If you want to start a vegetable/fruit garden, but the thought of it is overwhelming, then this 2 part blog series is for you! I started writing this post in early 2018 and have been recording my successes and lessons learned for the past two years. I planned on publishing this post last winter, but I didn’t feel it was ready. So here I am, two years later, finally sharing all the details on how I started my garden along with important things I have learned along the way. First things first though, gardening is a year round commitment. Tending a garden doesn’t end after the harvest.
I find gardening extremely rewarding which makes me wish I would have started a garden a lot sooner than three years ago. Not only does gardening give me a sense of accomplishment, it is helping me instill important life lessons into my boys. I want them to know that food doesn’t just magically appear at the grocery store. I want them to know (first hand) the effort it requires to grow vegetables, fruit, and herbs. It also provides a level of peace knowing exactly where the produce I feed my family comes from. Below is a picture of our garden at the beginning of last season.
I started having our youngest help us in the garden last year and he was the best little helper. He planted the carrots with me and watered them with me every evening. When it was time to harvest, he helped with that too. He was so proud the day we harvested the carrots. Look at my little gardener.
Because I have so much I want to share with you, I decided to make this a two part series.
For this post, I will be going over the basic things you should know/consider before you start a garden, my favorite place to buy seeds, my go-to gardening tools & accessories, and how to prep your garden.
In the second post I will go over how to start seedlings indoors, best practices for tending a garden, how to protect your garden from pests, and easy pickling recipes for some popular garden vegetables.
There are so many factors that have to be taken into consideration before starting a garden such as: what grows well in your planting zone, planting location (shady vs. sunny), garden size, what vegetables/fruits grow well together, etc. Honestly, it might be a little overwhelming at first. I was completely overwhelmed my first year, but I was determined to have a garden so I did a ton of research with the hope of succeeding. I’m not telling you that to deter you from gardening, but I want to set realistic expectations. Gardening is a lot of work, but the reward is worth it on so many levels. This was a portion of the vegetables I harvested last year.
Look at all those jalapeños! And that’s not all of them. Four jalapeño plants produced these. We had so many I was giving them to neighbors and coworkers by the dozen.
Good motivation, yes? Yes. Good. Let’s start with things to know & consider before starting a garden.
1: Know your planting zone.
Your planting zone, also known as hardiness zone, is a map that provides a standard to determine which plants are most likely to thrive in a given location. CLICK HERE to view the planting zone map to find out your planting zone.
Knowing your planting zone is important. Once you know your planting zone, you can determine which vegetables/fruits are ideal for your planting zone. Then you can narrow down what you want to grow based on the size of your garden.
2: Decide what you want to grow in your garden and base the location off of that.
Deciding what you are going to plant is crucial before picking the location of your garden. I highly recommend doing your homework on the amount of sunlight required for the plants you want to grow as well as making sure your space will accommodate for the sunlight needed.
Now that you know what you want to plant, choosing a location for your garden is the most important thing to consider . The location should be based around what you want to plant along with the amount of sunlight that area gets throughout the day. If you are planting root vegetables such as beets, carrots, or radishes your garden should have access to ample sunlight and not be heavily wooded or shaded. A lot of vegetables/fruits require several hours of sunlight to flourish.
3: Map out your garden.
If you are starting a garden from scratch make a blueprint of how you want to setup your garden and what you plan to grow next to each other. I did this and it was super helpful! I highly recommend doing that.
It is important that the seeds you plant next to each other play well together.
All herbs, vegetables, and fruits require a certain amount of space for them to grow properly. Each seed packet should tell you how much space is needed for that particular plant. From that, decide what makes the most sense based on the amount of space you have to work with.
If you plant squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, or melons make sure you have a ton of space. With my first garden I had 4 cucumber plants, which ended up taking over an entire 2×6’ raised bed.
Lesson learned to be conservative when planting cucumbers along with using a trellis to maximize space and somewhat confine the plants.
