LEARN HOW - to grow a vegetable garden
Growing a vegetable garden is one of the most rewarding things you can do, but if you're brand new to gardening it can feel overwhelming to make sure you do it right.
The most important thing is creating a garden that works for you and your growing space (meaning no two gardens will look exactly the same), and you need to know how to evaluate your growing space and climate for best results.
Here are our top tips for starting a garden the right way.
1) Pick Your Crops – Grow What You'll Eat
It seems obvious, but you have no idea how often I hear of people growing crops just because they know they'll grow well in their climate. This is one of the 8 common mistakes made by new gardeners. Choosing crops will vary from person to person based on likes and dislikes. But the most important thing when choosing which crops to grow is to be thinking about what your family eats on a regular basis and only grow what you'll actually eat.
2) Know your climate
Beyond growing what you like to eat, if your climate won't support the crop, it's best to not waste your time growing it. Ask around to neighbours and friends who have gardened before to find out what grows best in your area. Don't always go off the garden zone you're in, there are always micro-climates in each growing zone that can drastically affect how your garden grows.
3) First and Last Frost Dates
Know your average first and last frost date and your average summer temperatures. Most people only grow a summer garden. Knowing your average temperatures will help you know what vegetables to plant when in your area, which are all keys to having a successful garden.
4) Grow Multiple Gardens
By multiple gardens, we don't mean multiple garden plots. What we actually mean is that from ONE garden space, you can get two and sometimes three plantings per year. Knowing those first and last frost dates will help you know when to plant your cold-weather crops. These are crops that can be planted as soon as the ground is workable because they can withstand colder temps and even frosts. This will help you work backward to know what to plant mid to late summer for a fall harvest. Many of your early season crops will already be harvested and done growing, so you'll have plenty of space for a second (or third) planting.
You can also store your vegetables in the garden over winter, instead of harvesting them and putting them in a root cellar.
5) Choosing a Garden Location
Picking your garden location is very important. If you're working with a smaller space, or maybe even an existing garden, you may not have the best option, so work with what you have. However, if you're choosing your garden location, you'll want to know the direction the sun is coming from and approximately how many hours of sunlight your garden will get from about May-September.
Most crops need at least 6 hours of sunlight in order to germinate, grow and produce quality crops, so picking a shady location that won't get more than a few hours of sunlight each day won't do well for growing a year's worth of tomatoes. It may, however, work great for cool-weather crops like lettuce, and brassicas.
If you're choosing your garden location during the winter, remember to consider any trees that are nearby that will be leafed out in the summer that may cause shade over your garden.
If you have a yard with a north and south side, it's typical that the southern side is going to be a bit warmer. However, if you're in a warmer climate, using the north side of your property may be a good tool to help you grow more variety of vegetables without them getting too hot mid-summer.
Take into consideration all areas of your property. Consider if it's a low area, will it get a lot of standing water if there is heavy rain? Are there better sections of soil that won't need as much amending? Can you utilize a sunny pathway or a sunny wall to grow some crops?
6) Access to Water
How close is your garden to a water source? It's ideal to be able to run a hose out to your garden so you're not packing in water each week in order to keep your plants healthy and happy - that's a recipe for garden failure!
There are so many different watering methods when it comes to gardening, and most avid gardeners will have their preference.
If you're using a high tunnel covered area, use a soaker hose that waters down into the ground and doesn't actually water any of the leaves at all. This method of watering can help with disease control as wet leaves can leave plants susceptible to damage.
If you have a larger space for your main crop garden, use an overhead sprinkler that's up on a tripod.
During cooler months, just hand water with a watering can as needed.
7) Garden Type
What type of garden beds will you be putting in?
Raised beds: If you have really hard soil, having a raised bed (which actually sits on top of the soil, but the roots will have access to the ground below) can allow you to bring in good quality soil that will help your garden and crops. Your beds will warm up a bit sooner than a regular garden so you can plant out those plants that need warmer temperatures to be planted. However, raised beds will get hotter in the middle of the summer, so if your climate is hot, your beds will dry out faster and require more watering. There's also the cost of bringing in added soil for your raised beds.
Container gardening: Container gardening is a great option to provide extra garden space, especially because you can typically move the containers around as the weather changes to “chase the sun”. You can move it to a sunnier, warmer spot during the winter, and a shadier place in the summer.
