5 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting Your First Vegetable Garden

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5 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting Your First Vegetable Garden

I can't imagine not being able to have a vegetable garden. It has become an essential part of my life and happiness. My goal is to help you have a better garden. These are common mistakes people make when starting their first garden. 

Most garden plants really do require a minimum of 6 hours of direct sun. That 6 hours is firm for full plant production.  However, very often, gardeners don't take the time to make sure their future garden gets 6 hours of essential sun. In a perfect world a garden should get 8-10 hours of sunlight. Check the space that you are considering for your new garden every 2 hours, starting at 8 in the morning. It doesn't matter if the hours of direct sun are split up over the day, just make sure it gets a full 6 hours of direct sunlight.

Not only do you need sunlight, you need soil the drains well. Plant roots can't sit in soggy soil for prolong periods of time, think 24 hours. Sitting water, at root level, causes root rot. In short, water fills the spaces in the soil and replaces oxygen. Most gardens drain just fine. Watch your future garden space after a heavy run and see how it does. It should be able to shed the excess water, from the surface, within 60 minutes. If you are in doubt, dig a hole 12 inches deep and about 12 inches wide. Fill the hole with water. If it drains away in about an hour, you are good to go.

Along with good drainage, is the need for regular and consistent watering. No one can tell you how often to do this. It is too dependent on the soil in your garden, the size of your plants and your daily temperatures. The most important thing to understand is that you have to water the entire garden. Most plants send out surface roots. You need to supply adequate water to the surface roots and the deeper roots. Very often new gardeners just water the base of the plants. When in doubt, water your garden 2-3 times a week and supply enough water during those periods for water to soak a good 6-12 inches into the garden soil. Obviously, when you plant seeds or have small transplants you wont need to water this deeply but you will have to keep the top several inches moist. 

Don't Get Overwhelmed: Start Small - The Rusted Garden

It is more important to start small and wish you had more room to grow more plants than it is to have more space than you can handle. Overwhelming yourself with a garden that becomes too large to manage and care for, when the crops start maturing, is easy to do when you first start. You will have to learn to prune, feed, and manage pests and diseases. Start small, learn, and as your confidence grows, expand your garden.

Start A Compost Bin Right Away - The Rusted Garden

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Limited Space? Use A Trashcan to Make Leaf Mold

Organic gardening is wonderful but it is not about buying packaged goods with stamps of organic approval. There is nothing wrong with the products. However, very often, you are paying a lot of money for them. You just don't need everything they literally throw in your face with fancy packaging.

Organic gardening has been around for centuries. It is about sourcing your garden amendments from your immediate and local area. Make your own compost, order in manures locally and look for alternatives to paying very high prices for bagged organic products. No bagged product is better then good old compost and manure. When it comes to composting, it is not rocket science. Start a compost pile or bin right away and just fill it. Nature will take care of it for you.

And finally, the biggest mistake, in my opinion, is not starting your first garden. Fall is a great time to build the beds and set up your future new garden for the coming spring. Plants want to grow and gardens want to give. You don't have to know 'everything' prior to planting your first garden. In fact, you need to start planting and growing your gardening to find out if it is your new passion. If it is, your garden will also become your classroom. Each year you will learn more and become a better gardener. So... just get started!

Cheers & Good Luck in Your Gardens!

Gary

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How to Inexpensively and Effectively Fill a No-Dig Raised Bed for Almost No Cost: Use These 1/3 Filling Principles and They Will Also Feed Your Plants!

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How to Inexpensively and Effectively Fill a No-Dig Raised Bed for Almost No Cost: 

Use These 1/3 Filling Principles and They Will Also Feed Your Plants!

Filling large sided raised beds can cost 100's of dollars when using bagged potting mixes and other products. It works, but that is the most expensive way to do it. You can fill the bed for free or at a greatly reduced cost by following the principles of 1/3 filling. It is not new and it is known by many other names like hugelkultur, lasagna gardening and the simple... layering.  Of course, if  you have tons of fully broken down compost... you can just use compost to fill the beds, but most of have a limited supply.