Plants that I’ve had success with growing together. Please note, this is based on my own personal experience with our garden.
Jalapeños
Cilantro
Rosemary
Radishes
Carrots
Kale
Strawberries
Note: potent plants, such as jalapeños, can cross pollinate with the plants that are planted next to them which can cause them to take on hints of the other plants flavors.
If using raised beds, don’t plant cherry tomatoes and cucumbers together. Both of these plants take up a lot of space. Growing them together was a big mistake on my part. Lesson learned, first hand.
I found THIS ARTICLE to be very helpful when determining what to grow together.
Fun fact: Radishes are a low maintenance vegetable that sprouts (what seems like) overnight. I was able to plant and harvest radishes twice in one season. Below is a shot from my first harvest last year.
They are actually called “radiant radishes” and it should be no surprise as to why. Those colors are stunning!
I planted them next to strawberries and both played well together. However, I don’t plan to grow strawberries in a raised bed again. I will plant them in hanging baskets or a waist high raised bed to prevent animals from devouring all of the strawberries. Here is one of the three strawberries my garden produced. Too bad I didn’t get to taste one of them.
Once you figure out what you want to plant, you have to buy the seeds.
My favorite place to buy seeds is Hudson Valley Seed Company. They offer a huge selection of certified organic seed packets, which is exactly what I was looking for. Bonus, the packaging is beautiful and unique.
Now let’s talk about gardening tools and accessories. You will need to have the essentials before prepping your garden.
4: Invest in the essentials.
Here are some of my favorite gardening tools and accessories.
Tools & Accessories List
Garden hand tool set
Biodegradable seed starter pots
Gloves
Watering can
Seed starter soil
Plant labels
Pruning shears
Garden scissors
Twine
Most garden hand tool sets come with a: trowel, hand rake, and transplanter. I do recommend buying a cultivator or weeder as well. If I had to choose between the two, I would recommend the cultivator. It can dig up weeds as well as breakup the soil.
Tip: If you don’t have biodegradable pots on hand you can use a cardboard egg carton. They are also biodegradable!
Other accessories to consider
Rain boots
Sun hat
Garden apron
Composter
5: Prep your garden.
If you plan to plant seeds or transplant directly into the ground AND you have never had a garden in that space, I recommend you start prepping your garden and soil in late fall and continue to add compost to the soil up until it’s time to plant. When I say prep your soil, I mean, till the ground, remove any weeds, and add compost to the soil throughout the year. Compost enriches the soil which increases your chances of a bountiful harvest. I use coffee grounds, hay, sawdust, egg shells (that have been rinsed), and leaves.
Fun fact: I save all the sawdust from all my DIY projects in a bucket and mix it into the soil.
If you want more information about composting I found THIS ARTICLE to be very helpful.
If you plan to use raised beds then tilling and weed pulling is not necessary. You can simply lay cardboard boxes on top of the grass inside the raised beds to kill the grass and prevent weeds. Bonus, cardboard is biodegradable and completely safe for your garden. I still recommend adding compost to your raised bed soil.
If tilling isn’t your thing CLICK HERE for a good tutorial on how to build your own raised beds. I highly recommend buying cedar wood for raised beds. It is a little on the expensive side, but it is worth it if you don’t want to rebuild them each year, which ultimately causes you to spend more money in the end. Wood that is not meant for outdoor use will rot. Note, if you decide to do raised beds you will need to buy soil to fill them in. For each 2×6′ bed we used about 4 large bags of soil.
Whoa! That was a lot. Amirite? Which is why I decided to break this into a 2 part blog series. I will have the second post up next week. Just in time to start your indoor seedlings.
And that’s a wrap! I hope you enjoyed my post and found it educational and inspiring to start your own garden. Starting something new is hard, so my goal was to help you take that leap of faith.
Until next time friends. Xo
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For more vegetable garden tips head to my sweet friends Brittany & Deborah’s post HERE.
