When you're just starting a garden, it can be hard to know where to start. Here are some helpful tips that can save you time, money, and hassle when planning your own kitchen garden.
A kitchen garden is a great way to start small and grow your own food. It can be as simple or grandiose as you want it to be, and the produce from your garden will taste so much better than anything in a store! Gardening is an art form that can be as diverse and creative as the person who creates it.
How many times have you been halfway through making dinner only to find that last ingredient? Or opened your vegetable crisper and discovered that the lettuce you intended on using was no longer usable? With a smaller amount of space than imaginable, fresh produce is at your fingertips.
10 Tips for Planning Your Kitchen Garden
Plant selection is the first consideration in planning a garden, and one of the most important rules to follow when selecting plants for your home garden is growing what you like. If no one eats radishes even after they've been grown on your property, it can be frustrating to watch them go unused.
You might be surprised to find that there are vegetables, herbs, or fruits you eat everyday that can also grow in your own backyard!
There are many vegetables that can be grown in your backyard or on a balcony in a container garden. Beans, carrots, and potatoes need the most space for planting while spinach only needs about four inches between plants to grow well. However you choose to garden there is something available for everyone!
Not all of these veggies need a lot of care to grow, some like lettuce for example will self-seed if they're planted near each other! This means you'll have an easy time growing them every year without having to buy seeds or plant more often than necessary.
The next consideration is the location of your garden. While most plants will do better with long, sunny days, many can perform just as well with as little as eight hours of light per day. An open south-facing garden can receive up to 16 hours a day because it's in full sunlight all throughout the year but on an eastern or western exposure you may not have much sun at all depending on where you live and how close that place is to daylight savings time; some people even get two seasons worth!
In your quest for the perfect garden, do not forget to consider how much space you have and what it is capable of holding. Is there an empty patch in between two trees? It may be just right for a small herb or vegetable plot!
Of course, plants are nothing without soil but people often have difficulty seeing their available soil. There are no rules saying that all of your gardening needs must stay inside squares so checking out patches around homes can lead down paths towards sustainable living.
That one-foot wide strip of grass that is such a pain to mow along the side of your driveway can be converted into an aromatic herb garden or row of potatoes! This will provide you with fresh herbs and produce without having to worry about maintaining it. The flower border at your front door could include shrubby okra, which bears gorgeous flowers similar in appearance to hibiscus blooms, pretty flowering climbers like beans or peas, as well as those bright cheerful colors from Swiss chard called Bright Lights.
A great way to decorate your garden is with edible ground cover. Everbearing strawberries are a particularly attractive option, and they can be grown in between vegetables or flowers without taking up any space. There are many other edibles that make good ground cover options as well: low-growing carrots (perfect for those who want something cute), lettuce, radishes, etc., which can serve as the edge of an herb bed if you choose not to grow plants there instead.
For those who have a smaller space such as apartment dwellers or city-dwellers with limited outdoor area for gardening, there are still many vegetables and herbs that can be grown. You may have limited space, but that won't stop you from growing fresh vegetables. With just a porch or balcony to work with and even hanging pot plants at the front door - anything is possible!
You can turn your hanging basket into a mini-garden. Plant cherry tomatoes, radishes, lettuce and green onions with 'Florida Basket','Red Robin' or Tumbler variety of seedlings to grow in the sunniest spot you have available for container growing. If vines are more appealing than crawling plants as they produce fruit that requires support while developing its sugar content; plant watermelon seeds such as "Sugar Baby" without forgetting the customary trellis so it will climb on them instead of sprawling out over ground space like an invasive weed!
With the end of gardening season fast approaching, it's time to get one last chore done before winter. Use your fall garden to help with winter! When the leaves start falling off of trees, don't make a mess. Rake up all those pesky leaves and then use these same raked-up leaves as mulch for your autumn plants like roses or hydrangeas before frost comes around. The fallen leaves will break down over time into dirt that can be used in spring but you'll have saved yourself from having to buy expensive store bought soil this year instead!
As the weather warms, move your bags so that they are in a sunny spot. Once you've done this, create a collar at the top of each bag by rolling it down and then place potatoes about six inches deep throughout. Keep watering them occasionally until they flower, after which time to dump out all of their contents to find sweet new potatoes as well as beautiful finished compost!
Growing your own food is a great way to cut back on grocery bills, and it's also an opportunity for creativity! You can start with just one simple container garden in the kitchen or expand into something more elaborate. The best part of gardening? It tastes so much better than produce from the store! Get started now planning your perfect kitchen garden!