There is little else more rewarding than growing your own food. It cuts down on your grocery bill, improves your health, makes you more self-sustainable, brings families together, and brings us closer to God.
If you've never grown your own food or had a garden, it can feel a little bit intimidating. It seems everyone has tons of advice on the wrong and right way to do things. But you just want to get growing. These 10 steps will get you growing your own food in no time.
Today's post is for beginner gardeners, but even if you're someone who is a life long gardener, there's some tips in here for you as well. I believe we're all on learning journey and can always learn more from others, so please, share your best tips in the comments section.
You've decided to plant a garden, congrats! Starting is often the hardest part, but you'll do great, and these tips are sure to help get your garden off to it's best start.
1. Know thy soil. Knowing what type of soil you have is very important for the success of your garden. You're thinking, I just want to put my plants in the dirt and get going, but trust me, you'll save yourself a ton of heartache if you do a little bit of prep work first.
Hang with me for a moment as we get a bit scientific. Your soil ph level will either be acidic, alkaline, or neutral. There are do it yourself tests at home, here's one from our affiliate partner Amazon Luster Leaf 1601 Rapitest Soil Test Kit or you can send off to have it tested at your local county extension office.
An easy way to know your soil ph's level is if you have a hydrangea plant. If the blossoms are blue your soil is acidic, if it's pink, your soil is alkaline. Or try this at home soil test with vinegar and baking soda. Note: this will show extremes, it won't measure exactly or within a few points.
2. Amend your soil accordingly. Now that you know your soil's ph level you'll need to amend your soil or change the PH level. But how? It's easy peasy. If your soil is too alkaline add coffee grounds, citrus peels, peat moss, or pine needles.
If your soil is to acidic add lime or wood ash.
Our soil is slightly acidic, which works well for raspberries, blueberries, and potatoes. However, beets and brassicas like neutral soil, so we add the ash from our wood stove in the area we plant our beets and other brassicas, like cabbage, broccoli, etc.
We add well rotted (not fresh, it's too hot and will burn your plants) chicken and cattle manure, with leaves, and straw. We use the refuse from the animals on our farm. If you have a local farm, they'll let you haul off manure for free. I'd make sure they only feed organic food if using the poop for your garden. Most plants are heavy nitrogen feeders, so this helps add nitrogen and organic matter back into our garden soil.
3. Plant what you eat. I have a free chart and guide in my Heirloom Gardening Guide-Planting to Save Money, when you sign up for my email list. This will look slightly different for each family. Don't plant something your family doesn't like and won't eat a lot of. If you only like a few eggplants a year, don't bother planting them. If you eat cucumbers and potatoes all year long, then plant them.
4. Start small. If you're anything like me, you like to jump in both feet first. When planting, it's easy to slip in another row or grab two more packets of seed. But the care, harvest, and preserving of all those plants can be overwhelming. Don't set yourself up for failure. Start with the main crops your family eats the most of. Once you've mastered those, add in more.
5. Where to get you seed. I'm a big believer in heirloom seeds. Our garden is completely heirloom plants only, in fact our bean seed has been saved and passed down in our family for over 100 years. You can ask gardening friends for some heirloom seed or order on line. Two companies I trust for non-GMO, organic, and heirloom seeds are Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and our affiliate partner Seeds for Generations. Seeds for Generations is an heirloom company ran by a father and his children, which started when he was teaching them about gardening. I love those kind of stories and supporting small folks.
6. When to plant. It's important to know when to plant your seeds. In order to do this, you need to know the last frost date for your area. Reading the back of the seed package will tell you when to put your seeds out according to the date. We put our warm weather plants out the third to last week of May. We harvest almost all of our warm weather plants by mid-September. Find your last frost date here.
Keeping track of all your gardening things will make life much easier. Here's a great free chart on when to start your seeds for both indoors or direct outdoor sowing.
7. Commit to your garden. Know and commit to spending time in your garden. Tell yourself you're going to do one thing every day for your garden. Some days it might just require walking through and inspecting things. Other days you'll be weeding, picking, or watering.
