Home » Misc » Simple gardens for beginners

Simple gardens for beginners


Gardening for Beginners: How to Start a Garden in 8 Simple Steps

Thinking about starting a garden, but aren’t sure where to begin? This post, all about gardening for beginners, is for you — with 8 simple steps to help you start your garden. 

Does this sound familiar? Looking around my yard, I see weeds, overgrown plants, and a few dried out pots I tried to grow tomatoes in last year. I think to myself…. “How am I going to grow anything here?” “What do I do first?” “How will I know what to plant?” “If I put time and money into a garden, will it be worth it?”

Read through these steps, and don’t be afraid to give it a try. You can do this! 

Disclaimer: this post contains affiliate links. See my disclosure policy for more information.

Gardening for Beginners: How to Start a Garden in 8 Simple Steps

Step 1: Choose the best location to start your garden

The best spot is where it is convenient for you – someplace you will see and walk by often. The back of the yard behind the shed may get the most sun, but if you don’t see your garden regularly you might forget about it.

Gardening for Beginners Step 2: Add a raised bed

Start small – you can always add more. A “4 foot by 4 foot” raised bed is a good starting point. Aim for a depth between 12 and 18 inches. It is easy to construct, and you can grow a lot of food in this size space. It is important that you can reach into the center of the bed without stepping on the soil. Add more raised beds later as your ability and experience grows. This article shares tips for designing raised bed gardens.  

Alternatively, use several large pots or half wine barrels for container gardening.

Step 3: Set up a watering system

Some type of automatic watering system, along with a hose for watering seedlings, is best. Automatic watering can be simple, such as a battery-operated timer connected to your hose bib, with either a soaker hose or drip line going to the garden. Using a two-way splitter for a second hose is helpful for hand-watering new plantings and seeds.

This article shares more information about how to water your garden correctly. I use watering grids from Garden in Minutes to water my raised beds. 

Gardening for Beginners Step 4: Add soil to your raised bed

One advantage of raised beds is you do not use existing soil. Once you add the perfect mix of ingredients to your raised bed, you are ready to plant. This one-time cost will probably be the most expensive part of beginning a garden.  

To fill the bed, mix equal parts of: 

How much soil will you need? This is determined by the volume of your raised bed or containers.  A 4×4 bed that is 1 foot deep will require a total of 16 cubic feet of soil. Each time you plant, add fresh compost to your soil. This article shares more information about the best soil for raised bed gardens. 

After adding the soil amend the beds with organic fertilizer. This is the recipe I use to add organic fertilizer to new raised beds. 

In the future it’s important to have your soil tested each year. A soil test can determine the health of your soil. This is the soil test kit I use. It’s very simple to use. 

Step 5: Find a planting guide written for your area and follow it

Timing is crucial in gardening. Using a planting guide takes the guesswork out of what to plant and when to plant it. Local extension offices and locally-owned nurseries are a great place to begin your search for a planting guide. If you live in the low desert of Arizona, these are the planting guides I recommend.

Gardening for Beginners Step 6: Plant what you like to eat

Read about the vegetables you would like to grow on Growinginthegarden.com so you understand growing requirements, when to plant, and when to harvest.  

Check new seeds and seedlings often – water as necessary to keep the soil moist. If newly planted seeds and seedlings dry out, they will die. 

Wondering how to start your own seeds indoors? This post explains how to start seeds inside.

Step 7: Spend time in your garden each day

Take a walk around your garden each morning – preferably while the watering system is running. Take note of what is growing well (yay!), and observe problems while they are young and easily corrected. When you catch problems (pest, disease, watering issues) while they are small, they are easily managed. Find joy in the successes and learn from the failures.

Step 8: Harvest and eat what you grow

Pick young and pick often – this encourages more production. Use the food you grow in the garden. Try new recipes and incorporate your garden harvest into the food your family already eats. Soups and smoothies are a great way to use vegetables from the garden.

What do you want to read next?

