How to start a vegetable garden from scratch!

1. Trace the area of ​​your garden. Decide what you want to plant and how much space you will need to grow those plants. Also, the amount of sunlight is very important in choosing the right location for your garden. You will want an area that receives the most direct sunlight during the day. Another thing to keep in mind is the drainage of the land. You don’t want your garden to be in a low-lying area because water will tend to flood those areas and not drain properly. I prefer to use a slightly sloping ground or flat ground that retains and drains water adequately. Once you have chosen the location and size of your garden, you will want to mark the boundaries of the garden with stakes or flags.

2. Next is the part of the job that will probably take the longest: preparing the soil. Preparing the ground means two things to me:

A. Mow and remove grass. You have several options when deciding how you want to get rid of the grass and get to the dirt. If you have a very large yard, you may want to hire someone or rent equipment (bobcat) to pull up the grass. If you own a tiller (you can rent one), you can use it to remove grass. There are two main types of cultivators, front tines or rear tines. Rear tine cultivators have the blades at the rear of the machine and are generally a bit easier to use due to the fact that you (as the operator) get more weight/lever above the blades. Front tine cultivators have the blades at the front and can be a bit more difficult to use on hard grass or hard packed dirt as there is not as much weight/leverage on the blades to bite as well as a rear tine cultivator . If you have a very small garden area, you can also choose to use a shovel to break up the grass. Personally, my brother and I use a tiller to dig up quite a large piece of land for our garden. We would run the tiller over the grass to break it up and then rake the grass clods into a big pile in the corner of our garden, which would eventually break down into dirt. We had to run the tiller over the garden area several times and rake clumps of grass each time before we had a workable area of ​​land. This can be a tiring task, so be sure to take your time and take a break from time to time.

B. Preparing the soil for planting. Plants will do their best when they have healthy soil and something loose to grow on. This means you want nutrient-rich soil that holds just the right amount of moisture. You can take soil samples to many garden centers for testing. A soil test will tell you what you need to add or balance in your soil. The three key nutrients in the soil that you will need to be concerned about are: nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Any and all of these nutrients can be easily added using organic or non-organic methods. Ask your garden center what you should use for your soil. I was lucky with my garden because the land we put our garden on used to be old farmland and it was great soil. We simply tilled the soil several times to loosen it up before creating the windrows.

3. Next, you’ll want to create your rows and plant your seeds or seedlings. To do this, follow the row and seed spacing instructions on the back of your seed packets (you can also find all the planting information on the website listed in the resource box below). Many plants require 24″ to 36″ between rows. Be sure to leave enough space between the rows to allow you to walk and/or till between them. I like to mark where my rows will be by driving stakes into the ground at each end of the row and tying string between the stakes (I use a tape measure to mark the distance between my stakes).