How to plan, plant, and nurture your first vegetable garden—whether you're growing for yourself, your community, or the planet.
Guest Contributor: Cassey Anderson, Horticulture Agent, Colorado State University Extension
Wondering how to start your first vegetable garden? For those of you new to vegetable gardening, interested in growing more of your own food, or helping neighbors in need, welcome! Gardening can be incredibly rewarding and when you grow vegetables, you get to eat what you’ve grown. However, there are important things to consider before diving in headfirst. So, what do you need to consider when starting your first vegetable garden?
Time
What is your time availability/ commitment? Don’t overcommit! It can be tempting in the spring to think that you may have plenty of time, money, and energy to commit to your new vegetable garden. Be aware that as the season progresses there may be other things in your life that take priority plus heat, weeds, pests, and disease can be troublesome. In your first season, don’t plant more than you feel you will have the time for. For some people, that may be a single garden bed, or several containers. For others, it may be a full 20’ x 20’ garden with multiple plant varieties. The wonderful thing about gardening is that you can change and adapt each year as needed!
Budget
You may also want to consider your budget. Gardening can take as much money as you are often willing or able to spend, but it can be done with limited expense. Generally, in-ground non-raised beds are the least expensive option, containers with potting soil can also be reasonable if you repurpose materials. Raised beds are a great option, but materials to build them can get pricey if you’re putting in more than a few. If the cost is discouraging, consider that research has shown that gardening is good for both our minds and our bodies and you can consider it as money well spent!
While continuing your garden planning you will need to consider your space and how it meets the needs of your future garden space. Let’s look at a few specific ideas.
Sun and/or Shade
The amount of sun your garden space will get is particularly important as plants require sun to perform photosynthesis which allows them to grow and feed themselves. Most plants will require somewhere between 4-10 hours of sun a day. In high elevation areas you can get away with less sun than in lower elevation, but full sun is a requirement for successful vegetable production. If you have limited sun and still want to grow you can consider plants with lower sun requirements such as leafy greens, beets, carrots, radishes and some herbs.
On the other hand of the spectrum, if you have sun all day, sunrise to sunset, you may want to consider if you can shade your vegetables from the hot evening sun, or if you can place your garden where it may have some relief from sun during the day. You can simulate shade by purchasing and installing shade cloth. Shade cloth can reduce the intensity of the sun, and reducing ambient temperature which can help plants tolerate hot and intense summers better. Our top 4 ways to create shade in the garden are here.
Water
Going down the list of basic plant needs, let’s talk water! Water is necessary for vegetables to successfully produce. There are very few drought tolerant vegetable options. If you’re fortunate enough to live in a climate that gets sufficient precipitation from the sky (i.e. rain) you may not need to worry too much about water. Most vegetables need between 1-2” of water a week. If you’re not getting around that from natural rainfall, you likely need to supplement with water. You’ll want to be sure you know what your water source is, and ensure it’s of a good quality for vegetable production. If you’re sourcing from a well it may be prudent to so a water test to determine if your water is high in salts which could impact growth and productivity.
Where does your water come from? Once you know what your water source is, you want to ensure you can get it to your garden easily. If you have fill watering cans and haul them a long way to your garden, it’s more likely you’ll get frustrated and give up over the season. If you can run irrigation to your garden, then it’s easy to get reliable water to your vegetables. Overhead irrigation is the least expensive option, but can promote disease and may encourage weed growth. If possible, look into installing drip irrigation, a far more efficient approach. Drip irrigation is relatively simple to install and helps get water only to the plants that need it. Check out our Watering 101 post for details on choosing the best watering plan for your garden.
Soil
Next up, let’s talk soil. One could argue that soil is even more important than water, but really they work well together. Let’s look at growing in your native garden soil first. With any new project in the garden, the best practice is to test your soil at a soil testing lab. Soil testing labs will, at the very least, test your soil to determine it’s texture, what nutrients are present, how much organic matter is in it. There are additional tests that can be performed, but the basic test will tell most gardeners what they need to know. Soil texture is what combination of sand, silt, and clay your soil is made of. Sandy soils are prone to rapid drainage and don’t hold many nutrients. Clay soils drain slowly, but have high nutrient retention. A loamy soil is a balance of the three texture types and drains well while still holding water, and holds nutrients that can be available to plants. Generally, you cannot change your soil texture. You can, however, change your soil tilth through amendment with organic matter. If your soil test comes back that you have less than 4-5% organic matter it is time to gradually amend your soil with compost. You want to avoid getting more than 4-5% organic matter in your soil as it can throw off nutrient availability. Without a soil test you won’t know what your soil texture, or organic matter levels are so you won’t know where to start.
What if you’re not planning to grow in the ground? Well containers can be a little simpler. Select media that is designed for container growing i.e. it drains well but also retains moisture and has space for air. It is advisable to not re-use the media from the previous year, but if you’re trying to save costs you can rotate between plant families. With any container garden, be sure you have good drainage at the bottom, and avoid putting a layer of rock or gravel at the bottom to improve drainage, as it just reduces the overall rooting volume of the plant.
Interested in "digging deeper" about soil? We break it down here.
Layout and planting plan
Gardens can be designed in a myriad of ways, but designing them in a way that is inviting to you, easy to access all year round, and easy to manage is important. When planning your beds, establish beds (raised or in-ground) that are 3-4’ wide and as long as makes sense for your space. Include at least 3’ in between beds for pathways. It can be tempting to make pathways smaller but when plants are mature, they may spill over, and you want room to maneuver equipment and yourself without compacting the soil in your bed space.
So you’ve got your plan for beds, or you have them laid out and planned, now it’s time to consider how you want to lay out your plants. There are several different approaches you can take, and benefits or limitations to all of them. If productivity is your goal you may consider block style planting – a way to grow plants densely to their mature size and minimize un-used bed space. You can also try square foot gardening, a variation on block-style planting. Traditional row gardens can be aesthetically pleasing but may require more effort in weeding and maintenance.
You can plant with the same species, or you can break up your species in your bed to help confuse pests, a variation of companion planting. Short-rooted plants can grow well with deeply rooted plants. Shade-loving varieties can be planted in the shade of taller and larger plants, giving you a longer season of harvest.
When you're ready to select your plants, consider including some of the Top 5 vegetables requested by hunger relief organizations.
Now that you’ve gone through this assessment it’s time to get out to your garden and put your plan into place! If you have more specific questions, as always, reach out to your local Extension office.
Gardening in Colorado? Check out Grow & Give www.growandgivecolorado.org and in particular our Colorado Vegetable Guide https://growgive.extension.colostate.edu/colorado-vegetable-guide/ for more crop information on all of the above plants.
What if every gardener planted just one extra plant to share?
One small donation can have a tremendous impact. Just imagine, if every gardener planted one extra plant to share, collectively, we would have an abundant source of fresh, healthy produce available to be distributed to families experiencing food insecurity in our own communities! The free Fresh Food Connect mobile app connects you to a local hunger relief program, then manages and tracks your donations of homegrown produce throughout the season. Download the app today!