Vegetable Gardening for Beginners: The Basics of Planting & Growing

In the Vegetable Gardening for Beginners Guide, we cover how to start a vegetable garden from scratch, which vegetables to grow, and when to plant what. This year, we’ve added a “starter” garden plan consisting of easy-to-grow vegetables, companion planting techniques, and some lovely flowers!

Vegetable Gardening for Beginners

Why garden, you ask? How about enjoying the best vegetables and fruit you’ve ever eaten? If you’ve never tasted garden-fresh food, you will be amazed by the sweet, juicy flavors and vibrant textures. There’s absolutely nothing quite like fresh veggies, especially if you grow them yourself—which you can!

It may seem daunting at first, but gardening is a very rewarding hobby. On this page, we’ll highlight the basics of vegetable gardening and planning: how to pick the right site for your garden, how to create the right-size garden, and how to select which vegetables to grow. 

Pick the Right Location

Picking a good location for your garden is absolutely key. A subpar location can result in subpar veggies! Here are a few tips for choosing a good site:

  1. Sunny spot: Most vegetables need 6 to 8 hours of direct sunlight per day. There are a few veggies (mostly the leafy ones) that will tolerate some shade.
  2. Drains well and doesn’t stay wet: If you have poorly drained soil where water pools, plant veggies in a raised bed or raised row for improved drainage. Wet soil means wet roots, which can turn into rotted roots. If you have rocky soil, till and remove the rocks, as they will interfere with root growth and make for weaker plants.
  3. Stable and not windy: Avoid places that receive strong winds that could knock over your young plants or keep pollinators from doing their job. Nor do you want to plant in a location that receives too much foot traffic or floods easily. Plant in a location that would make Goldilocks smile—somewhere that’s “just right.”
  4. Nutrient-rich soil. You soil feeds your plants. If you have thin, nutrient-poor soil, you’ll have poor, unhealthy plants. Mix in plenty of organic matter to help your plants gro. See how to prepare you soil for vegetable plants.

Choosing a Plot Size: Start Small!

Remember: It’s better to be proud of a small garden than be frustrated by a big one!

One of the most common errors that beginners make is planting too much too soon—way more than anybody could ever eat or want! Unless you want to have zucchinis taking up residence in your attic, plan your garden with care. Start small, and only grow what you know you and your family will eat.

Size of Garden

  1. If planting in the ground, a 10’ x 10’ garden (100 square feet) is a managable size. Pick 3 to 5 of your favorite vegetables and buy 3 to 5 plants of each one.
  2. If planting in a raised bed, a 4’ x 4’ or 4’ x 8’ is a good beginner size. See our Raised Garden Bed Guide which covers the benefits of raised beds, how to build a raised bed, and what type of soil to fill a raised bed with.
  3. If you want to go bigger, a 12’ x 24’ garden in the ground is probably the biggest a first-timer should go. For example, a garden that feeds a family of four could include: 3 hills of yellow squash; 1 mound of zucchini; 10 assorted peppers; 6 tomato plants; 12 okra plants; a 12-foot row of bush beans; 2 cucumbers on a cage; 2 eggplant; 6 basil; 1 rosemary, and a few low-growing herbs such as oregano, thyme, and marjoram.
  4. Whatever the size of your garden: Every four feet or so, make sure that you have paths that allow you to access your plants to weed and harvest. Just make sure that you can reach the center of the row or bed easily without stepping on the soil.

Choosing Vegetables

As a beginner, start by choosing easy vegetables that are also productive. We’ve listed ten easy vegetable below. However, it would also be wise to contact your state’s Cooperative Extension Service to find out what plants grow best in your area. For example, if you live in an area with extremely hot weather, vegetables that prefer cooler temps may struggle. 

Top 10 Easy Vegetables
(Tip: Click on a veggie’s name to see its detailed Growing Guide. )

  1. Lettuce
  2. Green beans
  3. Radishes
  4. Tomatoes (bush variety or cherry are easiest)
  5. Zucchini
  6. Peppers
  7. Beets
  8. Carrots
  9. Chard, Spinach, or Kale
  10. Peas

Mix in flowers such as marigolds—which discourage pests, attracts pollinators, and adds some color!

