As we approach the middle of winter, it is time to start thinking about a garden for the upcoming year. For some this maybe the first garden they have ever had, I would like to give some pointers to first time gardeners on how to start a garden.

Starting a vegetable garden has many benefits, you can review many of these benefits on my website Raised Bed Gardening, but to reap these benefits you must first have a garden that is started correctly.

So let’s consider some points on how to start a vegetable garden:

Location: There are a few things you need to consider when looking for a location to place your garden.

• How many hours of sun are needed for a garden – I would recommend a minimum of at least 6 hours of direct sunlight. If you already know what you are going to plant, you should be able to find the requirements for that specific plant on the seed package. Some may need more, some may be able to grow well with less.

• Wind – When picking an area to plant in, it is a good idea to try and avoid too much high winds. If you live in a geographically flat area, this is something you will run into more than in an area with hills and mountains. Most often your prevailing wind is out of the west, so if you have an issue with wind, planting your garden on the east side of a shed, trees, or shrubs, can help with this issue.

• Runoff – one last thing to consider, and this is something that most will not have to deal with, is runoff. If you are having to plant on a slopped area, you will want to take precautions for runoff. Runoff is a large flow of water that “runs off” a portion of land. This flow over your garden can cause at least two significant issues: erosion of your soil, and disruption of your seeds. There are also to countermeasures that jump to mind; you will either need to build something on the uphill side of your garden to divert the water, or another option is to build up one side of your garden creating a half raised bed effect.

Soil Prep: When preparing your soil consider the following

• Cultivation - How are you going to cultivate your garden? Are you going to use a tiller? Or will you dig by hand? One gives you speed, one gives you better growing soil.

• Form - You will also need to think about if you want to start a traditional garden, or if you will use a raised bed. I, of course, will recommend the raised garden for many of the reason listed on my website. In my opinion, the benefits of a raised beds far out way the work in starting one.

• Soil Testing – This is one that you can determine how much you want to get into. I have started gardens without checking the soil at all, and they have done just fine. Sometimes though, there may be a hidden deficiency in your soil that you can locate and take care of with proper testing. You can often find an at home test kit in your local garden centers, you can sometimes also contact a local college or government agriculture entity, and they will test a sample of soil you provide them.

• Fertilizer – Some may recommend that you fertilize at the start, you may need to if you test your soil and find a significant deficiency. I will just say, I would not worry about it at this point.

Planting: There actually is a little more to it than just throwing seeds out over the garden.

• Row Direction – If you are using a traditional garden, it is recommended that you run your rows north to south. This helps with even sunlight, and can also help with wind issues. However if you are going to start a raised bed, then you will most likely not have rows, and this is a moot point.

• When to plant – Consult the back of your seed packet for when to plant. They should provide you with info on when is the pest time to start your seeds, some you may need to start inside then transplant, and most will be planted directly into your garden. If you think that you will just wait and plant all at the same time outside, you will most likely find that you will run out of growing season, as some plants take a while to grow, and need to be started as soon as they can.

• Spacing – In addition to rows, plants have a certain distance that they need to be planted apart. To close and you will suffocate your plants, too far and you waste space. Again, this is on the back of your seed packet.

These are a few points on starting your garden, this is really the main focus of this article, but before we end, I want to give you a couple of points on growing.

• Weeding – Start this day one, and do it religiously, don’t wait. If you don’t keep up with weeding your will find that your garden starts to get over run. At that point one of two things will happen, you will either throw in the towel and quite, or you will have to spend a LOT of time weeding to get caught back up. For the very first day, if you see a weed pull it, do this and your life will be much simpler.

• Watering – Pay attention to the conditions of your weather during the growing season. If you are having extremely dry conditions, you may need to water. A decent way to check is to dig down in the soil a couple inches with your hand, you want to find some moistness. If you don’t find some, it doesn't mean that you need to water right away, but pay attention, and you might need to consider it if you don’t get rain in a short period of time.

Well, I have just given you a lot of information on starting a garden. I hope that I have not overloaded you, but that I have encouraged you to get your hands dirty! If you have any questions pop over to my site. Raised Bed Gardening, and ask all you want!

~ Nate

Founder of the Raised Bed Gardening website