Direct sow into the ground: Most large gardens will be directly sown into the ground. If you lack the space in your yard for a garden, you can actually turn your grass into a garden bed! In order to do this successfully, you'll want to know about the quality of your soil. This leads to the next tip.
8) Soil
Soil is the most important part of any garden. Usually, if there are issues with plants it comes down to the quality of the soil.
Shovel: A shovel is a must have. We suggest having a long-handled shovel as well as a small hand-held shovel (especially one with markers to tell how deep you'll be digging). If you're just starting with your garden plot, a shovel will come in really handy to make sure you can get any larger plants out of your garden bed.
Garden Hoe: A garden hoe will probably be the tool you use the most, especially in the summertime. It's so great to scrape along the surface and cut any weeds just starting to pop up. It's also very handy for redistributing any mulch that's been moved around, or covering your garden in wood chips (useful to keep weeds down, helps plants retain water, and hold in heat).
9) Seeds & Growing on
So, you've decided which crops you're going to grow. You now need to decide is whether you're direct sowing the seeds into the ground, or whether you'll be starting seeds indoors in the winter and spring before planting into the garden.
Buying Seeds: If you're buying seeds, we recommend that you source these from quality suppliers. Where available we also suggest only purchasing heirloom seeds.
Growing On: You can grow transplants by either starting them yourself or buying transplants/plug plants from garden centres. Did you know you can sometimes even propagate plants yourself? When buying plants you can't always save seeds as you don't know if these originated from a heirloom heritage.
Once your seedlings are getting big and strong, you'll need to harden them off before transplanting them into the garden. To do this you will need to bring your plants outside slowly. Bring them outside for a few hours the first day, then bring them back inside for the remainder of the day. The second day you can leave them out for a couple more hours, then bring them back in. Continue this for about a week, then you can leave them outside full-time and they'll be ready to plant in the garden.
10) Harvesting Your Crops
Something many first time gardeners forget to plan for is the garden harvest. After countless hours tending to our plants, watering them weekly and getting them to grow and produce, it's important to have a plan for that produce when it comes time to harvest. One way to reduce the overwhelm is to use succession planting to spread out your harvest so everything isn't ready all at once.
The most important thing is creating a garden that works for you and your growing space (meaning no two gardens will look exactly the same), and you need to know how to evaluate your growing space and climate for best results.
Here are our top tips for starting a garden the right way.
1) Pick Your Crops – Grow What You'll Eat
It seems obvious, but you have no idea how often I hear of people growing crops just because they know they'll grow well in their climate. This is one of the 8 common mistakes made by new gardeners. Choosing crops will vary from person to person based on likes and dislikes. But the most important thing when choosing which crops to grow is to be thinking about what your family eats on a regular basis and only grow what you'll actually eat.
2) Know your climate
Beyond growing what you like to eat, if your climate won't support the crop, it's best to not waste your time growing it. Ask around to neighbours and friends who have gardened before to find out what grows best in your area. Don't always go off the garden zone you're in, there are always micro-climates in each growing zone that can drastically affect how your garden grows.
3) First and Last Frost Dates
Know your average first and last frost date and your average summer temperatures. Most people only grow a summer garden. Knowing your average temperatures will help you know what vegetables to plant when in your area, which are all keys to having a successful garden.
4) Grow Multiple Gardens
By multiple gardens, we don't mean multiple garden plots. What we actually mean is that from ONE garden space, you can get two and sometimes three plantings per year. Knowing those first and last frost dates will help you know when to plant your cold-weather crops. These are crops that can be planted as soon as the ground is workable because they can withstand colder temps and even frosts. This will help you work backward to know what to plant mid to late summer for a fall harvest. Many of your early season crops will already be harvested and done growing, so you'll have plenty of space for a second (or third) planting.
You can also store your vegetables in the garden over winter, instead of harvesting them and putting them in a root cellar.
5) Choosing a Garden Location
Picking your garden location is very important. If you're working with a smaller space, or maybe even an existing garden, you may not have the best option, so work with what you have. However, if you're choosing your garden location, you'll want to know the direction the sun is coming from and approximately how many hours of sunlight your garden will get from about May-September.
