If you are starting a backyard vegetable garden from scratch, we will walk you through selecting different bed types and share how to get compost and filler soil at a discount. Here is everything you need to know to build a successful gardening space!
How To Start a Garden
Vegetables need a minimum of 6 hours of full, unobstructed sunlight in order to grow. Your garden begins by observing your yard to determine which spots are always sunny, which spots get the most sun and where the shady regions are as the sun arcs across the sky. You want to place your garden in the always sunny spot or the spot that gets 8 hours of sunlight.
Trim Trees If Needed
Carefully select branches to trim from nearby trees if they are casting too much shade. It is frustrating to watch vegetable starts planted in dappled shade stay the same size week after week and never produce anything. You must have unobstructed sunlight and it is worth sacrificing a few tree branches to create the perfect garden patch!
Select Your Garden Style:
Are you wanting raised beds? Or heaped beds with no wood sides? Maybe you love how galvanized troughs look when used as planters or want to build your own? Neighbors who are already gardening can often tell you what has worked in your area and what does not. Let’s walk through the pros and cons of each option:
Raised Beds with Pressure Treated Wood Sides
This is one of the least expensive options. Modern pressure treated wood contains copper, which is vegetable garden safe, and fine to use to build raised beds. (Copper is part of the reason why pressure treated wood may look blue-greenish in color.) Pressure treated pine boards 6, 8 or 10 inches tall can be purchased from any local home improvement center and outdoor decking screws are used to secure the sides. This will require some cutting, either with a hand saw or circular saw, but it is minimal. The general advice is that an 8 inch deep raised bed is sufficient for vegetable gardening and this has been our experience. My beds are made from 10 inch pressure treated wood, set on top of cardboard (to act as a compostable weed barrier) and filled with 8 inches of compost, which I top off yearly. They have worked so well in my Houston area garden that we built our berry patch the same way. The raised beds are in touch with the ground so worms can come up and microbes thrive. (Affiliate links.)
Heaped Garden Beds
Charles Dowding in the UK is famous for his beautiful, natural garden beds. He deals with slugs, which easily hide under wood in the garden, so he prefers raised beds with no wood sides. It is the cheapest way to begin but if your area experiences any drenching rains that cause minor flash flooding, your new heaped beds can be flattened. Still, it may be worth trying if you are on a limited budget and don’t mind the time spent maintaining the shape your first season.
Galvanized Stock Tank Beds
Stock tanks have such a farmhousey appeal and look handsome when arranged in rows but they are the most expensive option. The tub can be $200 by itself and you’ll need a drill bit to drill holes in the bottom plus soil and compost to fill them. The tall tanks are a great way to reduce bending over but there are gardening troughs which accomplish the same thing and require less soil. (Affiliate links.)
Custom Built Garden Beds
There are any number of ways you can build beautiful garden beds. These tend to be the second most expensive option because usually you can customize the height to reduce the amount of materials used and compost needed to fill them. Etsy has dozens of beautiful building plans for sale if you have basic carpentry skills and love the look of custom beds!
Garden Bed Kits
Some kits are awesome and some are scam-level products. I would suggest metal kits over anything made from wood. I’ve seen some of the wood kits arrive made out of thin, untreated wood that disintegrate and compost themselves within a year. A cheap kit may seem like a good way to try out gardening to see if you like it but I feel your money would be better spent on a nice looking planter in which to container garden instead of a garbage quality kit.
Filling Your Garden Beds
The cheapest way is to purchase compost by the pickup truck bed load from a local materials center or mulch yard. It is typically 1/3 the cost of buying bagged compost from the garden center.
As of this writing in 2023 a truck bed full of good quality compost (1 cubic yard or about 810 quarts) is around $48. There are 27 cubic feet in 1 cubic yard of compost, about 30 quarts in 1 cubic foot of compost and about 810 quarts in 1 cubic yard of compost. Compost that is sold in 2 cubic foot bags (60 quarts) currently costs around $4.25 and you would need 27 bags to equal the truckload at a cost of $114.75.
Ripped bags that can be purchased for $1 each are a good deal if you can find them but the truckload option is often the way to go. You will need a wheelbarrow or plastic buckets to haul it from the truck to the backyard garden. If you can get free greenwaste compost through your city or a gardening club, take advantage of it! (Affiliate links.)
Horse Manure Can Kill Plants
Do NOT use free horse manure. Horses are typically fed commercial hay, which is often sprayed with chemicals like glyphosate (Round-Up™) to dry out the cut hay faster. This passes through the horse, is in the feces and will kill your vegetable plants year after year once it is in your garden. If you used manure in the past and your plants seem to all shrivel and die, you may have glyphosate – a weed & plant killer – in your soil.
Your Garden Is Ready!
Once your garden beds are filled and watered in to help the soil settle and then topped off again, you are ready to begin planting. What you plant will depend on the time of year, your growing zone and your preferences. Gardening is a skill and any time invested into learning how to do it is time very well spent!
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