Starting a Garden
Starting a garden from what was formerly your lawn can be difficult, if you are going for the traditional tilled garden. There are some questions to ask yourself, and planning to do before the first signs of Spring. Purchasing a Farmer's Almanac can help you in many ways, from when to plant, to what will grow well in your area. Some factors to consider are;
- The purpose of the garden. Is it to grow a few of the things your family eats fresh and save a little money, or are you planning to grow enough to put by for the rest of the year?
- The space you have available. What you are growing will determine the type of needs it will have, from full sun to partial shade. It is possible to break up a garden into several spots on the property you have available, to give each plot it's needs more effectively.
- The condition of your soil. If you need soil testing, your county cooperative should be able to do this for you, or there are kits to test it yourself available in garden shops and online. Then you will be able to determine what type of additives you will need to bring your soil up to optimum growing condition.
- The time you will have available to work on your garden. It can be a labor of love, or a back breaking chore, depending upon how big you go with your garden. There are weed barriers to consider if your time is not available, that will save you hours in weeding time.
- Your own knowledge. How much you know about starting a garden will be a good indicator of how you should proceed. If you have limited experience, maybe you can get a friend to share their knowledge and the garden.
Planning it all out is the first step in starting a garden, and I personally like to start in the middle of January. It is uplifting to look through all the seed catalogs, and daydream about the new plants growing when there is nothing but snow to see out the windows. If you decide to start small, you can always add space in the coming years.
For limited space, there are alternatives to a standard garden, such as raised beds and containers. Even growing just a few things that you and your family enjoy can take a bit of the sting out of the rising food prices, but for the serious and dedicated saver, a full blown plot is the only way to go. Companion planting can be used to help minimize the space needed, since some plants take less time to mature, and can be planted along with others that take more time. A more in depth guide to garden planning can be found here, in Garden Planning and Planting.
Not quite to this extreme, but bigger can be better when growing your own produce if you have the time and space. Tilling up the soil in a straight row, then criss cross pattern is a common practice when starting from scratch. This breaks up clumps and helps destroy weeds. Let the garden bed rest for one to two weeks, then till again to ensure no new weeds have taken root and begun to grow.
Keep your neighbors in mind when planning out what and where to grow. If you have woods close to your proposed spot, it may be best not to plant corn, which will attract racoons and deer to your garden, turning it into a nocturnal buffet. There are ways to keep these pests from causing too much damage, and they are gone into in detail in our Garden Planning and Planting guide.
A useful practice before even starting a garden is to compost as much as possible. This is free fertilizer, of a sort, for your garden bed. The composted material is rich in nutrients and perfect to add to raised beds, flower beds and tilled right into the garden soil. Most household and yard scraps and waste can be composted, but keep in mind that larger items such as small branches can take much longer to decompose, and should be broken up, or run through a chipper before adding. There are some things that should never be added to a compost heap, and they include-
- Meats and other animal products, only vegetable matter and manures from herbivores should ever be added to compost.
- Celery should not be added to compost, normally, since when celery decomposes it can turn toxic.
- Glossy print advertising inserts from newspapers. Shredded regular newspapers can be added, but the glossy pages contain chemicals that can leech into the composted soil.
Some good kitchen scraps to add include:
- Eggshells
- Coffee Grounds
- Vegetable Peels
- Breads and Cereals
- Leftover Vegetables
- Used Plain White Paper Towels
When digging in flowerbeds, when you happen across any earthworms, toss them into the compost as well, as they are perfect for the task of decomposing the materials in the pile into growing soil. Keep the compost damp, but not soaked, and turn it every few days to keep it working. Layering to start a pile would consist of lawn clippings and leaves, run through a leaf vacuum to mulch helps, then kitchen scraps, followed by a layer of dirt. This can be topped off with a layer of shredded newspaper, wet down well, and the layers started over. Cover the pile or bin to keep animals out, and allow the pile to cook.
Till the soil at least one week before planting, and again a day or two before. This extra tilling will prevent the weeds that may have taken root from growing. Start your planting in the afternoon or early evening to avoid sunburning new seedlings. Water well, but do not drench the soil. For planting seeds, early in the day is fine, since there will be no tender plants to be scorched by the heat. Water well, but again, do not drench the soil or the seeds will rot in the ground instead of sprouting. Keep the soil watered for the first two weeks, twice a day, or use a trickle hose to keep the moisture level optimum. If the soil dries out too much, the sprouts will too.
When planting plants from flats, such as tomatoes and melons, leave room for the plant to grow, and water the area around the plant, not on the actual plant itself. Work the soil and loosely pack it around the plants, giving the roots room to grow.
All this may sound like a lot of work, but don't let it discourage you from starting a garden. The rewards are numerous, and the work is not as hard as it sounds. Once you get in the habit of composting and gardening, it will seem like a breeze compared to what you thought you were getting yourself into in the beginning.
To learn more about raised beds, visit here, Raised Bed Gardens, and sign up for our newsletter which brings new information and tips for simple living each week to your inbox. For composting bin construction ideas and tips visit here. Make your own compost bin.