How to Inexpensively Fill a Raised Garden Bed

This principles are best used for beds over 12 inches tall. A variation can be used for beds under 12 inches, which generally means using finer cut materials and materials that are a bit more composted or broken down. It is best to do this in the fall as to give your bed several months to establish. It can be done in the spring.  However, you may want to supplement the 'lower' layers with more nitrogen, such as blood meal, to prevent the decaying organic matter from competing with your spring plantings. Nitrogen is used by soil microbes to break down the organic matter. 

Filling a Raised Garden Bed at Little or No Cost

As you build the layers, you want to have 6-12 inches of good planting soil on top, depending on the height of the sides.. Save the good stuff for last. Most plants will establish well in that depth range of soil. If you have to spend money for materials, that is where you would spend it, the final top or planting layer. For plants like radishes, lettuces, spinach, arugula and other greens, 4 inches of good soil will work. The top layer is more important for the first year of using the bed. After a full season the bed will be established and continue to feed your plants year after year. All you have to do is add top dressings of compost, shredded hardwood, grass or combinations. Compost is always king but other materials will work as they will breakdown each season and get integrated into the raised bed by the soil life. You will not have to dig and turn this bed.

The principle is simple and can be adjusted based on the size of your bed and the materials available to you. The example 'fill', in the pictures and video, is based on a raised bed with 17 inch side. To start, the bottom is filled with coarser less decayed materials like tree branches and even logs. It can also include green grass and green yard waste as the 'green' has nitrogen and that will help the soil microbes breakdown the coarser less decayed materials. The materials in the bottom are initially less likely to impact the root systems of the plants but eventually they will enjoy what they find there, year after year, as it establishes. Cardboard can also be put down to cover over grass and weeds in shallower raised beds. It also is good to use in the lower layers as worms love it and it breaks down quickly.

Worms Love Cardboard

Coarser Materials in the Bottom & Grass Supplies Nitrogen

The bottom can also contain leaves, wood chips, materials you collected that are just starting to compost down (a couple months old). The bottom 1/3 is what will decay over time and feed your plants over the years, with help from the soil life. It will also hold moisture. An added bonus to this type of fill, is that you will have to water less and the layers will maintain even moisture over the seasons.

Materials for Filling the Lower 1/3 of the Raised Bed

Materials for Filling the Lower 1/3 of the Raised Bed

Materials for Filling the Lower 1/3 of the Raised Bed

Materials for Filling the Lower 1/3 of the Raised Bed

Partially Composted Material for Bottom or Middle 1/3

The next step is to move into better material to fill the middle 1/3. This is where I use a lot of earth from digging edges around my flower beds or when I am doing construction. Any earth will support the roots of the plants. You can also use composted materials that are not 100% composted down but getting close. A good volume addition at this point is peat moss or coco coir. They are less expensive than potting mix. They can also be used in the final or top 1/3 of filling the bed. Thinks of it this way... bottom 1/3 needs time, middle 1/3 is okay stuff and top 1/3 is better stuff for the plants to root and establish. They are so many variations to this. Don't follow this as an exact recipe but use it to create and experiment.

Takes Earth from Around Your Yard for Middle Filler

Fill the Middle Layer with Earth from the Yard

The middle layer can pretty much just be earth from around your yard. If you want, you can mix in peat moss, coco coir, compost as mentioned, but soil life will move through there over time and improve it. We will all have different resources available for the middle layer, and generally speaking, the whole filling process. The final layer should be your better layer of about 6 inches of 'good stuff'. You can buy potting mix or mix peat moss and any yard earth at a 50-50 ratio. You can mix in or completely use high quality compost to finish off the bed. They key is that the bottom 2/3 of the fill doesn't have to be costly. Just fill it and let Nature work her magic.

The general 1/3 filling principles will save you a lot of money and build great raised bed soil over time. If plants struggle the first year, don't be afraid to add higher nitrogen fertilizers, like blood meal, and/or water them often with water-soluble fertilizers, like fish emulsion.  Moving forward from year two, just add materials to the top of the raised bed and enjoy the harvest.

The Final 1/3 of the Filled Raised Garden Bed

Cheers,

Gary

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