Hi all,
Looking to start a vegetable garden, but I don't know what my first steps should be.
I would be very grateful for some initial direction as to what I should concern myself with first. Compost? Soil? Making the garden plot area?
I just don't know where to start and what to research first!
Yours sincerely,
Franky
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
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- Location: TN/GA 7b
Welcome to the Forum and to the wonderful world of gardening! Congratulations on starting out as an organic gardener.
Yes, you will want to start a compost pile right away. But getting to finished compost is a longer term project. If you start now, you should have some finished home made compost maybe by mid summer or at least for fall, but not for spring planting. Browse around the Composting Forum, especially the Greens/Browns sticky and Composting 101:
https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=161319&highlight=compost+101#161319
Next is preparing your soil. The secret to successful gardening is good soil. So define your garden plot(s) and start preparing them. Don't go overboard at this stage! The biggest mistake newbies make is starting too big. In the heat of the summer they find themselves with a big weedy, buggy mess and get discouraged and give up. Better to make one or two small plots that you can pay good attention to. If you are successful, you can always add more for next year.
Preparing your soil you have 3 basic choices:
If your soil is really bad (pure clay and rocks or at the other extreme pure sand) and you are going to just do the 1-2 small plots, you can build raised beds and just fill them with good, enriched topsoil and amendments. Instant great soil, just plant it! (Make them no more than 4' wide so you can reach everything from outside and never walk on them)
Other wise for reasonable soil and bigger areas you can till or lasagna garden. For tilling, you would rent a rototiller, till everything up. Let it sit 2-3 weeks for all the weed seeds you just exposed to sprout. Then lay down your soil enrichments - purchased compost, aged composted manure, whatever else you want to add. (While you were waiting the weeks it would be REALLY good if you send some of that tilled soil to be tested, so you would know what it needs added). Then till it again, tilling under the newly sprouted weeds and the soil amendments. Then you are ready for planting. If you try to get away with just tilling once, you will have a VERY weedy garden!
The lasagna garden approach would be just to water the garden plot area well. If it has tall weeds/grass, chop it so it lies down flat. Cover the whole area with 2-3 layers of cardboard or a bunch of layers of newspaper (overlapped so there are no seams!). Water again throroughly! (This step is important or in a dry climate, it could sit there for a long long time). Then put as many inches of good enriched topsoil/compost/manure as you can come up with on top - at least 3, preferably more like 6". Water and plant in to it. Over time the cardboard will break down and disappear, but in the meantime, it smothers all the grass/weeds. Once the cardboard has disappeared, you will have a nice deep bed of good soil, but in the meantime you can plant in to the soil you put on top. If you didn't have a real deep layer of soil on top and you are planting plants (not seeds), you can cut holes in the cardboard to plant down in to the underneath layer. But the more holes you cut the more chances for weeds to come through also.
Basically I don't believe in tilling - kills a lot of the earthworms, fungi, and other life of the soil. But sometimes for a larger area that has never been gardened, tilling it those two times to get started is the easiest thing. Then you will work on rebuilding all that life with your compost, etc and never till again!
If you get this far and all is going well, check back in for next steps!
Good luck, happy gardening!
(And let us know where in the world you are. Makes a big difference what you can do when. Currently my garden is under two inches of snow and I am still doing indoor gardening.)
Yes, you will want to start a compost pile right away. But getting to finished compost is a longer term project. If you start now, you should have some finished home made compost maybe by mid summer or at least for fall, but not for spring planting. Browse around the Composting Forum, especially the Greens/Browns sticky and Composting 101:
https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=161319&highlight=compost+101#161319
Next is preparing your soil. The secret to successful gardening is good soil. So define your garden plot(s) and start preparing them. Don't go overboard at this stage! The biggest mistake newbies make is starting too big. In the heat of the summer they find themselves with a big weedy, buggy mess and get discouraged and give up. Better to make one or two small plots that you can pay good attention to. If you are successful, you can always add more for next year.
Preparing your soil you have 3 basic choices:
If your soil is really bad (pure clay and rocks or at the other extreme pure sand) and you are going to just do the 1-2 small plots, you can build raised beds and just fill them with good, enriched topsoil and amendments. Instant great soil, just plant it! (Make them no more than 4' wide so you can reach everything from outside and never walk on them)
Other wise for reasonable soil and bigger areas you can till or lasagna garden. For tilling, you would rent a rototiller, till everything up. Let it sit 2-3 weeks for all the weed seeds you just exposed to sprout. Then lay down your soil enrichments - purchased compost, aged composted manure, whatever else you want to add. (While you were waiting the weeks it would be REALLY good if you send some of that tilled soil to be tested, so you would know what it needs added). Then till it again, tilling under the newly sprouted weeds and the soil amendments. Then you are ready for planting. If you try to get away with just tilling once, you will have a VERY weedy garden!
The lasagna garden approach would be just to water the garden plot area well. If it has tall weeds/grass, chop it so it lies down flat. Cover the whole area with 2-3 layers of cardboard or a bunch of layers of newspaper (overlapped so there are no seams!). Water again throroughly! (This step is important or in a dry climate, it could sit there for a long long time). Then put as many inches of good enriched topsoil/compost/manure as you can come up with on top - at least 3, preferably more like 6". Water and plant in to it. Over time the cardboard will break down and disappear, but in the meantime, it smothers all the grass/weeds. Once the cardboard has disappeared, you will have a nice deep bed of good soil, but in the meantime you can plant in to the soil you put on top. If you didn't have a real deep layer of soil on top and you are planting plants (not seeds), you can cut holes in the cardboard to plant down in to the underneath layer. But the more holes you cut the more chances for weeds to come through also.
Basically I don't believe in tilling - kills a lot of the earthworms, fungi, and other life of the soil. But sometimes for a larger area that has never been gardened, tilling it those two times to get started is the easiest thing. Then you will work on rebuilding all that life with your compost, etc and never till again!
If you get this far and all is going well, check back in for next steps!
Good luck, happy gardening! (And let us know where in the world you are. Makes a big difference what you can do when. Currently my garden is under two inches of snow and I am still doing indoor gardening.)
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Little Homestead
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dustyrivergardens
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Lucius_Junius
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