A Vegetable Garden: Garden Soil Preparation
Garden soil preparation isn’t just about getting your soil ready for planting, for the organic gardener, it’s the number one way to control weeds in your spring garden. There are lots of soil preparation methods to get your spring garden ready for planting. These are just a few:
- Tilling – this breaks up the soil allowing you to easily plant and amend your soil, it can, however, bring dormant seeds to the surface to sprout.
- Double digging – similar to the tilling option this will break up your soil.
- Turning the soil with compost – rough turning your soil is another option to break up your garden plot.
- Smothering weeds – Using a newspaper or cardboard and placing it over where you plan to have your garden plot, leave it there until you are ready to plant your spring garden.
- Topdressing with compost and manure – This is a no-till method of soil preparation.
- hugelkultur – This is a centuries-old method of soil preparation, which imitates what you would see in nature.
- Soil solarization – with this soil preparation method you wet the soil of your future garden plot and then cover with plastic. Bury the edges of the plastic to trap the heat. This is not a method you can use in the winter, but if you are planning a spring garden in late summer or fall this could be a great method for you. You can read more about Soil Solarization here.
Starting A Garden From Scratch
Starting a garden is a wonderful if somewhat addicting hobby that is really rewarding. There is something special about cooking food that you grew yourself and sharing it with your friends and family. We hope this inspired you to give it a go and try gardening for yourself.
Have a question on how to start a vegetable garden that we didn’t cover? Drop them in the comments!
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