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Mr_Yan
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Everyone has a different reason to start a garden, and once going, everyone gardens a bit differently from anyone else. Regardless of why you want to start a garden, here are a few points to answer some questions you may have when you want to start a garden. Remember, there’s no single “right” way to grow some food, and when it comes down to it, you need to stop reading and just get your hands in the soil and start.
This is the first of three parts on how to start a vegetable garden. Here I will address where and how to build the garden and the tools that will help you. The next two parts of this article will address garden soil and the plants.
Where To Put A Garden
For most gardens, the best place to put them is where you see it and pass it daily. If you pass the garden every time you enter the backdoor or let the dog out, you’ll be more likely to notice as something is ready to pick, weeds are popping up, or if something is going wrong in there.
Sure, there are several other things to keep in mind. How is the sun on the area? Can you get water there without Herculean effort? Is there soil to grow in where you want the garden or not?
Many vegetables are said to grow best in “full sun,” and, generally, the more sun is available to the garden, the better. When split between whether a garden gets full sun in the morning or full sun in the afternoon, all other things equal, put it where it will get afternoon sun. That said, the summer sun in south Texas or south Florida is much different and harsher than the summer sun in Michigan or Maine. Sometimes some shade in the mid-afternoon is not too detrimental to the plants.
When working with a few small garden beds you don't have to worry much about planting on a north-south or east-west alignment.
Containers or Raised Beds or In The Ground
I am a big fan of defined raised beds for my garden. Starting out with a single garden bed 4’ x 8’ is setting yourself up better for success than tearing up a 20’x20’ section of lawn like Grandma may have had 75 years ago. Building a simple raised rectangular bed wall out of 2x4’s and placing it on the lawn will define your garden, make mowing around it easy, and won’t require you to spend a bunch of time trying to keep weeds from growing in wide walkways between rows of veggies.
How high should a raised bed be? There are several trade offs to raised bed height. A higher bed wall will be easier on your back as you’re bending over less. The bed wall can even make a great place to sit down while working and place your coffee (or beer) on it next to you. But the increased height necessitates getting much more soil to fill the bed with, and without a pickup truck and knowing where to buy soil and compost by the yard, filling the beds will get very expensive quickly.
When I have good soil where I want my garden, I only make beds 4 to 8 inches higher than the surrounding ground. At my last house, though, the only good place for my garden was on an old concrete patio, so I had to make my raised beds about 14” tall.
With raised beds, I keep the rule that you never step into the garden bed. This will keep the soil from compacting and packing in the soil. Uncompacted soil allows roots to grow more easily, more air to reach the roots, and crops like carrots and beets to be harvested with less work.
Another tip with raised beds when building placing out more than one garden bed: place the garden beds farther apart than the width of your lawn mower if you want grass between them.
Simple containers like large 18” diameter or larger pots can still produce a lot of food but will limit what can be grown in them. Two or three 24” pots on the deck or porch can provide all the herbs you need as well as a head or two of lettuce and maybe some kale or bok choy too. I have also cut the bottom off a plastic pot, placed it on the ground next to the house or fence, then filled it with potting mix and grew in that. This can be done for tomatoes, peppers, and summer squash. Now you only have to weed a small circle and run the lawn mower right up to the edge of the pot.
The garden bed right in the ground - like Grandma had, or at least as you saw in a kids’ story book - can be the least expensive option to set up. Some low-maintenance, long-duration, large crops tend to do best in these beds where they would hog space in a tight raised bed. These long-term crops are things like squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes, melon, and corn. As you will have a lot of garden space dedicated to walkways between rows of crops, an in-ground bed requires a lot of maintenance. These will require you to stay on top of weed management between and within rows of crops. While the in-ground garden itself may be the least expensive option to start the garden bed, it can require the largest collection of tools to efficiently maintain. Hoes, rakes, digging forks (a heavy gauge steel version of a pitch fork), and shovels will get by but rototillers, wheel hoes, and cultivators make life much easier.
Tools and Toys
The tools you’ll need can be very basic and will depend on what type of garden beds you’re using. Once built up, raised beds and containers can be tended with small hand tools. I keep 4 basics on hand, all of which will fit in a 5 gallon bucket:
Raised Bed Garden Tools
Garden beds in the ground with wide walkways and more square footage require more and larger tools to maintain. The basic 3 tools for a minimum are a shovel, steel garden rake, and a weeding hoe. Tools can grow greatly, both in quantity and price, and before long you’ll be looking at gas powered roto-tillers and a whole wall of long-handled, steel-tipped implements.
In Ground Garden Tools
This is the first of three parts on how to start a vegetable garden. Here I will address where and how to build the garden and the tools that will help you. The next two parts of this article will address garden soil and the plants.
Where To Put A Garden
For most gardens, the best place to put them is where you see it and pass it daily. If you pass the garden every time you enter the backdoor or let the dog out, you’ll be more likely to notice as something is ready to pick, weeds are popping up, or if something is going wrong in there.
Sure, there are several other things to keep in mind. How is the sun on the area? Can you get water there without Herculean effort? Is there soil to grow in where you want the garden or not?