Five tips for choosing vegetables:

  1. Choose what you (and your family) like to eat. If no one likes brussels sprouts, don’t bother planting them! But if your kids love green beans, put more effort towards growing a big crop of beans.
  2. Be realistic about how many vegetables your family will eat. Be careful not to overplant, as you will only stretch yourself thin by trying to take care of tons of plants! (Of course, you could always give excess veggies away to friends, family, or the local soup kitchen. )
  3. Consider the availability of veggies at your grocery store. Maybe you want to grow tomatillos, instead of cabbage or carrots, which are readily available. Also, certain veggies are so far superior when homegrown, it’s almost a shame not to consider them (we’re thinking of garden lettuce and tomatoes). Also, homegrown herbs are far less expensive than grocery store herbs.
  4. Be prepared to take care of your plants throughout the growing season. Going on a summer vacation? Remember that tomatoes and zucchinis are growing strongest in the middle of summer. If you’re gone part of the summer, you need someone to look after the crops or they will suffer. Or, you could just grow cool-season crops such as lettuce, kale, peas, and root veggies during the cooler months of late spring and early fall.
  5. Use high-quality seeds. Seed packets are less expensive than individual plants, but if seeds don’t germinate, your money—and time—are wasted. A few extra cents spent in spring for that year’s seeds will pay off in higher yields at harvesttime.

Where and When to Plant

If you are simply growing two or three tomato plants, this process is easy. But if you plan to grow a full garden, you need to consider:

Here are a few guidelines for arranging your vegetables:

  1. Not all vegetables are planted at the same time.  “Cool-season” vegetables such as lettuce and brocoil and peas grow in cooler weather of early spring (and fall). “Warm-season” such as tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers aren’t planted until the soil warms up in late spring and summer.
  2. Plant tall veggies (such as pole beans on a trellis or sweet corn) on the north side of the garden so they don’t shade shorter plants. If you do get shade in a part of your garden, save that area for small, cool-season veggies.  If shade is unavoidable in parts of your garden, save those areas for cool-season vegetables which appreciate shade as the weather heats up.
  3. Most veggies are annuals (planted each year). If you’re planning on growing “perennial” crops such as asparagus, rhubarb, and some herbs, provide permanent locations or beds.
  4. Consider that some crops mature quickly and have a very short harvest period (radishes, bush beans). Other plants, such as tomatoes, take longer to produce, but also produce for longer. These “days to maturity” are typically listed on the seed packet. 
  5. Stagger plantings. You don’t want to plant all your lettuce seeds at the same time, or all that lettuce will need to be harvested at around the same time! Stagger plantings by a few weeks to keep ‘em coming!

When to Plant What

Every region has a different planting time based mainly on their weather, and every vegetable has its temperature preferences, too. See the Almanac’s Best Planting Dates—a gardening calendar customized to your local frost dates. Just enter your zip code (or postal code in Canada)! 

For specific planting information, see our individual Grow Guides for over 100 popular vegetables, herbs, and fruit. For each crop, we provide specific information about how to plant, grow, and harvest, including watering and fertilizing and pest control!

A Starter Beginner Garden Plan

To help out beginners, we thought that it may be useful to see a garden design. Here is an example of a starter family garden using mainly of the common easy-to-grow vegetables listed above. It also features companion planting (the practice of placing plants that thrive together next to each other).

You’ll see that we have given the garden decent-sized paths and mixed in a few herbs and flowers, too. Frankly, if we had grown this garden in our very first year, we would be thrilled! In planning the garden this way, we have made it so much easier for you to succeed with it.

Click here to see the full plant list, number of plants, spacing, and spacing in rows.

Garden Planning Tool

The Old Farmer’s Almanac offers an excellent online garden planning tool which makes your garden planning fun and easy. With this tool, draw your garden plan on the computer and drop in your preferred vegetables, and it automatically calculates the proper spacing for each type of crop! This way, you don’t waste seed or crowd your plants. The Garden Planner automatically pulls in the frost dates for your specific location, identifies easy vegetables, and even identifies companion plants. Then you can print out your plan and the tool reminds you of your seeding and harvesting dates for every vegetable!