8. Don't be afraid of failure. Even the most experienced gardeners have plant and crop failure. Gardening is a journey. Every season and year you'll learn more and new things. If you have a total flop on your tomatoes this year, talk to other folks, read books, listen to podcasts, and learn what to try differently. Everyone suffers a gardening loss at sometime. Don't let it stop you from learning and pressing on.
9. Have a natural pest control plan. We live way out in the sticks. Deer are one of the worst pests to our garden. We have our fruit trees and vegetable garden fenced. This also helps if our cows happen to get out. Here's a great article on the 10 Tips for Organic gardening and pest control
10. Don't let the size of your planting space deter you. Not everyone has a huge yard or acreage for planting. Don't let this stop you. Many plants can be grown in containers. Small blueberry bushes do well in containers, as well as almost every herb, strawberries, garlic, and tomatoes.
Need more gardening help? Check out all of our gardening articles here to get you going.
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I am a big gardener. But the last 2 years I have tried to start my own plants and failed. The first year the tomato plants where spendily. This year I over came that and they looked good at first then they lost color in the top and just did do good. How about some tips on starting your own plants to go along with today’s article. I am enjoying your 30 days challenge articles. Glad I am not the only one that thinks like this!!
Jennifer,
Starting plants at home can have a few pitfalls if you’re not careful. The first year I didn’t have very much luck, but now I start over 20 tomato plants and 15 pepper plants just in my living room, and I’ll share the tips coming up that I’ve learned for success. I’m so glad you’re enjoying the 30 day challenge! It’s been fun for me, too.
I live on a very small piece of land. To be exact 1 1/8 City lots, on this land we have our 2400 square foot house, a 2000 square foot shop, 120 square foot shortage shed, a 180 square foot outdoor pantry, and a double chicken coop that’s about 260 square feet. Oh yeah and a 10×12 four season greenhouse.
Around all these buildings there use to be grass. It has all been taken out and raised beds put in. In one raised bed we planted thornless blackberries on three sides which provides shade for those shade loving vegetables, in another raised bed we have kiwi (yeah they are producing this year), up against the south side of the house we have blueberries, right across the walk from them is a hedge of currants. Our strawberries are grown in pots so we can move them as the seasons change, in the other three raised beds we have potatoes much of them are now volunteers, onions and squash.
My point in listing all this is to show that no matter how little your space is, you can still grow your own food.
Cheryl,
I love it! Thank you for sharing, that is impressive for your space, nice job. Great use of using an edible garden to produce shade for the other plants with the berries.
I enjoy the comments from the readers as much as reading your articles!
We live in what is called “high desert.” This is a difficult climate to garden in- we have a short growing season, and snow can fall in any month of the year. We have drying winds that will stress newly transplanted babies, and irrigation is required since typically we get little or no summer rains other than the occasional thunderstorm with its risk of hail. The low rainfall means our soil has a rather high ph. Still, most years I manage to bring in a very respectable harvest.
One of the key factors, is planting vegetables and fruits that are suited to this climate. I plant a lot of fava beans and kale because they seem to really thrive here; watermelons and lima beans, not so much. I gave up on blueberries because it was so difficult to keep the soil acidic enough for a perennial planting; instead, we grow raspberries which don’t seem to care as much.
We continue to amend the soil in our raised beds with compost, manure, ground rock minerals and leaf mold, and every year the resultant crops are more abundant and use less water. I’ve been experimenting with seed saving- using seeds from the most vigorous plants- and I hope over time those plants will eventually become even more acclimatized to our area.
Muriel,
Good for you for not letting the harsh climate win! And yes, your seeds will become acclimatized over time, though it will likely take at least a few years. Blueberries like extremely acidic soil so that can be harder, raspberries prefer slightly acidic, too, but aren’t quite as picky, as you found out. Great tip on planting what grows well for your area, so true.
The link to “soil test with vinegar and baking soda” is not working. I get “Not Found” Is there another link.
I started off with small garden with raised beds and still have trouble with growing vegetables here in suburban California. I keep planting and learning. Now have 5 chickens and love it all. A few dwarf mixed fruit trees went in last year. Hopefully my not so green thumb will get greener with my garden this spring. Thanks for all your articles and help.
We love you and your so beautiful. Thanx for everything.