How to Start off your Vegetable Garden

New Garden See the photos below for a couple of tips.

The first task is to find a position for your new garden that is not hidden away neatly in a corner of your back yard or the front yard. "Why not"? A good veggie garden is worth showing off and your garden needs to be in a sunny situation for at least six hours a day. Morning sun is best from around 8am to 2pm, longer the better especially in mid winter. Your garden should ideally face North to South, that's in the southern hemisphere.

The second task; if you have decided to have your new garden where your manicured lawn was it will need to be turned over. An ideal size to start off would be 2m x 4m (3'x12'). You will need four pegs and a roll of string or twine to peg out your new garden, or you could use your garden hose to mark out your garden. It does not have to be square or rectangle, it could be round, whatever you like. After you work out the size and shape of your garden you then can cut and dig out the grass, 300mm squares by 50mm 1'x1'x2" sods are easy enough to handle with a spade. Lift the lawn sods and flip them over. By doing this the grass will rot down into compost. You don't have to keep the grass sods - it's up to you, you might like to repair a lawn else where. If you have any compost and/or any old animal manure, now is the time to throw it on top of the garden, then give the your garden a good soak and cover up with mulch, see mulch leave for a fortnight (then fork in) before you plant out your seedlings. see transplanting You will also need to decide on a border for you garden, that's another topic on which I will write about that later on. In the mean time you could have a look at a No Dig Garden this is another method of making a new garden.

Existing Garden

If you are going to use an existing garden such as an old flower garden you can try this. Pull out any weeds that have grown during the summer. Don't turn your garden soil over as it will do more harm than good. By all means use a pitch fork to loosen and aerate the soil. If you have any compost and/or any old animal manure, now is the time to throw it on top of the garden and fork in, then give the your garden a good soak and cover up with mulch, leave for a fortnight before you plant out your seedlings see transplanting


Planted here among the Cauliflowers and Cabbages, I have planted Lettuce and Garlic Chives to help deter the bugs. For Mulch I have used broken down grass clippings, not fully decomposed as it will break down in the garden and feed the plants and the worms. The way I garden is that the whole garden is actually one big compost heap.	Snap Peas 2 weeks old starting to climb up the wire trellis. Comfrey on the path, not only keeps the weeds down but when it breaks down it will be the site of the next row of vegies.

Plant your seedling give a good water push in around the seedling a pot that has the bottom cut out of it around the seedling.	Then cover with a pot, then mulch with dried out grass clippings, leave for a couple days then remove the top pot, once the seedling starts to climb out of the bottom pot it's time to remove the pot.