Diving into your First Garden

Beginning gardeners always ask the same inevitable questions: How much space? What should I grow?

How Big to Go

Don’t bite off more than you can chew. No, really. No really, really, really. It’s so tempting when you start out, to get under all that nasty sod and bring in some lovely veggies. Especially once you catch “the Bug”. You need to balance how much food you want to produce, the time you want to spend in the garden, and how much land you have to work with. A properly maintained container garden will produce much more than a mismanaged ¼ acre.

First choose veggies your family actually likes & eats (leave experimenting for your second year on). Then look at varieties appropriate to your area and some quick research can tell you how much you can expect one plant to produce. Then deduce from there how much you need to grow and how much land that will take up. (I'll write more about how to do this in a later article) 

You don't need to become completely self-supporting in a summer! Just a little something homegrown to add to a special meal once a week, will go a long way. 

Contain your Excitement

Containers are a great way to start. They give you an opportunity to take your first year to prepare a larger garden while still producing food; and you may find you like container gardening so much, you don’t want to go to a full-scale set-up.

Almost every vegetable has a variety that will do well in a pot, including pumpkins and other squash. It’s even possible to grow field crops in modified containers. Climbing peas and beans can do very well in a gutter and trellis set up. Lettuce can be grown almost anywhere and in almost anything that holds soil. Containers, in general, require much less weeding, in part because you can employ weed-suppression methods (such as landscape fabric) for less money because you’re doing it on a small scale. Plus it is so easy to extend your season by just bringing you plants indoors for a few extra weeks of harvest when it gets cold.

Containers are a great way to just dip your toes in the gardening pool to test the waters before you jump right in.

Going Grass-less

If your goal is simply that you hate mowing there are lots more options then turning it all into veg. This would be a good place to look into naturalization and permaculture. Vegetable gardens obviously produce tons of yummy food, but they aren't necessarily going to take up less of your time, or less water, than lawn.

You can always get bigger

I started out with a 6’x3’ square, last year I had 12’ x 31’ to work in, and this year, even more. If you stretch yourself to thin before you knowledge and skill can catch up, you’re going to burn out and end up hating gardening. 6’ by 6’ or even 4’x4’ is a very manageable amount of space and you’ll be amazed at how much food a well fertilized patch that size can produce.

Keep it in the Community

If you don’t have any space, or you’re feeling too nervous about doing it all on your own, look into community projects; they are sprouting up everywhere! It’s a great way to get to know all your localy veg-head neighbours and soak up all their knowledge & experiences before bringing that back to your own home garden.