Gardening: Where to Start

When I posted the link to my blog on Facebook I had a friend comment and say that she wanted to plant a garden this year, but had no idea where to start. You know how anytime a professor asks a question in Harry Potter, Hermoine excitedly wiggles in her seat with her hand straight up in the air? I am totally having one of those excited "I can help" moments. While I am definitely not an expert, I feel a bit like a crazy plant lady these days and if I don't know the answer I will do my best to find it. So where to start? Here are some things to consider when you are ready to plan your garden:

What sort of space am I working with? 

a view of our garden area from the deck

I think people generally begin to think about what they'd like to grow, but the first thing you should plan out is your garden space. Do you want several raised beds and six tomato plants so you have the option of canning? Do you want a container garden with peppers and tomatoes so you can avoid buying them at the store? Figuring out how much space you have will help answer these kind of questions. You have a few options here:

Containers: This is a great option if you are short on yard space. You can use just about anything: terra cotta pots, plastic pots, DIY boxes or even thrift store finds (think wooden boxes or old metal containers). A few things to keep in mind: it will need holes to drain out extra water, which can be drilled into the bottom if there are none, and bigger is better. Seriously, the more room you give your plants, the bigger they will be able to grow their root system, the more soil they will have to "eat" from and the more food you will get. Some things do better in smaller pots, like herbs or greens (think spinach and lettuce), but things like tomatoes and peppers will really benefit from having more space.


Raised Beds: This is the option we chose. Obviously you need some yard space, and you also need to build boxes and buy dirt for the boxes. There are a lot of benefits to raised beds, such as you control the soil content, they stay warmer since they are above ground (plants like tomatoes need warm soil), and they also have better drainage since the dirt isn't compacted. A word of warning: good dirt is not cheap. It's not outrageous, but if you're filling 4 boxes like we did make sure to price dirt and factor in how much it will cost. The boxes themselves are very easy to build, and very cheap. Since we are adding onto our garden this year I will hopefully have a tutorial for you on the basics of building a raised bed!

this was the best spot for our garden because it gets
direct sunlight all day, but it does occasionally flood! your
location may not be perfect, but you can make it work

Planting Directly in the Ground: I do not know as much about this option, but it makes sense right? It would be cheaper as well since you don't have to purchase the supplies to make the boxes and you technically don't have to purchase dirt. You would need to till up the soil for drainage purposes, remove the grass and it might not be a bad idea to mix in some good quality dirt. If anyone can shed more light on this one feel free to chime in in the comments section!

Another thing to consider when you are choosing where to grow your plants is sunlight. Most plants need at least 6 hours of direct sunlight per day, but just like with how much space you give them, the more the better. Some plants handle/need more shade, but for the most part your plants will need a whole lot of sunshine! Our garden probably gets 8-10 hours of sunlight a day.

What am I going to grow?

a good question to ask is how much food do i want?
if your intention is to can or preserve in other ways
then growing several plants of each kind is necessary

Now that you know what sort of space you are working with you can move onto the fun part: choosing plants. I think a lot of people are interested in tomatoes and peppers which is great. They require more space to grow, but the difference between a store tomato and a garden tomato is just amazing. Herbs are also a great option if you're short on space, my favorite being basil. Homemade pesto is incredibly simple and having the basil on hand makes it so easy!

I don't have experience with this, but I would think you could also do greens like spinach or lettuce in pots as well, I don't imagine they have super deep root systems. I have some red lettuce I am going to try in containers this year and I would like to plant some tomato plants in some of the extra pots I have just to see how they grow compared to in the ground. Hopefully I will have a better handle on containers next year! You could also give squash and zucchini a go, again I've never grown them in pots but I've seen photos of it done. Gardening definitely involves some trial and error. If this is your first year gardening and you have some unsuccessful plants try not to worry. We grew onions from seed last year not realizing how long they took to grow...and we ended up with about 15 tiny onions in fall. For all the space they took up it was not worth it! That's just part of it though, you have to learn what plants work well for you and which ones you don't care to try again.

How do I start planting?

What you are going to grow and what sort of space you are working with go hand in hand. Once you have nailed that down you can move onto planting. Certain plants need to be planted as starter plants. A lot of these plants don't handle colder weather as well, so they can't be planted until temperatures are consistently well above freezing, like tomatoes and peppers. You can use starter plants for other things as well just to get a head start. For example, you could plant broccoli from seed because it can handle cooler weather better, but if you plant a starter plant it is going to start producing sooner since it's already a plant when you put it in the ground. Here are a few examples:

Plant from seed: beans, carrots, cucumbers, melons, lettuce, squash
Plant as starter: broccoli, tomato, peppers, onions, cabbage, cauliflower

will you grow anything from seed?
these are our broccoli seedlings this year

These are not hard and fast rules. Some plants you can do either way; last year we started okra and herbs outdoors, this year we are growing them both indoors so that they start producing a little sooner. If there are any other plants you would like to plant but you aren't sure how to go about it, feel free to ask!

