Starting A Garden - Your Online Source for Information on Gardening
A Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Garden
Starting a garden is a rewarding activity and you will get the best results if you take time to plan out the garden carefully before you plant. Different types of plants need specific kinds of soil as well as varying amounts of sunlight and water. The closer you come to meeting these requirements, the better the harvest is going to be.
The first question to ask yourself is: What type of garden do I wish to have? You can plant flowers, herbs, vegetables, fruit trees, or if you have the space, any combination of these. Think about your likes and dislikes. Are you passionate about growing organic vegetables or will you be using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides?
Other considerations you should take into account include your climate, the length of the growing season, and the amount of sunlight or shade in your yard. Some plants need at least six hours of sunlight every day. A soil test is also going to come in handy as soils require different nutrients to produce healthy plants. You can get a soil test kit at your local county agricultural extension office or gardening store. You will need to decide if you will use compost or synthetic fertilizers or a combination of both.
When it comes to starting a garden, you need to pick plants that will thrive under your specific growing conditions. Find out what the dates of the first and last frosts are in your location. Choose plants that have time to grow and bear fruit within these dates. There are some climate changes you can make--for instance, if you have a desire to grow a tropical plant and you live in a cold region, you can just put it outside during the midsummer and bring it inside the rest of the year.
The USDA has established plant hardiness zones that cover the entire United States. They range form Zone 1, which is the coldest, to Zone 11, which is the warmest. Many times when you buy plants, they are marked as to what zones they will do well in. They also may have instructions that tell you such things as whether the plant needs full sun or moderate sun or partial shade. Many vegetables and fruit trees need full sun, which means a minimum of 6 to 8 hours per day.
Another very important thing to keep an eye on is the amount of rainfall that you have in your area. All plants need water to live. Some need a lot and some need only a little. If you have very dry conditions, try to choose plants that are drought resistant. And, if you do have a summer dry period and plants are starting to wilt, be prepared to water by hand.
Learning to garden can be a lot of fun. There is some work involved for sure, but once you start seeing the results, such as fresh vegetables for dinner or a bushel of fruit, or even a brightly colored flower bed, you will realize that it has been worth it. You may even produce more food than you can eat. If that’s the case, friends are usually happy to take it off your hands, and there’s probably a soup kitchen that would be happy to receive it as well.