If this is your first time growing vegetables, start here. A small bed in a sunny spot, planted with a handful of forgiving crops, can give you salads, beans and tomatoes in your first summer. Some plants may struggle along the way — that happens to every gardener, and each problem teaches you something for next year.
1. Pick a sunny spot
Most vegetables need at least 6 hours of direct sun a day, and fruiting crops like tomatoes and zucchini do best with 8 or more. Before you dig, spend a day noting where the sun falls in your yard in the morning, at midday and in the afternoon. Lettuce and other leafy greens can get by with some afternoon shade; tomatoes can't. Choose a level spot that drains within a few hours after rain, within reach of a hose, and near a door you use every day. A garden you walk past daily tends to get watered and picked. One at the back of the yard tends to get forgotten.
2. Start small
A first garden that fits your time usually does better than a big one that gets away from you by midsummer. One raised bed 4 feet wide and 8 feet long — 32 square feet — is a good size. You can reach the middle from either side without stepping on the soil, and it holds one zucchini, a tomato or two, a basil plant and a few square feet each of beans, lettuce and radishes. No yard? Four or five containers on a sunny patio work too: a 5-gallon pot or larger for a tomato or zucchini, a 1-gallon pot for basil, and a wide, shallow tub for lettuce and radishes. You can add more next year.
3. Give them good soil
Fill a raised bed with a bagged raised-bed mix or a blend of topsoil and compost. Containers need bagged potting mix; garden soil packs down in a pot and drains poorly. For a bed in the ground, loosen the top 8 inches and work in 2–3 inches of compost. A soil test through your local extension office costs little and tells you your pH and which nutrients are low, so you aren't guessing at fertilizer. Most vegetables grow best between pH 6.0 and 7.0. If you skip the test the first year, compost plus a balanced fertilizer at the label rate is a reasonable start.
4. Find your frost dates
Nearly every planting date on this site counts from two dates: your average last spring frost and your average first fall frost. Cool-season crops like lettuce and radishes go in a few weeks before the last spring frost. Warm-season crops like beans, zucchini, tomatoes and basil wait until after it. Enter your ZIP code once, and the calendar, plant pages and weekly list turn those dates into real days for your garden. They are averages, so a frost can still come a week or two after the date. Keep an old sheet handy to cover young plants on a cold night.
5. Choose five or six forgiving crops
Start with crops that grow quickly, forgive mistakes and give you something to eat: lettuce and radishes from seed in spring, bush beans and zucchini from seed once the weather warms, and a cherry tomato and basil bought as transplants from a garden center. Radishes can be ready in about 25–30 days, and leaf lettuce in about 30. Bush beans need no trellis. One zucchini plant often gives more than a family can eat. Cherry tomatoes tend to ripen earlier than large slicers and keep producing until frost. If a tomato tag lists disease resistance, pick that one.
6. Plant each one at the right time
Timing matters more than almost anything else. As a rough guide, sow radishes and lettuce about 4 weeks before your last spring frost. Sow bush beans and zucchini about 1 week after it, once the soil feels warm. Set out tomato and basil transplants about 2 weeks after it, when nights stay above 50°F. Harden off store-bought transplants first: set them outdoors in a sheltered spot for a few hours a day, a little longer each day, for about a week. Sow another short row of lettuce and radishes every 2–3 weeks for a steady supply.
7. Water deeply, not daily
Most vegetables need about 1 inch of water a week, counting rain. A rain gauge or a straight-sided can set in the bed shows how much fell. Water deeply once or twice a week rather than a little every day, so roots grow down instead of staying near the surface. Aim at the soil, not the leaves, and water in the morning so foliage dries before evening. Before you water, push a finger an inch into the soil: if it's dry, water; if it's damp, wait. Seeds and new transplants need the top inch kept moist until they're growing. Containers dry out fastest and may need water every day in hot weather.
8. Mulch, weed, and look closely twice a week
Once the soil has warmed and seedlings are a few inches tall, spread 2–3 inches of straw or shredded leaves around plants, keeping it an inch back from the stems. Mulch holds moisture and smothers many weeds. Pull the weeds that get through while they're small, ideally after rain when roots slide out. Twice a week, walk the garden and look under the leaves. Eggs, chewed holes, yellowing and wilting are far easier to deal with when you catch them early. That walk is also when you find beans and zucchini ready to pick; picking every 2–3 days keeps them coming.
9. Expect a few problems, and keep notes
Every garden has some losses: a seedling cut off overnight, leaves full of holes, a tomato with a black patch on the bottom. Most problems have a common cause and a mild first fix, so start with what you see and look it up before reaching for a spray. Keep a simple notebook or phone note with what you planted, the variety, the date and how it did. By the end of the season, those notes show what thrived, what struggled and what you want more of. They are the best start on next year's plan, including moving each crop family to a new spot.
Sources
- Beginner's guide: grow your own vegetable garden — University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
- Starting your own vegetable garden — N.C. Cooperative Extension, Clay County Center
- Planning a garden — Clemson Cooperative Extension HGIC