How to Start a Garden – For Beginners
This is the time of year to start your gardening adventures if it is something you have always dreamed of doing. I want to help you learn and start your own garden so you can easily grow your own vegetables and fruits at home!
There isn’t a summer I don’t remember my family not having a garden. There are so many benefits to growing your own food. Gardening to me is more than just putting a plant in the ground and seeing a harvest, although that it the general idea and expectation from a garden.
Now that I have children, I see all the benefits of having a garden and what it can teach us. You can find such ownership in growing your own food. Teaching children and ourselves a act of patience, determination, and responsibility of caring for animals and plants. I will have to say one of the best rewards of gardening is when you get to eat the harvest you worked so hard to care for and produce. Biting into a fresh cucumber or tomato straight from the garden will put all those in the grocery store to shame when it comes to taste, every single time.
Gardening has made my heart yearn for a more simple life.
In my first years of gardening, I had a lot of failed attempts but that didn’t stop me from trying to perfect my new hobby. If anything, I learned so much from the mistakes I have made in the past to help my gardening success in the future seasons of gardening. Don’t throw in the towel if you don’t succeed. I promise you there are such rewarding benefits to gardening you’ll come to love.
First thing to do when planning a garden is location.
How to Choose a Location for Your Garden
Location is one of the many keys of success when you are gardening. Most fruits and vegetables prefer full sun. For this, you will want to observe your property for the area that receives the most sunlight for the majority of the day and decide based on that where you will do your planting.
This is how I first decided to set up my garden space (which has since been updated with raised beds). This area on our property, receives the most sun throughout the course of the day. We have a problem with deer and this fence will help to keep pests out of my produce. This year we have gone a different route. Planting in raised garden beds and a white picket fence surrounding it. I’ve always wanted a white picket fence and this year I got one!
How to Decide What to Plant in Your Garden
This may seem silly to some but instead of going out and buying every seed packet in the garden center or starts you see. It’s always good to write out a plan of action for your garden. List all of the fruits and veggies your family eats. You don’t want to grow a ton of eggplant if none of our family likes to eat eggplant. Start small and grow from experience each and every year. When you’re learning how to start a garden, I find keeping it simple as possible will help you see the most success in the long run.
Amending the Soil
This is a step that I would highly recommend NOT skipping over this when learning how to start your garden. It was one of the mistakes I made because I was overly eager to start planting. Amending the soil simply means you are adding nutritional value to the dirt you plan on planting in. You can do this organically or buy soil from the store to start.
To give your seedlings a good start they need these vital nutrients. You can start a simple compost bin that will also help you reduce your kitchen waste (another bonus). I have started a compost bin in the last year. I love the idea of not wasting anything. Overtime the waste breaks down into nutrient rich soil you can add to your garden. There are many ways to achieve this. You can read more about that here.
This year since planting in raised beds where I have full control over what is in my garden soil, I can tell a tremendous difference. My vegetables are thriving! Last year I didn’t have the best luck with my yield…but, Hey! that’s alright we learn from our mistakes.
Find Your Garden Zone
This is helpful to know know matter what you plan on planting. This zoning chart will help you determine when the first and last frost dates are for your specific “zone”. If you choose to start your seeds indoors or wait to buy starts or even planting directly into the ground. You want to make sure that for your zone you are past the frost dates to prevent any detrimental damage to your plants.
These zoning charts will tell you when you should start certain seeds indoors, when to transplant them and when or if you should direct sew them into the ground instead of staring indoors. To find your zone just Google climate zones for gardening.
Starting Seeds Indoors
I chose to start some of my seeds indoors. My tomato plants, peppers, cabbages, broccoli and lettuces then move them into my small make-shift greenhouse until time to transplant into my garden. Depending on how much space you have and how much work you want to put into this step will be a deciding factor in weather or not you would wants to start your own seeds rather than buying them.
Now, there is no shame at all in buying starts from the local garden center. I certainly still do this for some plants simply because I don’t have the amount of space and time to dedicate to starting everything from seed. The main advantage I find from staring your plants from seed is knowing what is being put on your fruits and veggies. When you do it yourself you have full control on how organic your produce will be.
Make sure you have a calendar dedicated to seed starting for your gardening zone to make sure your little seedlings will be ready for transplanting time in the spring, and you’ll receive a good harvest at the right time. For more on starting seeds indoors, check out my post on the blog here for more detailed information.
I have also used a cheap greenhouse to keep my seeds in but, with our unpredictable weather it didn’t last long. We even staked in in the ground good! This year I am trying a new method that should work perfectly. I will make row covers for my raised beds and once seedlings are established move them out into the row covers. Kind of making a mini greenhouse for them. This way I can easily remove the covers for when the seedlings are strong enough to be on their own. I got my row cover plastic from Amazon. I’ll link it here. The hoops I used for the row covers can be found here.
Transplanting Seeds into your Garden
After you’ve done all of your research like having your garden area prepped and ready to go, know your gardening zone, and have your seeds started and/or ready to plant your starts from the garden center in the garden you’ll want to “harden off” your seedlings if you have started them from seed with a few hours each day in the warm sun. Be sure to bring them back in before nightfall.
After all danger of frost is past you can safely start planting in your garden! Hip Hip Hooray!
I recommend having a layout of your garden and where you plan on planting each vegetable so you won’t have any unhappy plants and some will help others out with pest problems (sometimes even better flavor!). For instance, you wouldn’t want to plant your tomatoes with your brassicas. Use a companion planting guide to help you choose what will compliment each vegetable and this should help you have a robust harvest as well.
Harvesting and Maintaining Your Garden
When you decide on learning how to start your garden…this is the most exciting part! Harvesting all the fruits of your labor. Knowing that what you’re preparing in the kitchen came from your hands and effort makes it so much better!
Water the soil deep and try to keep water from leaves if possible. We have hot summers where I live, and the deep-water method seems to help retain more water the root of the plants. I like to water twice a day, once in early morning and then in the evening. This keeps the water from evaporating so quickly in the heat of the day. You can also set up soaker hoses which are great options. I’ll link some here that I’ve had success with before.
Another option is setting a timer, so you don’t have to hand water every day. I like watering by hand. It gives me a sense of peace and a chance to check on how my plants are doing.
Once you have your watering schedule down, sit back and watch God do His magic and harvest when our produce is ripe!
I hope you have the best time learning how to start your own garden. There is always something to learn from gardening. It teaches us so much about life.
“The glory of gardening—Hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature.” —Author Unknown
Thanks for stopping by the Farmhouse
What this years garden looks like at The Valley Farmhouse