Plus, you’ll see many free garden plans for inspiration! Over time, you’ll see that this tool also provides “crop rotation” so that if you plan a second season, you can properly reposition your plants to avoid pests and disease.

With new gardeners in mind, we offer a FREE week to try the Garden Planner—ample time to plan your first garden.  Check it out here: http://gardenplanner.almanac.com/


Photo: Almanac Garden Planner. Earth’s most popular tool for planning your garden. Try it free for 7 days.


Any questions or advice about starting your garden? Check out some of the comments below. Many of your questions may have been answered already by our Almanac community or you are welcome to add your own comment. Happy gardening! 

How to set up a garden, how to care for a lawn, what to plant in a garden: landscape designer tips, 2022 | v1.ru

All news

Volgograd man handed over child porn seller to investigation

50 servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces released from Ukrainian captivity: news around the special operation for December 1 useless: cosmetics that do not work after 40 years - sellers and cosmetologists are silent about this

“Even a kindergarten and a school are freezing”: a military town near Volgograd was left without heat thousand, selling sweatshirts on Wildberries

“I'll shoot you! You won’t live until tomorrow”: a dog-catcher who beat a girl with a pipe in Volgograd threatened to kill her0003

“Mom didn’t know that Nastya was there”: in Volgograd they handed over the Order of Courage to a female corporal who died in Ukraine handed orders to the families of seven soldiers and officers who died in Ukraine

Near Volgograd, a traffic police patrol car knocked down a man at high speed — video

“What makes me worse?”0003

Potemkin village or a new path? Experts on what is behind the rapid chinification of the automotive industry

“She works as a manager”: the parents of a child who died in a car explosion dealt with gas equipment

My husband’s ear can’t hear, he can’t see his eyes, but he was mobilized. Wife's hand is taken away, and she doesn't know how to live without him

In Volgograd, the Order of Courage is handed over to relatives of seven killed in a special operation in Ukraine

“No one knew that the boy was in the car. We could save him ": everything that is known about the car explosion in Volgograd0003

“I don’t eat sugar and bread”: we asked our readers what and how they save money – here are their tips talked about a car explosion in Volgograd

“There is not even a “cotton””: we look at how emergency services and law enforcement agencies called the tragedy in Volgograd

“A pungent smell for safety”: all about the gas that killed a three-year-old boy in Volgograd

"People don't shop much." Economists told who in Russia will increase salaries next year

There was a loud bang and sparks flew: the moment of the explosion in Novokomarovo in Volgograd was caught on video

A criminal case was opened in Volgograd on the fact of a car explosion in which a three-year-old child died

B Was Russia banned from writing about the special operation? We study the order of the FSB, which entered into force on December 1

Everything burned to the ground there: a video appeared from the site of a car explosion in Volgograd

A child died, an adult in the hospital: details of a car explosion in Volgograd

A terrible car explosion in Volgograd. Child died, father in critical condition

Salary up to 150,000: defense plants lure workers away with huge earnings — who and whom is looking for

“An adult with a child sat in it”: a car exploded in a residential area of ​​Volgograd — video

What, again? ! The first region of Russia proposed to return to the masks - and it's not just covid

What awaits us in December: the communal apartment was unscheduled, but hammams and saunas were allowed in apartments

VKontakte does not work, YouTube does not open: social networks began to fail in Russia case of the death of five Volgograd basketball players

They dug up the park in half: we look from above how they are building a new sewer after a communal disaster in Volgograd

Senators do not consider Ukrainian captivity a reason not to pay alimony: news around the special operation for November 30

All news

The first thing you need to do is to carefully examine your site. It only seems from a distance that it is an ordinary rectangular

Share

Have you bought a dacha, dreaming of a beautiful garden and don't know where to start? The phrase landscape design scares many, but in vain - everything is much simpler than it seems. It is enough to follow simple rules and try not to be too smart. How to create a beautiful garden in the country, says the head of the Center for Garden Technologies, landscape designer, candidate of biological sciences Vera Rybkina. Further from the first person.

