Starting a Vegetable Garden

Ah, vegetable gardens. It's hard to imagine anything that gives more joy for a little work. Give your veggie bed a good start and regular care, and even a small plot will reward you daily with good things for your table. First come snap peas and lettuces. Later, it's zucchini everywhere—including the "stealth" variety that lurk unseen until they're as big as dirigibles. Come August, vine-ripened tomatoes fill your salad bowl, spaghetti pot and canning jars.

Most of us who've tried vegetable gardening wind up hooked. And why not? Out there in the sunshine, you can dig the rich earth and play with the garden hose while your tired brain veges out. So here's our guide to happy plants and plentiful harvests.

Site It Right
Your vegetable garden should get at least 10 hours of sun a day—the more, the better. Most vegetables are sun loving, especially fruiting crops like tomatoes, peppers and melons. So be sure your garden gets as much sun as your property affords. Leaf crops—lettuce, arugula, spinach—can get by with less.

So you'll need to find a spot that's sunny, and also not too far away from your house—ideally, it'll be convenient to the back door. If the garden is only a few paces away, you'll get out there more often, be more aware of how your plants are doing—and be more inclined to harvest a handful of rosemary or one more fat tomato for that salad. Avoid low, wet areas where cold air might pool. Those places are prone to frost in the late spring and early fall, which will shorten your growing season.

Almost no one starts off with ideal soil, so don't worry about it when you choose your site. You can upgrade any soil with compost, aged manure, leaf mold and other organic matter. Those additions improve the tilth, or structure, of all types of soil, helping sandy soils retain moisture and adding air and loft to clay soils so they drain better. Also, organic materials break down slowly, releasing nutrients into the soil for a long time.

For best plant health, and to keep pests and diseases to a minimum, do what commercial farmers do: rotate your crops each year. That just means don't plant your potatoes (or lettuce or beans) in the exact same part of the garden year after year. And for your own health, don't plant up against old houses, barns or other outbuildings. Lead paint was commonly used until fairly recently, and paint chips often find their way into the soil around these structures. You don't want to eat vegetables grown in lead-contaminated soil.

When to Start
You can start your garden in summer, spring or fall. Obviously, if you start it in midsummer, you'll miss some crops the first year. On the other hand, your garden will be ready to go early the next season. The best time to start the garden is really in the fall, when you have plenty of time to prepare and no pressure to get things planted. But spring is when the gardening bug bites most folks, so that's when most gardens are born.

In springtime, be sure to wait until the soil has dried out sufficiently. Digging too early—while the earth is still sodden from winter rain or snow—compacts the soil, which deprives growing plants of the oxygen their roots need. In most places, if temperatures have been in the 50- to 60-degree range for a week or two, the soil will be dry enough to start. If you're uncertain, shovel up a clod of earth, grab a handful and squeeze. If the soil is fairly crumbly, it's time to get started. If it turns into a sticky ball that weeps water, wait a while and start your seeds indoors.

Gardening in raised beds (rather than directly in the ground) makes sense for many gardeners. Not only does the garden look neater, it's better for the plants and easier on your back. To work a bed, you should be able to reach—with your hand—from either side to the middle without straining. For most gardeners, 36-inch-wide beds are fine, although if you're short, 30 inches will be more comfortable. If you're tall, you may be happy with beds as wide as 48 inches. But again, these are just rules of thumb—do what feels right for you.

One of our gardens had four beds, each 3 feet square. The paths between the beds were just wide enough for a wheelbarrow. The garden fed two people quite nicely. For a family of four, just double the square footage or the number of beds.

Lay out your beds with stakes and twine. Play around with the lines until you're satisfied with the position, and then trace the bed outlines onto the ground by sprinkling horticultural lime along the strings.

Build and place the bed frames. For raised-bed frames, 2-by-10 or 2-by-12 lumber works well. You can also use 4-by-4 or 6-by-6 timbers, overlapping the ends log-cabin fashion, then driving lengths of 1/2-inch water pipe through holes drilled through the overlaps. Drive the pipe about a foot into the ground. (If you frame your vegetable bed with lumber, don't assemble the frame until you complete the digging described below.)

When you choose your lumber and timbers, pick a naturally rot-resistant wood such as redwood, cedar, white oak, Osage orange or black locust. Steer clear of pressure-treated lumber: more chemicals. To assemble a frame, simply screw its four sides to 2-by-4 or 4-by-4 corner posts. If you're using harder wood such as white oak or locust, predrill the boards so you don't bend nails or shear off screw heads.

Remove any sod so that you can position the frames. Working around the perimeter of the bed, cut straight down into the soil with a spade. Angling the spade so that it's nearly parallel with the ground, peel up sections of sod, deposit them in a wheelbarrow, and cart them off to your compost pile. Set each frame in place. Now it's starting to look like a garden. Remove all sod inside the frame, then dig up the entire bed with a shovel. Once that's done, add an equal measure of planting soil and work it in until it's well-mixed and friable. The reworked soil mixture should be about 3 to 4 inches below the top of the frame.

When you get the test results, use a spading fork to turn over the soil within the bed, working to the full depth the fork will allow. Remove any rocks, sticks or other objects. (You may notice that because you've loosened the soil and there's now more air in it, it sits higher within the frame than when you began. That's a good sign.) Next, add a layer 2 to 4 inches deep of aged (or composted) manure or compost, along with the amendments recommended by the lab. Use your fork to mix them into the soil well, and then rake the bed surface flat.

Water the soil thoroughly and keep it moist (but not soggy) for a week or two, until a good crop of weeds pops up. Hoe the soil, slicing the weeds off just below the surface. Let the weeds dry in the sun for a day or two to make sure they're dead; otherwise, the roots will take hold again. Then, transplant any seedlings you've started inside, or sow your seeds directly in place. Your garden is now well on its way.

Tools

• Spade
• Wheelbarrow
• Trowel
• Spading fork
• Rake
• Hoe

Materials

• Gardening gloves
• Stakes
• Twine
• Horticultural lime
• 2-by-10 or 2-by-12 lumber
• 4-by-4 or 6-by-6 timbers
• Lengths of 1/2-inch water pipe
• Compost or manure

Related Topic
Mother Nature's Garden Tools