Most crops need at least 6 hours of sunlight in order to germinate, grow and produce quality crops, so picking a shady location that won't get more than a few hours of sunlight each day won't do well for growing a year's worth of tomatoes. It may, however, work great for cool-weather crops like lettuce, and brassicas.
If you're choosing your garden location during the winter, remember to consider any trees that are nearby that will be leafed out in the summer that may cause shade over your garden.
If you have a yard with a north and south side, it's typical that the southern side is going to be a bit warmer. However, if you're in a warmer climate, using the north side of your property may be a good tool to help you grow more variety of vegetables without them getting too hot mid-summer.
Take into consideration all areas of your property. Consider if it's a low area, will it get a lot of standing water if there is heavy rain? Are there better sections of soil that won't need as much amending? Can you utilize a sunny pathway or a sunny wall to grow some crops?
6) Access to Water
How close is your garden to a water source? It's ideal to be able to run a hose out to your garden so you're not packing in water each week in order to keep your plants healthy and happy - that's a recipe for garden failure!
There are so many different watering methods when it comes to gardening, and most avid gardeners will have their preference.
If you're using a high tunnel covered area, use a soaker hose that waters down into the ground and doesn't actually water any of the leaves at all. This method of watering can help with disease control as wet leaves can leave plants susceptible to damage.
If you have a larger space for your main crop garden, use an overhead sprinkler that's up on a tripod.
During cooler months, just hand water with a watering can as needed.
7) Garden Type
What type of garden beds will you be putting in?
Raised beds: If you have really hard soil, having a raised bed (which actually sits on top of the soil, but the roots will have access to the ground below) can allow you to bring in good quality soil that will help your garden and crops. Your beds will warm up a bit sooner than a regular garden so you can plant out those plants that need warmer temperatures to be planted. However, raised beds will get hotter in the middle of the summer, so if your climate is hot, your beds will dry out faster and require more watering. There's also the cost of bringing in added soil for your raised beds.
Container gardening: Container gardening is a great option to provide extra garden space, especially because you can typically move the containers around as the weather changes to “chase the sun”. You can move it to a sunnier, warmer spot during the winter, and a shadier place in the summer.
Direct sow into the ground: Most large gardens will be directly sown into the ground. If you lack the space in your yard for a garden, you can actually turn your grass into a garden bed! In order to do this successfully, you'll want to know about the quality of your soil. This leads to the next tip.
8) Soil
Soil is the most important part of any garden. Usually, if there are issues with plants it comes down to the quality of the soil.
Shovel: A shovel is a must have. We suggest having a long-handled shovel as well as a small hand-held shovel (especially one with markers to tell how deep you'll be digging). If you're just starting with your garden plot, a shovel will come in really handy to make sure you can get any larger plants out of your garden bed.
Garden Hoe: A garden hoe will probably be the tool you use the most, especially in the summertime. It's so great to scrape along the surface and cut any weeds just starting to pop up. It's also very handy for redistributing any mulch that's been moved around, or covering your garden in wood chips (useful to keep weeds down, helps plants retain water, and hold in heat).
9) Seeds & Growing on
So, you've decided which crops you're going to grow. You now need to decide is whether you're direct sowing the seeds into the ground, or whether you'll be starting seeds indoors in the winter and spring before planting into the garden.
Buying Seeds: If you're buying seeds, we recommend that you source these from quality suppliers. Where available we also suggest only purchasing heirloom seeds.
Growing On: You can grow transplants by either starting them yourself or buying transplants/plug plants from garden centres. Did you know you can sometimes even propagate plants yourself? When buying plants you can't always save seeds as you don't know if these originated from a heirloom heritage.
Once your seedlings are getting big and strong, you'll need to harden them off before transplanting them into the garden. To do this you will need to bring your plants outside slowly. Bring them outside for a few hours the first day, then bring them back inside for the remainder of the day. The second day you can leave them out for a couple more hours, then bring them back in. Continue this for about a week, then you can leave them outside full-time and they'll be ready to plant in the garden.
10) Harvesting Your Crops
Something many first time gardeners forget to plan for is the garden harvest. After countless hours tending to our plants, watering them weekly and getting them to grow and produce, it's important to have a plan for that produce when it comes time to harvest. One way to reduce the overwhelm is to use succession planting to spread out your harvest so everything isn't ready all at once.
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