How to Start a Vegetable Garden

I picked up a the latest copy of Mother Earth News ~ it was a special edition called Guide to Growing Your Own Food. WOW ~ this got my spring fever turned up full blast. In fact, I couldn't get to sleep last night planning new elements for my garden! It got me wanting to share my joy of gardening and so here I am.

Space! It's a question every wanna be vegetable garden has to think about. Now please, don't think just because you live in a city or don't have acreage you can't grow vegetables.
This is just not true. You just need to be aware of the space you DO have and plan accordingly.

I Have No Space

If you have limited space ~ you know, like a patio ~ you can start a vegetable garden in containers. You will find most vegetables will grow quite well in containers. You will have to be vigilant about watering. They will need to be watered at least once a day.

You can decrease this amount of watering by using self watering containers or you can even make your own self watering containers.

I Have Some Space

If you have some space to work with the sky is the limit. You really need to look at some of the other things to consider if space is not your issue. You may have space but find you still need a small garden or even a container garden depending on the other factors.

If you decide to start a container garden you may find a potting bench becomes helpful to keep your potting area organized and neat.

How much time do you have to spend in your garden? This is important because it will really affect the size of your garden.


When thinking about the amount of time you have you need to factor in not only getting your garden ready ~ which can take some time ~ but also the regular maintenance time your garden will require as well the time it will take to do something with your vegetable crop, whether it's cook them, can them or even give them away. All of this takes time.

The time it will take completely depends on the size you make your garden. You can take care of a small garden, that will feed a small family, with less than an hour a day (after initial planting time)

Initial planting and garden creation can take less time depending on the type of garden you decide to plant ~ whether you use raised beds (like lasagna gardening), or till your earth. These are decisions you can make depending on the time you have to spend.

You just want to make sure you have enough time to tend to your garden ~ in spring it's easy to find time to get outside. The hotter it gets and the "less fun" the gardening task ~ like weeding ~ the harder it can get.

The amount of light the space you're going to put your garden matters a lot. The amount of light your plants will get will completely define the types of plants you can put in your garden.

Tomatoes for instance need direct sun all day long. They will not thrive in partial or full shade. Many larger vegetables are similar to tomatoes.

There are plenty of vegetables you can grow with less light. The best way to find out what they are is to check out a place likePark Seed. The descriptions of the vegetables on their site will tell you how much light the plant needs, once you know what works well with the amount of light you have you can choose your plants accordingly.

There's almost nothing more important when planting a vegetable garden than knowing when to start it.

If you get overzealous and start too soon you may end up killing all your plants if there is a late frost. If you wait too long some of your plants may not have enough time to grow to maturity ~ especially if you have a short growing season.

Your weather is mapped out in what's called a hardiness zone map. This map will show you what hardiness zone you live in. Then when you look at plants take note of which zones they grow best in, and also when to plant in your particular zone.



These hardiness zones are determined by the last frost and average temperature as well as other factors. Take a look and find out what hardiness zone you live in, and how much longer you have to wait to safely start your vegetable garden.

I do this a lot. I love spring. I'm motivated in spring. The weather is beautiful in spring.

Then comes summer.

It is HOT, and HUMID and I have no desire whatsoever to be outside.

Does this sound like it could be you?

All New Square Foot Gardening

Don't worry, there are some things you can do to make sure you not only start your vegetable garden, but make sure you finish it too.

The biggest thing is watering, your garden must be watered. If you think you might hit a wall in the summer set up a drip irrigation system in the spring when you can still stand to be outside. :) Then all you have to do is run outside and turn on the water, the system will do the rest for you. In fact, you can get a drip irrigation system with a TIMER so you don't even have to go outside. ;)

Weeding is going to be your next biggest issue. However, if you start out with some good mulch on your garden you can pretty much eliminate a lot of your weeding problems. You can also use raised beds or lasagna gardening which greatly decreases the amount of weeds that grow in your garden.

You can also choose to use the Square Foot Gardening method. This takes a little math up front, but it almost completely eliminates weeds. It also allows you to grow a lot more in a much smaller space. It's very cool and if you have issues with the amount of space or the heat of summer I highly suggest you read it.

This is an important factor ~ maybe I'm weird, but I don't think so. I have, in years past gotten overzealous and planted some (or a lot) of everything I could find. Wouldn't you know it the plants that take off are the ones that I don't even like to eat.


I remember one year this happened with eggplant. Now don't get me wrong I like eggplant once in a while in a good Rattatouille but I can only eat so many eggplants. That year, I don't know what I was thinking, I planted 5 or 6 eggplants.

I had eggplants coming out my ears! Now this wouldn't be such a bad thing now as I realize my local food bank will take home grown veggies, but at the time I was inundated with way too many eggplant and nothing to do with them.

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It can be very exciting buying seeds, or picking up plants at the gardening center, just don't let yourself get carried away, especially if this is your first vegetable garden. Those little plants look so teeny tiny, but they are a lot of responsibility and when done right they will yield a LOT of produce!!

Think about what it is you like to eat, and what you like to cook ~ or the veggies you need to cook your favorite recipes and start with those.