As a beginner growing food it helped me to have a guide on how to plan a vegetable garden.
As a child, I spent hours following my grandad around the garden. I also spent evenings flicking through his complete collection of Percy Thrower gardening books. Now I wouldn’t say I am an expert, but it is definitely something I have very fond memories of. I also love growing my own food.
This is why I find it is a great idea to plan what I want to grow. It also gives me time to gather seeds and information I will need for the growing season.
Growing food has become our family way of life. You don’t need to live on a farm to do start. I have grown veg and fruit in a very small garden. We have grown as we have moved into larger properties.
Garden Planning – the basics
The principles will remain the same.
- First you need to know what you enjoy eating. There is no point growing food you have no intention of eating
- Next you will need to decide on your gardening space. How much of your growing space are you willing to give towards growing food.
- What type of growing format will you follow? You can add vegetables to an existing garden and have them mixed in with inedible plants. I don’t do this with children as I worry they may ‘sample’ plants that may upset their stomachs. Or you can section off an area to grow just edible plants.
Planning your garden layout
Planning out your garden is a fun thing to do this time of year. Whilst it is cold outside there isn’t very much you can do, but planning is important.
Drawing out the space you have means that you know how much you can fit in and how many seed you will need to buy.
This year has been difficult to find seeds, but they are out there if you look. I have put a grid sheet in your FREE Ebook so you can draw out your own space.
As you can see from my plan there is a combination of raised beds and larger beds. You can do one or both depending on how much space you have.
Being a bit more thoughtful on how you create your garden means that you can get started on a budget. These raised bed that are under a blanket of snow at the moment are actually pallet collars. You can pick them up really cheaply or even free. I think I paid £6 each. I also have an old tractor tyre in the middle that I will be planting my olive tree in later this year.
This is where we started our strawberry patch. There is also a space for where our other greenhouse will be going that you can see on the plan.
This area is still under a bit of construction so isn’t perfect yet, but that is the fun of starting a garden. You get to imagine what you want, put it on paper then see it come to life.
I have put together a 10 page Ebook planner for you to help you get started on planning your garden. There are pages to write down everything you want to grow and keep track of what worked well for you during your growing season.
Once you start growing your own food you will love how much better the flavours are compared to what you buy in the grocery store. Also you will find that you will save so much money. Just imagine…. A packet of seeds costs around £2 Just think how much food you can grow with just that one packet of seeds.
Tools you will need
We all know the draw of the shiny new tools in the garden centre. I am drawn to them like a magpie. You will find that if you just start with the basics you can happily grow your collection of tools as you go along.
The tools I use regularly are a spade, a fork, a trowel and a wheelbarrow. I am a big advocate of leather gardening gloves too. They will last you longer and are the best thing for protecting your hands from thorns.
Obviously there are lots of other things you will find useful as you go along, but getting these basics will set you off to a great start.
These are the ones I recommend
OK my gardening friends. We now have a place to start whilst our gardens are sleeping under a blanket of snow.
I hope you will take this time to plan your garden and then follow along as we grow our food together.
Until next time.
Happy making and happy baking
Sam x