4 Tips for Your First Vegetable Garden

The first year I lived in a "real house" I was excited to get a garden started. I just couldn't wait until spring when I could plant all kinds of veggies. While this seems like a good idea, it really wasn't. Being a new gardener, I let my excitement get the best of me. I planted all the seeds I could find and imagined a big, beautiful garden that would have us well fed by late summer.

Obviously it didn't turn out the way I had imagined it in my head. Luckily, part of my family made sure I still had a very nice garden that year by giving me a few useful tips. Here are a few tips I learned from my first garden:

1. Make sure you have enough room
Some plants get bigger than others, and take up more space. Make sure you give certain plants more room than others, and plan enough sunlight for smaller plants. I've had smaller plants die in previous years because they eventually end up in the shadow of others. For example, tomato plants grow much bigger than green peppers. If you are planting the peppers behind the tomatoes and near a fence or garage, those peppers aren't going to get enough sun.

2. Start small
Don't plant everything you can find. Ask your local gardening supply store what will work best in your area for beginners. Tomatoes work best where I live, may not work in other areas. Peppers grow nicely, but not always. Last year we had a terrible year for peppers to the point I was buying them towards the end of the year. This year I don't plan to plant them because it's not worth the time and space.

3. Start with plants, not seeds
Instead of throwing seeds in the ground, start off easy buying plants that are already started. They have been started at the right time of year by experts, and are much easier to grow. It's never a good idea to plant seeds directly in the ground unless the instructions on the back of the seed specifically say to do this. After several years of tending to a garden, we now start a few plants of our own inside first, then replant them outside when it gets warm enough. In colder climates this is the only way to grow most items.

4. Know your time limits
If you can only devote 10mins per day to your garden, make sure you only have a few plants. Pulling weeds can quickly become a problem, so if you have limited time don't make a big area that will take a long time to weed. Trust me, weeding can be a HUGE job if you have a large area. We don't believe in spraying either, so it all must be done by hand (isn't that the main purpose of homegrown vegetables?).

I hope these ideas will help you this spring when you start your first garden!