You have a plot of land on which the construction of the house is coming to an end and it is time to start making a garden. It would seem that if you were already able to master the construction of the house, then the garden is definitely not a problem. The sea of ​​pictures with beautiful examples has been revised, flocks of ideas swarm in your head, and you even learned all the names of the plants you liked, and your friends advised you on the newest terry varieties of daylilies, hydrangeas and roses, but where to start in the first place is still unclear.

The first butterflies have already flown and garden centers have opened - now it's definitely time to run to buy the most exclusive plants. No, it's not like that - the garden does not begin with this, and even more so the modern garden!

Garden fashion moves along the path of naturalness and low maintenance. These two attributes of a modern garden are dictated by the modern pace of life and the increasing remoteness of us from nature. I have no doubt that now, after reading these two concepts, you thought - “Well, I turned it down! It's even more intimidating." In fact, everything is much simpler than you think.

Even a simple apple tree can transform your garden!

Share

The first thing you need is to carefully examine your site. It only seems from a distance that it is an ordinary rectangular one. As a result of traveling through your land in time and space, you will find that it has sunny and shady areas, depressions and hills, wetter and drier areas. Somewhere in winter snow blows away, and somewhere snowdrifts inflate, rainwater drains from the roof of the bathhouse and accumulates near the porch, and between the house and the fence it is always windy, at the southern wall of the house it is always quiet and warm. In general, feel like a pioneer of an unprecedented continent - make a geographical description and a microclimatic map of your possession. This will be the first and most important step towards creating your beautiful garden.

Now that the main responsible event has been completed, and you have a detailed description of the conditions of the site before your eyes, you can begin to select plants. Yes, yes, I was not mistaken! It is to the selection of plants, and not to the distribution of the functional areas of the site, as was commonly believed in garden art for centuries. We set out to make a garden, and the main thing in the garden is plants (without them, the garden will definitely not work). By the way, this is a very exciting activity - there are conditions in the problem and you need to find the right solution.

The main rule is to plant only what grows well in the given conditions. For shady places, we select shade-tolerant plants, and we plan light-loving ones only in well-lit areas. We do not try to grow dry-loving plants in waterlogged areas and vice versa. The entire area with given conditions should be occupied by plants that meet these conditions. Choosing plants, we move from more significant (trees) to smaller ones (herbaceous perennials). We select our favorite plants and distribute them on the site according to the conditions.

Remember that plants should be planted not in piece quantities, but in arrays - this technique will eliminate the fragmentation of plantings and give the garden a concise look. No need to strive to collect all possible plants on your site. You can create your own garden, or you can collect a collection of plants, and these two options are not compatible. For a garden to be successful, you should minimize the range of plants, while increasing their number.

The best place in plot 9 should be allocated for the garden0003

Share

We assign a special role to the orchard and vegetable garden (if any are planned in your garden). This part of the garden should be given the most favorable place - sunny and calm. When choosing fruit crops, we again do not forget about the conditions of the site.

Stone fruits (plum, cherry, apricot) prefer well-drained soils, and even apple trees cannot grow in areas with high groundwater. It is worth remembering that the garden and the orchard do not have a high decorative effect, therefore, if the area of ​​​​the future garden allows, it is better not to place them in the most prominent place in the entrance area. If this is the only sunny space without drafts, then they will have to be sacrificed in the name of the future harvest.

Now we have an important mission to choose a zone where we will indulge in buns in the garden or quietly read a book on a bench. If we still plan our garden on paper, then we continue to daydream over its plan. If we have already planted large plants in the garden, we are going on an expedition in order to determine in which corner of the garden the appetite is more pleasant in the field - we settle down in the place we like and drink fragrant tea. If you liked everything, then in this part of the garden we equip a recreation area.

The lawn needs extra care, so it is better to reduce its area

Share

Lawn! A lawn is a must in a garden. But it should be neither more nor less - it should be enough. We plunge into thoughts on the topic: "What will we do on the lawn." If there are football players in the family, you need a lawn of the appropriate area for playing football. If you just like to walk barefoot on the grass, then you don't need a lot of lawn. The lawn in the garden is the most multi-care surface. Therefore, to make your gardening life easier, do not try to cover as much of the area as possible with a lawn.

