So, you’re looking at putting together your own home vegetable garden in your backyard. However, just how you’re going to accomplish it?. A lot of people enjoy the idea of wanting to make a vegetable garden but have no idea how to make that dream a reality. With this article, we’re going to tell you the basics of making your own vegetable garden successfully and making sure it’s easy for you to work with. With these few simple tips, you are on your way to being a gardening genius and no time.
Take Notes
If possible, one of the first things I suggest you do is get a planner for your garden. Planners are super useful in keeping up with how long your seedlings have been planted for and how long you have to go to they should bear vegetables. You can also mark the days that you need to water your plants and even keep up with the weather in case it starts to rain heavy and you need to skip a few days. When you’re busy, some things are easy to lose track but a planter will guarantee that you can stay on top of what your garden needs.
I also suggest keeping up with that so you can make notes if you plan to make this a yearly hobby. By keeping notes of what works for you, it can be a cheat sheet at your side for all your planning needs. If you use your cheat sheet in combination with your journal, you can even start to predict how each year’s gardening is going to go. You may even be able to figure out the secret formula that your garden needs for the best.
Picking Your Plants
Now that we can actually begin to start our garden, we need to pick out what plants won’t grow in it. You can’t just pick up any random seed and expect it to grow, however. If you live in a cold region and are trying to grow a banana tree, it’s just not going to work. Likewise, if it’s the spring and you’re trying to grow pumpkins, even if you live in the right region it’s just not going to work. You need to pick out seeds that are currently in season and that are made to grow in your climate.
The best thing to do is to simply go to the nearest store that sells seeds and read the backs of the packets. On the back of every seat packet, there will be an easy to read set of instructions that tells you the best time to plant the seeds and what they need to grow. A lot of the times if you’re going to a local market, you won’t even see plants that don’t grow in your area. This can take a lot of the hassle out of your gardening experience.
Actually Getting Started
Now that we have we are preferred planting spot picked out, let’s go ahead and get down to the dirty work. Look around your front and backyard and pick out a spot where you notice a lot of sunshine down on. You don’t want to put a garden somewhere that gets a lot of shade or that’s directly behind your house blocking the sunlight. Likewise, you also don’t want to put it somewhere like under a tree where rain can’t get to the plants. Make sure the spot makes sense for growing plants.
Once you identify a nice clear spot, get some stakes and measure out how big you want your garden to be. Remember that your garden needs to be big enough to support your plants and room for you to walk through to do maintenance. You don’t want everything growing too close together or you’re going to run into a lot of problems. If your garden’s plants grow to close together, they won’t be able to sufficiently get the sunlight and water they need. If that’s not bad enough, your plants won’t have the proper room to grow and may even stunt.
Once you have picked out a spot, you’re going to need to till the land. You can’t just drop seeds into the ground and expect them to grow. We also need to get rid of the grass that’s already living there. Once you have a nice big spot cleared, we can begin to dig holes to put the seeds in. For most plants, you’re going to want to dig about a 2-inch deep hole for the seeds. You should always check the depth of the hole needed as every plant varies and they would need to be planted deeper depending on that plant’s specific needs. Also, be sure to check how much growing room a plant needs and measure it out. It’s best to keep the same type of vegetable beside each other or in their own patches in order to make the neatest garden.
Protecting Your Garden
Next thing you need to worry about is actually protecting the garden from bugs and predators. In order to keep bigger animals out that will want to munch on your vegetables you will need to put up a fence. A fence will also help keep smaller animals like rabbits out that are known for easily destroying gardens. Also, fences deter other animals from walking through the garden and crushing your plants. If you have pets that live outside like cats they may be interested in rolling in the dirt. This can also harm plants by crushing them as well and if you have a dog you may just find them burying and things in your garden. A fence will stop all this and give your garden the best chance of survival.
Next, we’re going to want to keep bugs out of your garden. To do this, you can try planting plants that naturally deter bugs. If you don’t want to do this so there is always another method that you can use. I would look into any pesticide you are wishing to use, pesticides can be extremely harmful to you in the long run. Also, check and make sure that pesticides that you’re using are safe for any pets you may have to roam around your yard.