Starting a vegetable garden, tips and advice on how to start a vegetable garden

Starting a vegetable garden is easy once you follow my guide. Easy to follow "how to" vegetable garden tips that make it easy to be growing your very own vegetables.

Starting A Vegetable Garden Tips and Advice

Let's start at the beginning and have a look at what tools you need when starting a vegetable garden of your own.

Vegetable Gardening for beginners and pros

When starting a garden choosing the proper tools for the job is a vital part of the process. If you can afford to it's always better to try to buy better quality tools. They would get plenty of use and pay you back many many times over. Of course if you cannot afford the more expensive tools then by all means choose cheaper tools and you can always upgrade later on.

Essential vegetable gardening tools for home vegetable gardens

Spades - ideally you should have two spades, a wide spade and a narrow spade. T or D shaped handles is a matter of personal preference as is the choice of a plastic or wooden handle. T or D shaped handles is a matter of personal preference as is the choice of a plastic or wooden handle.

Forks - If possible you should get two forks, wide and narrow,

Rake- A rake is an essential for working your vegetable garden soil and levelling of your vegetable beds. A steel head and a long handle is the preferred option.

Wheelbarrow - A good strong but lightweight wheelbarrow is an essential, you just will struggle without one. Always choose a pneumatic wheel ( pump up).

Hoe - Once again you have the choice of two and if you can get both you should do so. Essential for weeding and marking out your vegetable drills.

Watering can - Even if you have a water source there are many times when a watering can will be more useful.. No need for anything expensive.

Gardening Gloves - Another vital piece of gardening kit. You will be glad you bought a pair! Don't be afraid to buy a pair larger than what might fit snugly, as the larger size won't leave your hands feeling so constricted.

Cord, Garden Line, Small Stakes Very helpful for marking out borders, drills, beds etc.

These are the basic tools needed when starting a vegetable garden, and as time moves on you can invest in more tools such as secateurs etc.

Starting a vegetable garden and preparing your soil

How much work you need to put in here depends on the the condition of the soil, what was growing there previously etc. It can seem like a daunting process but that little bit of extra effort put in now will repay you many times over for years to come.

If your plot has never grown vegetables before it means that the soil won't be in as bad a condition as if it had, for the vegetables would have used up the nutrients.

If you are lucky enough to have nettles growing in your garden then just chop them down and into the soil. Nettles are full of goodness and your soil will thank you.

A great idea for nettles is to place them in a bucket of water for a few days. This makes a brilliant plant tonic. If you have any Comfrey throw it in with the nettles and you have a very powerful plant tonic.

Knock all above ground growth back to ground level. Do not remove trees as they could be very useful as wind breaks, shelter and even for growing plants up through the branches or even around the stem.

Everything else that has been chopped back to ground level can now be left to rot. Unfortunately you will still have the problem of what to do with the remaining roots. Try to get rid of as many as you possibly can.

Most of the underground root stem will start to grow again and if you do not want to use chemicals it will be an ardous task to deal with.

Initially you might be well advised to use a chemical weedkiller combined with some hard graft, you could also use the method listed below.

Just plant away and try to deal with whatever unwanted growth appears, when it appears.

Use plastic sheeting, cut slits in the sheeting and grow your plants in the slits. Over time the plastic suppress the weeds by removing the sunlight.

A better but more expensive version of the plastic sheets idea are the porous membranes type material. These keep the weeds down but also allow enough moisture and air in to keep the soil healthy.

These are also very useful if you are starting a garden but are not growing vegetables.

Vegetable Garden Soil and Planting

Naturally, your own particular soil condition will play a large role in whichever decision you make. Your soil might be light and easily workable or your soil migh be clay and very heavy to work with.

This part of the process does require some work but as with many things the secret is in the preparation, it is no different when starting a vegetable garden

The best way to approach it is to do it in steps, don't try to do everything at once, remember this is about the journey not the destination. Only do as much as you can reasonably handle at one time.

In the next section of starting a vegetable garden we figure out what your soil type is and which is the best approach to start off with. When you have that part sorted you can then move on to the exciting part, deciding on your vegetable garden layout. So, on to the next stage, soil types for vegetable garden planting

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