When a place for a recreation area is chosen, we connect the following points with paths (house - bathhouse - garden - recreation area) and get a road and path network. It is important that the paths are of sufficient width and do not impede free movement in the garden. By the way, a path is not needed on the lawn - the lawn is also designed for walking on it.

Great news - expensive materials in the garden are out of fashion! True, this happened several centuries ago, but for some reason the vast majority of garden creators are still not aware of it. It is enough to look at examples of the famous old and newest garden and park complexes in Europe, Russia and America. They do not have expensive paving, and all garden paths are made simply from rammed screenings. Therefore, feel free to use the example of famous garden masters and save on expensive paving in your garden. This simplicity technique will accentuate your well-groomed plantings and add natural cuteness to the garden.

You can be sure that the plants in your garden will be chic and well-groomed - you have selected them according to ecological principles and they cannot look different in optimal conditions for them. By the way, I deliberately did not tell you that the plants in the garden should be selected according to ecological principles - this statement would definitely scare away many novice gardeners. But it turned out that everything was not so scary - a couple of expeditions around the territory of the future garden, and you planned it no worse than highly qualified specialists.

Finally, one more practical advice: you need to select plants for the garden of the appropriate winter hardiness zone.

Vera Rybkina

Landscape designer, head of the Center for Garden Technologies, Ph.D.

Read the recommendations and write to us!

DachaLandscape designGardenGardenFlowers

See the typo? Select a fragment and press Ctrl+Enter

COMMENTS1

Read all comments

What can I do if I log in?

COMMENT RULES

0 / 1400

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and Google. The Privacy Policy and Terms of Use apply.

Media news2

Media news2

Gardening for beginners - a quick guide

Each of us dreams of a beautiful, lush green garden. But life circumstances, lack of time and lack of funds do not allow our dreams to come true. Or perhaps you are not as skilled a gardener as you first thought.

We offer eight tips for beginner gardeners to help them succeed.

1. How do you see your garden? A playground for children, a vegetable garden or a sea of ​​flowers?
It is impossible to achieve everything at once. Therefore, limit yourself in the desires and needs, at least at the initial stage. It will take time to create your own "paradise". Before you get to work, think about what areas you would like to break your garden into - recreation areas, playgrounds, flower beds.

Don't hurry...
If you become a happy owner of a dacha or a house with a plot, do not rush in the very first season. Plants from the previous owner may have remained on your new site. Many plants are perennial, they can bloom for many years. Other areas may need digging and improvement.

3. How much work can you do on your own?
It is a question of the right balance of time, knowledge and money. To ennoble the site only with your own hands is the dream of many gardeners. And someone prefers to hire professionals: garden and landscape designers. But certainly you will not be left without advice and help at all. After all, you can always turn to the neighbors

4. What climatic conditions do you live in?
Even in one country there can be several different climatic zones. To get started, ask your local garden center or plant nursery for advice. They know everything about climate, soil, plant needs. Buying plants without first consulting with specialists can be a very expensive undertaking.

5. Height, time and color.
There are three simple things to consider when creating a flower bed: height, time and color. Make sure you choose varieties that overlap in flowering time to extend the garden's flowering time. Use colors that go well with each other. Make sure tall plants don't obscure shorter ones.

6. High quality pays off
Of course, you can always find cheap tools and inexpensive plant varieties in supermarkets. But plants will not thrive in depleted, nutrient-poor soils. Garden tools should serve you for more than one season. Buy quality tools and materials! It is better to buy fewer expensive good quality tools than more cheap ones; quality tools will serve you much longer.

7. Share with friends and neighbors
It's not necessary for everyone in the neighborhood to have their own lawn mower or cultivator. Ask neighbors for tools or buy them together to split the cost, allowing you to make a better investment (and get high quality tools!). You can exchange plant seeds and bulbs with friends and neighbors, share tips and strategies with them, help each other (for example, help move heavy objects).

Learn more