Over the last few days, we have been hard at work establishing the vegetable garden at our new house. With aching hands, sore muscles, a sunburn, and a sense of accomplishment, I am happy to say that it is Ready for Planting! Over the next couple days, I will begin filling it with vegetables and flowers of all sorts.
Today I wanted to tell you the steps we took in getting the vegetable garden established from scratch. Starting a vegetable garden is really one of those things that can be done a number of ways. Hunter hates when I use the expression—There’s more than one way to skin a cat—but it is especially true when it comes to gardening! You can establish a veggie garden in containers on your deck or balcony, in raised beds, or in the ground. Follow along with me as I tell you about how we transformed a grassy spot of side lawn into a, hopefully teeming, vegetable garden.
I shared this whole process on my Instagram Stories, already. I try to share lots of projects on Instagram, so if this is something you are interested in, give me a follow there, as well! [You can find my Instagram HERE]
Steps To Follow In Establishing a Vegetable Garden
Site Selection
You know that expression commonly used in real estate—Location, Location, Location! Well this expression is also applicable to vegetable gardens.
Locating your vegetable garden in a sunny spot is key.
So the first step we took in establishing our new vegetable garden from scratch was finding the perfect, sunny location. We settled on the west side of the garage, because it is a relatively flat spot with sun for most of the day. We also chose this spot beside the garage, in hopes that the garage can offer some wind break. It is almost always windy here!
When locating a vegetable garden, here are some other things to keep in mind:
Sunshine—Aim to locate your garden in a spot that receives at least 6 hours of sunlight per day. More is better for things like tomatoes and peppers. Many gardens have patches that are shaded part of the day due to trees or other structures. Just be strategic when you plant up these shadier spots by planting things that can tolerate more shade—like lettuces, cabbage, radishes, carrots, celery, swiss chard, kale, spinach, herbs, etc. When considering how sunny a spot is, be sure to check it a few times throughout the day. I have one border garden here that is in full glorious sun each morning, but 2-3 hours later, it is getting shaded, and remains shaded for the rest of the day. Also note the changing position of the sun in the sky depending on season. In the middle of winter is not a good time to decide where your sunniest spots are, because the sun will be in a different spot come summer.
Water—Unless you live some place that gets consistent rainfall, vegetable gardens inevitably need to be watered. Consider how you will water your plantings. Will you install a drip irrigation system? Are you counting on sprinklers? Do you enjoy hand watering? No matter how you decide to water, your garden needs to be within a reasonable range to a hose bib or water source.
Ease of Access—If your vegetable garden is close and convenient for you to access, you will check on it and tend to it’s crops much more frequently. You will also use the produce more often if it’s close-by. With that said, you are better off locating your garden just outside your back door, rather than down by your barn. Make it close and convenient for you to check every day.
Grass Removal
Of the entire gardening process, especially in-ground gardening, my least favorite part is grass removal. If you don’t have a lawn or any grass in place, where you are going to locate your garden, then you are in luck! If you do, then establishing an in-ground vegetable garden just got that much more challenging for you. Unfortunately, grass seems to be a hindrance to any spot I decide to garden. This year, especially, I have had to remove grass in every place I plan to plant anything, the vegetable garden included.
There are a number of ways that grass can be removed, including solarization, smothering, tilling it under multiple times, or just good old sod removal. I generally stick to sod removal because it takes less time—once the sod is gone, you can start planting immediately. Smothering and solarizing, on the other hand, generally require months and months to be effective. In most garden areas, I remove grass by hand to preserve as much of the valuable top soil as possible. The vegetable garden is too large an area to sit and remove top soil from the grass by hand, so this year we opted to use a sod cutter to remove grass. It does sacrifice most of the top soil, but alas, we will build up the top soil over time.
In case you are interested: We found a sod cutter rental at a lumber store in town. To rent a Bluebird Sod Cutter for 4 hours, the cost was $90. The sod cutter is similar to a push lawn mower in how in works—simply set your desired cut depth, fire it up, push the throttle to help drive the cut bar under the grass, and then cut, cut, cut. We cut the sod in the whole garden area in less than an hour. Hauling it off took considerably more time!
Soil Amendment
Because we lost so much of the top soil when removing the grass with the sod cutter, we ordered in a dump truck load of compost and manure. The soil we have here is quite clay-y so we also got one yard of sandy top soil. I am still deciding what I think of the soil we ordered in; the particle size is very fine and I prefer chunkier amendments, with a variety of particle sizes. Alas, our options are quite limited out here in rural America! I am thankful that we found a company that could deliver several yards of soil to us, but it did come with a $100 delivery fee, in addition to the actual per yard cost of the soils (approximately $26-$32 per cubic yard). Overall, however, since we sacrificed so much top soil in the removing of the sod, ordering in a truck load of soil was absolutely necessary and much more cost effective than using bags of amendments. Only time will tell whether or not this was a good investment.
Which brings me to my next point—invest in improving your soil. It is the best investment you can make in your garden.
Fencing
A garden fence may be totally unnecessary, given your set of circumstances. For us, however, if we want any produce at all (or even plants!), we have to have a fence. Our number one offenders are whitetail deer, and they will sample almost anything once—or twice. Even things labeled as deer-resistant aren’t totally deer proof.
We thought about putting in an electric fence, which for a garden our size would probably be the most inexpensive option, but the station superintendent was worried his kids might get electrocuted, and Hunter was worried it would be too ugly. Instead, we opted for a 6 foot tall fence, made with 4x4 landscape timbers and metal agricultural fencing
A note about fence height: I can’t tell you how many times I have heard that a 4 foot tall fence is sufficient for keeping deer out of a garden. Maybe in some places, this is true. But here, deer jump 4 foot tall fences like nothing. In fact, at our last house, I bought fencing for a 5 foot tall garden fence. Hunter laughed and told me what a rude awakening I was in for, if I thought a 5 foot fence was going to do anything to keep out whitetails. Sure enough, on Night One, a family of deer jumped the 5 foot tall fence, like nothing, and proceeded to eat all of my pepper plants and developing squash. Hunter helped me extend the height of the fence to around 6-7 feet tall and that was enough to keep them out.
And here’s one last tip—Always remember to shut your garden gate at night!
Time to Plant!
Once your garden area is fenced and ready-to-go, you get to do the fun part—Fill it with Plants! Be sure not to be too hasty, though, and wait until your last frost has passed before putting out frost-tender crops like tomatoes, peppers, and squash.
I like to plants flowers and vegetables in my garden, intermingled together. Mixing the two is not only beautiful, but it also attracts a variety of insects to the garden, and the insects attract birds. As I plant, use a granular fertilizer in each planting hole, in addition to compost. If you don’t make it yourself, buy a bagged compost. As far as fertilizer goes, I like using Espoma BioTone Starter Plus and Espoma TomatoTone. After I put my plants in the ground, I water them in well, and then mulch everything in with a nice thick layer of Arborist Wood Chips. The wood chips enrich the soil over time and help vastly with keeping weeds to a minimum.
I’ll check in with you in the coming weeks and tell you how the garden is growing! Is your garden planted up for the summer? Have you been gardening for years, or have you decided to start a victory garden this year? I would love to hear about your veggie gardens, old and new, in the comment section below!