Many vegetables are said to grow best in “full sun,” and, generally, the more sun is available to the garden, the better. When split between whether a garden gets full sun in the morning or full sun in the afternoon, all other things equal, put it where it will get afternoon sun. That said, the summer sun in south Texas or south Florida is much different and harsher than the summer sun in Michigan or Maine. Sometimes some shade in the mid-afternoon is not too detrimental to the plants.
When working with a few small garden beds you don't have to worry much about planting on a north-south or east-west alignment.
Containers or Raised Beds or In The Ground
I am a big fan of defined raised beds for my garden. Starting out with a single garden bed 4’ x 8’ is setting yourself up better for success than tearing up a 20’x20’ section of lawn like Grandma may have had 75 years ago. Building a simple raised rectangular bed wall out of 2x4’s and placing it on the lawn will define your garden, make mowing around it easy, and won’t require you to spend a bunch of time trying to keep weeds from growing in wide walkways between rows of veggies.
How high should a raised bed be? There are several trade offs to raised bed height. A higher bed wall will be easier on your back as you’re bending over less. The bed wall can even make a great place to sit down while working and place your coffee (or beer) on it next to you. But the increased height necessitates getting much more soil to fill the bed with, and without a pickup truck and knowing where to buy soil and compost by the yard, filling the beds will get very expensive quickly.
When I have good soil where I want my garden, I only make beds 4 to 8 inches higher than the surrounding ground. At my last house, though, the only good place for my garden was on an old concrete patio, so I had to make my raised beds about 14” tall.
With raised beds, I keep the rule that you never step into the garden bed. This will keep the soil from compacting and packing in the soil. Uncompacted soil allows roots to grow more easily, more air to reach the roots, and crops like carrots and beets to be harvested with less work.
Another tip with raised beds when building placing out more than one garden bed: place the garden beds farther apart than the width of your lawn mower if you want grass between them.
Simple containers like large 18” diameter or larger pots can still produce a lot of food but will limit what can be grown in them. Two or three 24” pots on the deck or porch can provide all the herbs you need as well as a head or two of lettuce and maybe some kale or bok choy too. I have also cut the bottom off a plastic pot, placed it on the ground next to the house or fence, then filled it with potting mix and grew in that. This can be done for tomatoes, peppers, and summer squash. Now you only have to weed a small circle and run the lawn mower right up to the edge of the pot.
The garden bed right in the ground - like Grandma had, or at least as you saw in a kids’ story book - can be the least expensive option to set up. Some low-maintenance, long-duration, large crops tend to do best in these beds where they would hog space in a tight raised bed. These long-term crops are things like squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes, melon, and corn. As you will have a lot of garden space dedicated to walkways between rows of crops, an in-ground bed requires a lot of maintenance. These will require you to stay on top of weed management between and within rows of crops. While the in-ground garden itself may be the least expensive option to start the garden bed, it can require the largest collection of tools to efficiently maintain. Hoes, rakes, digging forks (a heavy gauge steel version of a pitch fork), and shovels will get by but rototillers, wheel hoes, and cultivators make life much easier.
Tools and Toys
The tools you’ll need can be very basic and will depend on what type of garden beds you’re using. Once built up, raised beds and containers can be tended with small hand tools. I keep 4 basics on hand, all of which will fit in a 5 gallon bucket:
Raised Bed Garden Tools
- A basic hand trowel
- a small three-tined cultivator - these are three or four tine rakes with very stiff tines and are about the same size as a trowel.
- a pair of pruning shears
- a small hand mattock - this looks like a small blunted pick ax and is as long as my fore-arm. I quicly use this to make planting holes, level soil, mix fertilizer into the soil, dig out dead plants in the fall and most of my other tasks at hand. Hoss Tools sells one, and Council Tools makes another nice one
Garden beds in the ground with wide walkways and more square footage require more and larger tools to maintain. The basic 3 tools for a minimum are a shovel, steel garden rake, and a weeding hoe. Tools can grow greatly, both in quantity and price, and before long you’ll be looking at gas powered roto-tillers and a whole wall of long-handled, steel-tipped implements.
In Ground Garden Tools
- Shovel - usually a classic garden spade will work and many people have one already.
- Garden rake - These are the rakes with strong steel tines and not the ones used to rake fall leaves. This tool will be used to level out the ground, clean up debris, make rows to sow seeds in, and spread mulch. I tend to like a long handle on this tool - when the tool is standing upright with tines on the ground, the top of the handle is about my eye level.
- Hoes - There are so many different shapes of garden hoes. I find the classic 5 or 6 inch wide blade that is perpendicular to the handle all but useless in the garden, and it is relegated to mixing concrete. For keeping weeds at bay, I prefer a scuffle hoe (also called a stirrup hoe or a push-pull hoe). This tool looks like a saddle stirrup on the end of a handle. As you push and pull the hoe on the ground, it will slice just below the soil surface and cut weeds from their roots. Not only does the hoeing kill weeds but it helps break soil surface crust to allow water to better soak into the ground. As with the rake, I like a long handle. Hoss Tools makes a nice scuffle hoe and Lehman's has a different design which also works well
- Digging fork - A digging fork looks similar to a pitch fork but is much heavier and has 4 tines on a short D-handle. These tools can dig faster and more efficiently than a shovel and can greatly aid in harvesting carrots or potatoes.
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