The Beginners Guide to Starting a Veg Garden

If you’re lucky enough to have a garden, you’ve probably thought about growing your own vegetables. This is probably one of the best things you can do, as this will give you the opportunity to learn about gardening while producing beautiful, organic vegetables for you and your family. Now, if you don’t have any experience with gardening, this might seem like a challenging thing to do, but it really isn’t that hard.

We’ve done a bit of digging around, and we’ve come up with this short guide which aims to point you in the right direction when it comes to planting your own vegetable garden. Hopefully, this article will help you understand the dos and don’ts of creating your own organic piece of veggie heaven. So, let’s not waste any time, and let’s dive straight into it.

Planning the garden

Before you start setting up the soil, looking for tools, and thinking about potential pest problems, you have to make a solid plan. You will need to map out the area where you want to plant your seeds. You will have to be careful, and understand your vegetables, as some of them need more space to grow, while others need more water or sunlight. With this in mind, you should consider all of the plants you were planning to plant, and separate them accordingly. Depending on the vegetables you’re planting, you might need to plant the seeds closely together, or in rows with enough space between them. Using wooden boxes and old crates should help you a lot when it comes to defining those rows and sections of the garden. Make sure your garden space has enough of the sunlight, but keep your veggies protected from other issues like wind, rain or snow. Do your homework and learn about what’s necessary for vegetables to have a healthy surrounding.

Setting up the soil

The most important element to a successful veggie garden is most definitely the soil. The soil you use is what gives your vegetables the necessary nutrients and surroundings to grow properly. Finding soil is quite easy, you can get it in almost any store, or you can use the soil from your own garden. If you chose the latter, make sure you dry test it. Take samples in plastic cups to determine how moist and sandy your garden soil is, and if you can use it for the specific vegetables you were planning to plant. However, you should keep in mind that most soils are simply not fertile on its own, and that’s why you need to use fertilizers or compost. Of course, you will need to find the best possible solution for your specific garden, as different types of vegetables need different nutrients. You might want to consult a professional, so you can fully understand the pH values of the soil, and what to use for optimal results.

The tools you’ll need

If you want your garden to grow healthy, and if you want to keep it alive for a while, you will need the proper tools. Gardening tools aren’t that hard to find, but you need to understand exactly what types of tools you need for your veggie garden. The most common and easy-to-get tools you’ll definitely need are shovels, spades, trowels, gloves, and a watering hose. With these essentials, you can tend to almost any garden there is. You can also focus on other tools which can help with the entire process. For example, you might consider implementing a garden watering system, or an automated pest control. These tools definitely help save time and effort, when it comes to gardening and maintaining your garden. However, gardening is a physical activity. There are no tools that can completely remove the need for putting your back into it, so when it comes to the tools you’ll need – look for those that suit you perfectly. You don’t want your garden to become the source of your back pain.

Taking care of the weeds

Weeds can seriously affect your vegetable garden. They can destroy the soil, spread incredibly fast, and take up all the nutrients your veggies need to grow properly. That’s why you need to make sure you’ve dealt with those weeds in time and by the book. Use transparent plastic to cover the patches of your garden which show signs of weeds. This will warm up the soil, and dry it out, while the transparency of the plastic sheet will push germination of dormant weed seeds. Once you remove the cover, you can remove all the weeds by hand, leaving you with a weed-free space to plant your veggies. You can also use a mulch carpet to prevent weed seeds from germinating in garden soil.

Wrapping it up

Gardening can be quite fun, and also incredibly rewarding. Producing your own vegetables is not only healthy for you, it’s healthy for your garden as well. So, if you’ve ever wondered how to set up your own vegetable garden, we hope you now know what you need. Good luck, and happy gardening.