Gardening 101~How to Start Growing Things Yourself

Someone recently asked me if gardening takes a great deal of time…and I’ve been pondering the question ever since. I’ve been gardening for as long as I can remember.   Not only do I find it rewarding, but growing vegetables is a way to teach my children that food doesn’t just appear on a styrofoam tray.  Growing something from start to finish takes time, love and is often unpredictable with many teachable moments. Welcome to Gardening 101! I hope this inspires you to grow something.

The love of gardening is a seed once sown never dies.   Gertrude Jekyll

Getting Started

The hardest part of gardening is GETTING STARTED. I recall feeling intimidated and overwhelmed at first. But it’s really not hard and ANYONE can do it.  Plants need 3 simple things~~food, water and light.

You can start a garden in virtually any container or, if you love it as much as I do, you can set aside a designated area.  My garden inspiration is from Susan Branch’s The Summer Book. If you are not familiar with Susan Branch, her books are filled with sweet artwork, stories and recipes.

Have a Plan

After years of loosey- goosey gardening, I decide to get serious.  I purchase a garden organizer, My Green Thumb by Gail Holmen….a big binder that helped walk me through the planning process. In digging through my notes, I found my original drawing for the garden layout. You can still find this planner on eBay as a used item. However, there are many available online, like this one from my gardening friend, Kim from Shiplap and Shells.

You can also find many resources online to help you get started growing what you want~herbs, flowers, vegetables, fruit trees, the sky’s the limit. For me, I want to grow things I can eat and cook with~vegetables, herbs, fruits, greens.

Determine Your Space

We designate a 18′ x 24′ fenced space adjacent to the hen house (a great place to toss excess greens). The perimeter fence is a pretty white picket one for a cozy, cottage look.

In designing our garden, I want raised bed planters for ease of planting and harvesting~~less strain on my back.  There are 5 planters in total made of concrete block and finished with a brick edge.

You don’t need a large space. I met a woman once who had a very productive garden with a postage stamp back yard.

The garden gate entrance has a rebar arch specifically to allow the grape vines grow above to create the entrance. This is one of the coolest places in the garden in the summer, surrounded by clusters of hanging grapes.

Add PVC arches and structures

Though a small part of me thinks the PVC contraptions look a bit messy, they do provide a vital function. Depending on the time of year, the PVC pipe arches support bird netting, shade cloth or freeze covers. By inserting a 12″ rebar post into the ground, you can bend the PVC pipes to whatever size or height you need and slip it over the rebar.

Do you Require a Watering System

Due to the high heat in Phoenix, a watering system is critical. Alternately, there are drains in each raised planter so the beds don’t get water logged.

Each raised bed has heads that spray water a 2 foot radius. Since this is part of our sprinkling system for the yard, the garden section is on a timer. There are no soaker hoses in the raised beds, but I do use a soaker hose in the separate flower bed.

The soaker hose is on a timer that you place near your spigot. You don’t need a complicated watering system. This handy device does the work for you and your plants get the water they need by just hooking it up to your hose.

The Right Soil is Needed

Once the infrastructure of the garden is established, then soil is added.  We compost all our natural scraps but sometimes we need to amend with commercial garden soil. Some people don’t turn their soil, but I do ~~this time I found an old garden glove, a plastic pot and previous plastic planting markers buried beneath the surface. Go figure. To see more about composting, click here.

Not sure if your soil is healthy? Obtaining a soil test is so easy and vital for a healthy crop. You can find My Soil Test Kit on Amazon here. Take 6 soil samples and send it in~within a week you get the results and amendment recommendations.

Seeds or Starter Plants

Depending on the time of year, I use a combination of seeds and starter plants.  Though seeds are less expensive, they do require a bit more maintenance (thinning).  Radishes and carrots I grow from seeds; tomatoes from starter plants.

If your plants are root-bound, make sure you break the ball apart and give the roots a fighting chance to spread out. The roots on this plants are so congested that I use a knife to loosen them.

It’s important to select the right plants for the right time of year.  Consult your local cooperative extension or nursery to determine your growing zone, plant selection and whether to plant seeds or starters.

If you live in Phoenix area, I have Growing Guides for the Valley of the Sun. These guides are so informative outlining what month to plant which plant (or seed). Happy to share if you shoot me an email.

Plant Locations

If you are starting a new garden, watch the length and intensity of the sunlight during your growing season. Do you have full sun?Partial sun? Shade? It’s important to make sure plants that need full sun are actually in full sun. A quick route to failure is giving a plant too much or too little sunshine.  It took me a few years to determine the best raised planter to grow tomatoes because they require full sun.

I generally try a new plant or variety each year.  This planting season I focused on heirloom tomatoes. Whitfill Nursery has a great selection.

For larger plants, cages or support structures are very helpful. I purchased these resusable cages years ago from Burpee. By the end of the season, you won’t even see the cages! Worth the investment and they collapse for storing.

Reap the Benefits

My photo library is full of pictures of the first peach or the first tomato of the season. The reward for your planning, planting and feeding is biting into that freshly picked vegetable…a joyful sense of accomplishment, with flavors that you don’t get from grocery store produce.

Using these fresh ingredients in a recipe is divine. Since we don’t use pesticides, I know my vegetables aren’t sprayed with some mysterious chemical or wax. Everything freshly grown tastes so much better.

Of course, then mid-season, when you have so many zucchini or tomatoes, you start giving them away to friends and neighbors. One year, I stopped counting after 78 zucchini. Obviously, I over planted that year! But each season is a lesson in nature, patience, disappointment and reward.

Gardening from Season to Season

After a productive season, It takes a ruthless spirit to yank older plants to make room for a new crop. Initially, it was difficult to pull plants that still look healthy but are past their prime in production. Since we give many of the vegetable plants to the chickens and compost the rest, it helps to know that we are recycling the plant for another purpose.

Once your garden is started, maintaining it is fun.  For me, I spend a few hours at the beginning of a new growing season, but for the most part, it doesn’t require much work.  My garden angel takes care of the rest!

Daily walks through the garden are therapy to me. I get to see what is growing, what needs help and occasionally a new critter has captured my interest.

Great Available Resources

Now with the internet at our finger tips, it is so easy to learn from others who really know alot about gardening. My dear friend, Kim from Shiplap and Shells (Pacific Northwest) is the flower garden expert. Her gardens are so beautiful and her website is a wealth of information.

Stacy Ling from Bricks’nBlooms (New Jersey) is another terrific resource for all things gardening. She just published her first book and was recently on Live with Kelly and Mark sharing her gardening expertise.

No Outdoor Space?

If you are limited on your outdoor space (no patio, no yard), you can still grow things on your kitchen counter or anywhere inside. There are multiple options for growing herbs and salad vegetables~like this AeroGarden. I bought two of these for my children who live in apartments.

This hydroponic indoor garden grows herbs or vegetables and is currently 22% off on Amazon here.

You Can Do This!

If you think you cannot grow anything and you have a black thumb, see the picture below.  This is red lettuce, growing in my gravel path from a dropped seed.  No water, not much direct light and it’s growing all by itself!

Gardening for me, is a form of relaxation.  When my hands are in the dirt, my mind is quiet and calm.  I’m not thinking of ANYTHING else.  Connecting with the earth is always good for the soul.  So if you have the desire to garden, whether it be in a small container or a plot in your yard, take the leap.  There is such satisfaction in picking your own vegetables, fruit or flowers.

Happy Gardening! I know you can do this and I hope you find this post inspirational. Start small and see how it goes! Best of all, please share your experience.

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