5 Easy Tips For Gardening Beginners

    Do you want to save money, eat fresh, and know what is in the food you grow?  Then gardening is the thing for you!  Not only can you eat the freshest, most delicious food all summer long, but you get it cheaper and possibly healthier than ever!   Feel free to stay with me as I share with you 5 easy tips to start your gardening experience!

    Gardens can be any size you want but for all intents and purposes, we're going to assume everyone has a decent 20x20 plot to start your garden.  If you don't have that much don't worry, most of these tips can be used in raised beds or containers as well!

    

1. Tilling

    All great gardens begin with breaking the soil.  Regardless of soil type, you will need to loosen it up and get some good soil on top.  It may be a great idea to get some manure to till into the ground to make it fertile.  If you aren't against using commercial fertilizer 19-19-19 isn't a bad idea to spread over the ground and rototill in as well this will balance the soil a bit before you plant.  Here in Michigan you can take samples and label the area they came from in the garden, and take them to the local extension office to see what your soil may be lacking for nutrients.  Although I have never done this it is a good idea to do and may save you from poorly growing plants.  You can buy your own rototiller at farm stores or off of Facebook marketplace.  In some areas, you can hire people to rototill your garden and save you the work and money of buying your own.  But make sure you have some plants and seeds ready to plant before they till so you have nice loose soil to work with when planting your vegetable plants.  If you want to do a no-till garden that will have to wait until next year because it is a good idea to till it your first year.  Plus it will help control weeds!

2. Controlling weeds in the Garden

Weeding is one of the worst things about having a garden.  So to combat the weeds the best idea I have seen was on Vegetable Academy's, Youtube channel.  He laid down a soaker hose in a u-shape, then he laid down landscaping cloth with precut 2" holes in it.  He then transplanted corn into the 2"holes as the holes were measured for proper corn spacing.  The cloth acts as a weed barrier while letting the water soak through it.  I've seen my Amish neighbors use plastic to cover their rows as well but, I believe landscaping cloth would work best and it would be easier to reuse.

3. Picking Vegetables

Picking out vegetables is one of the better parts of growing a nice garden.  That being said you want to be careful what vegetables you pick.  You obviously want nice green healthy vegetable plants for your garden.  Look for bad yellow or brown spots on plants. Also, try not to pick overgrown plants as well, as they may stress when transplanting into your garden.  I would not waste money buying squash, cucumbers, beans, lettuce, or corn as it will grow easily from seed and that will save you money.  Make sure you read all labels so you can space vegetables accordingly.  It's important that your vegetable have correct spacing so it grows properly. Which is why you want to plan ahead of time.

4. Planning your garden

Having a plan is important when growing your garden.  You do not want to buy 30 tomato plants and only have room for 6, so this is part of planning your garden.  Figure out what vegetables you want to grow and how much space you'll need to grow them.  Take into consideration your end plan.  If you just want enough tomatoes to eat and don't plan on canning or making lots of salsa or sauce, one or two plants should be plenty.   A cucumber plant usually can grow a lot of cucumbers and can also can take up a lot of space.  So you may want to watch how many you grow or do like I do and grow them on a trellis. 

5. Tips on making more space in the garden

This one goes right with planning a garden and can be something you have to do trial and error with a bit.  Making space in the garden can be simple, especially with vine plants that love and actually do better being trellised. Last year I thought I had a great garden plan but, I procrastinated and never trellis my spaghetti squash,  The spaghetti squash went crazy and took over my entire garden!  The whole season was spent climbing over vines and/or moving them around.  Needless to say, it was a pain in the butt!  But, what I did right was make a trellis for my green beans out of old cattle panels.  You can buy cattle panels from any local Tractor Supply store.  I folded the 16' panel over and drove a T-post at each corner.  You can reuse the end post if you want to put more panels in to hold both panels.  This was my first year doing pole green beans this way and I plan on doing all my vine plants like this, as it worked great!

Cattle Panel trellis, with Japanese beetle trap

I hope that these tips were helpful in making your garden a MASSIVE success.  Feel free to email me any questions or ideas you might have and subscribe so you can stay up to date on all of my blogs and other nonsense I might post or have for sale!