When you are ready to plant, your seed packet should give you instructions on how deep to plant the seeds. In addition, I'd like to recommend using Smart Gardener to help you figure out how much to plant. It allows you to plot your garden space and then choose what you are planting. It then tells you what kind of spacing to use: tomato needs a 2x2 ft space, tomatillos needs a 3x3 ft space, strawberries can be planted 4 plants to a 1x1 ft space and carrots can be planted 16 seeds to a 1x1 ft space. This is a huge help if you're planting multiple types of plants or have a large container that can hold multiple plants! Again, these are not hard and fast rules. We are only giving our tomatillo a 2x2 ft space because that's all we have room for, so just use your best judgement.

When do I start planting?

This depends on where you live. There are general rules, such as plant tomatoes when all chance of frost has passed. But how do you know when that is? I am going to link a few more websites to help you figure out when you need to plant. This link takes you to the farmer's almanac site and will tell you your frost date: Frost Date Calculator. This is useful for counting back X number of weeks so you know when to plant your indoor starters, or to tell you when you need to wait until to plant some of your more cold sensitive plants like tomatoes and peppers. This is another useful site: Best Date to Plant. It lists common garden plants and tells you when you should plant them by seed or when to plant them outside. Again, you need to use your best judgement with this. If May 3rd is the date it suggests you transplant your tomatoes but your weather shows a freeze coming up right after that, then go ahead and wait another week to put them outside. Last year we neglected to do this and had to literally pull our tomatoes and peppers (planted 3 days earlier) out of the ground and place them in pots because it SNOWED in May! Such lovely weather we have in Missouri.

As mentioned earlier if you are planting from seed the seed packet should give instructions for how deep to sow your seeds. If you are using transplants you should gently pull them out of their containers and plant them in holes in your garden or container. Pretty simple!

How do I maintain my garden?

before too long all that work will pay off!

Once everything is planted you basically need to focus on keeping your plants in a happy, healthy state and waiting patiently for them to start producing food. The biggest thing is water. Water water water. Please do not skimp on this if possible. Water starved plants will be stressed and focus their energy on trying to survive rather than producing food. Last year we did not have much luck with our peppers producing. We ended up talking to an older gentleman who was selling at the farmers market about it and he said that peppers are pickier and just prefer to be watered consistently. This is not something to stress about, just try to keep it regular. Another thing to keep in mind is not to over water. This can damage plants just as easily as giving them too little water, and can also lead to problems with disease and pests. A good rule of thumb: poke your finger into the soil and if it feels dry over an inch into the soil then it's time to water.

You'll also need to keep an eye out for pests and disease. These get easier to recognize over time, so in the beginning if you suspect a problem don't be afraid to ask or do a quick search online to see if what you're noticing is a real problem. The earlier you catch these things the better! We had good luck treating pests (aphids and squash bugs mainly) with Neem Oil. It's an organic option so much I prefer it to conventional pesticides, but even though it is organic it still technically a pesticide so try to use it sparingly when possible.


Read enough yet? I just filled your head with an awful lot of information so let's do a quick recap:

1) What sort of space am I working with? Decide how much space you have and what to grow in. Keep in mind which plants benefit from more room and how much sunlight your garden area will get.

2) What do I want to plant? Once you decide how much space you have, choose your plants!

3) How do I start planting? Decide what needs to be started from seed and what will be transplanted. Decide if you will grow starter plants from seed yourself (see this post for more into on seed starting) or if you will buy starter plants when the time comes. Also figure out how many plants or seeds go into each space.

4) When do I start planting? Check your frost date and suggested planting dates, but also watch the weather when it comes time to plant. I made a quick chart in Excel that had each plant I am planting and what date to plant either the starter plant or seeds that way I have it all written down and ready to go.

5) How do I maintain my garden? Water consistently; not too much and not too little. Keep an eye out for pests and disease and treat when necessary.

This is not a comprehensive list, but it should definitely get you started! If you've gardened before, is there anything I've missed or that you would add? I'd like to cover container gardening in a little more detail for one of my next posts so keep an eye out for that. Now that we're in March I believe we're over the worst of winter (excuse me while I go knock on some wood) so actually getting started with gardening is not too far off. Around March 15th we'll be planting dill, lettuce, strawberry spinach and carrot seeds and later on in the month we'll be planting broccoli seedlings outside. Can't wait to get my hands in the dirt!



-Kelly