A vegetable garden can be a great way to reduce grocery bills and increase the nutritional value of the food you eat but starting a vegetable garden can be very intimidating.
There are so many methods and so many seed options that a new gardener can quickly become overwhelmed.
This is the step-by-step method I devised for how to start a beginner vegetable garden.
This is my third year using it and, each year, I’m able to expand my garden a little more.
1. Go through your grocery lists and menu plans to see what kind of veggies you eat regularly. I prefer to list them in the most eaten vs least order.
2. Decide how much space you have to dedicate to your garden and how many of the veggies on your list you will be able to plant. If you just have a balcony or a small year, container gardening or square foot gardening can help you maximize your space usage.
3. Figure out how much of each veggie you will need for your family. Are you planning to supplement your regular groceries? Or are you planning to replace bought produce with homegrown? Just enough for the summer or enough to store for the winter too?
4. Draw your garden space out on a sheet of paper and draw the amount of space required for each vegetable. Cut out all the different amounts of veggies. Think: veggie garden puzzle.
5. Arrange your garden. Make sure you’re not planting any plant-enemies near each other. Here’s a great chart to help you, take note of the red squares. This will not only help you figure out where to plant things, it will also help you remember exactly what you planted where when it comes time to harvest.
6. Order the needed seeds. If you’re unsure of where to order from, check out this summary page of online seed catalogue companies. I’ve only ever ordered from Ritchers and, though they took a while to come, the seeds were excellent quality.
7. Make plant data sheets with when to start, what kind of care required, and where you are going to plant them. This is a great activity to do as you wait for your seeds to arrive.
8. Fill in a planting calendar. Depending on your preference, you could use a seed starting template but I, personally, prefer the visual aspect of just using a blank monthly calendar. Figure out the expected last frost date and mark it on your calendar. (United States Frost Dates, Canada Frost Dates.) Pencil in starting dates and note whether they need to be started inside or outside. Write them in pen when you have actually planted.
9. Pencil in their expected transplant date (if started indoors) and expected harvest dates, after you have planted your seeds.
Do you have a vegetable garden? Please share any tips for newbie gardeners!
Great post! We had a great garden the year that we moved back to New England, but then we had a baby the next year and also moved to a house with plenty of land but not much sunlight…I’m hoping it won’t be long until we can do a proper garden again! The enemy plants chart is too cool. :]
This makes me want to get a garden started right now. I love to be able to harvest even a tiny portion of what we eat.
I homeschool, too… I just put on my to do list –gather information about starting a garden; I want to incorporate that into a lesson plan. Thanks for the info.
we going to do it soon. thanks for the tips.
Great tips. Thank you for sharing. I want to plant tomatoes and peppers.
I’ve been an organic gardener for many years, 35+ years, to be exact. It is a great family activity but doesn’t have to be much work. Gardening can take no time up to all your time, it’s up to you.
Some good tips for gardening. We put in a small garden last year and we’re going to put in a bigger one this year. We really don’t do all sorts of planning in ours though. We are going to be starting seed in the next couple weeks and clean out the rest of the area where it is going to be. Next after it’s cleaned, rototilling and soil amendments. Hopefully it will be past any frost by mid to late May so we will get a good harvest this year.
these are great tips, i am planning on doing this hopefully this coming weekend, just waiting on hubby,he not feeling well at the moment .. thanks for share
I love these tips for beginners since I’ve never had a hand in gardening before. I plan on doing some next year. We just moved this year and I’m pregnant, plus our backyard needs general work before undertaking gardening.
Found your article on Pinterest. I have my first apartment and really wanted to start a container garden but wasn’t sure what what would work best. Thanks for the tips!