Gardening for Beginners
This page may contain affiliate links. Learn More.
Gardening for beginners at home doesn’t have to be complicated. The best part of growing your own food is knowing where that food comes from. The importance of gardening at home is immeasurable.
Home gardening is a great hobby that will give you plenty of fresh air and sunshine. Gardening is also great exercise. You get tons of healthy foods and can even grow many superfoods at home.
If you want to read the full story of how we got started growing our own food at Little Sprouts and get all the basics to start yourself, check this out. The Journey of the Little Sprouts: A Guide for Growing a Better Tomorrow.
There are some crops that are easier to grow and are more nutrient and calorie-dense that will save you the most money on your food budget as money gets tighter and tighter. Check out the essential crops to grow for a survival garden here. And how to start a survival garden here.
✔Here’s a link to a great vegetable garden planner you can print right out and use at home! So cute!
Home Vegetable Gardening for beginners
There are a few things you need to get started in the garden.
The first important thing is where are you going to grow. In the ground or in raised beds or containers? Is there enough sun in your yard? Vegetables need at least 6-8 hours of direct sun a day to produce well. If you don’t have enough direct sun, you can check out shade fruits and vegetables to grow.
After your location is chosen and you decide if you want to plant in the ground or above ground, you need to focus on soil. The soil in the ground can be amended by adding compost and other materials and mixing it in your existing soil. And also you can use manure tea to fertilize. Find out How and When to Fertilize your Garden in Oklahoma here. For easy ways to test your soil health, check this out.
Raised beds and containers can be filled with a mixture of 1/3 peat, 1/3 pine bark mulch and 1/3 compost. Mix it together well and fill your containers. And for tips on how to fill raised garden beds on a budget, check this post out.
You can also grow strawberries in a bucket. And other foods too.
Every year you garden, your soil will get better as you work to amend it and take care of it.
Once your garden soil is taken care of, beginning gardeners need to make sure water is convenient to get to and use. If your water source is a hassle, you will eventually not be watering as well as you should be. Gardening for beginners is exciting at first, but then when it gets so hot and the garden is so dry, sometimes we fall off the wagon.
Run a hose from your water source to your garden and set up a convenient way to water. You can install drip irrigation that can be turned off with a twist of the nozzle or even put on a timer. You can also install sprinklers the same way. I suggest you don’t plan to water totally by hand because you may end up giving up maintaining the garden if there is not a simple system in place.
Giving up watering in the heat of summer is the biggest reason for failure I see in beginners.
Once you have a location, soil and water set up, the rest is simpler. You need to decide what you’d like to eat from the garden. I think it’s so funny to see people growing things they don’t like. If you are gardening, you should be doing it so you can eat well. And also think about the importance of pollination and bringing good pollinators to do the work.
Spring gardening
- Beets
- Potatoes
- Radishes
- Carrots
- Lettuce
- Kale
- Spinach
- Cabbage
- Broccoli
- Cauliflower
- Brussel Sprouts
- Onions
- Egyptian Walking Onions
- Asparagus
- Peas
Summer gardening
- Tomatoes
- Peppers
- Cantaloupe
- Watermelon
- Squashes
- Corn
- Sweet Potatoes
- Beans
- Cucumbers
- Herbs
- Mint
- Ginger
- Marigolds
Decide what you want to grow and how big your garden will be. You need to keep plant spacing in mind so each plant has enough room to grow well. You may not be able to grow all of the things you want. Don’t get too excited and start too big. You can even grow your own salad garden too!
You can even grow vegetables in the winter in Oklahoma. Check here to see how.
Use this month by month garden planner to decide what to plant each month in the garden.
Start small and work your way to growing more. It will help you to learn the basics in a small space like and 4 x 8 plot and build on your experience and knowledge before you expand.
You can pack a lot of plants into a small space with the square foot gardening method that you can see here.
Beginner garden plants
Preparing your beds and adding your vegetable plants is the next step. Vegetable plants that grow well from seeds placed directly in the ground include:
- Beets
- Radishes
- Carrots
- Lettuce
- Kale
- Spinach
- Peas
- Melons
- Squashes
- Corn
- Beans
- Cucumbers
- Potatoes-grow from seed potatoes that you cut, cure and plant.
- Asparagus-grow from crowns you buy.
- Onions-grow from sets, or small dried onion plants. Click here to see more about growing onions.
- Sweet potatoes-grow from slips you buy.
Vegetable plants that grow best when you buy small seedlings or plants already started include:
- Cabbage
- Broccoli
- Cauliflower
- Brussel Sprouts
- Tomatoes
- Peppers
- Herbs
You will probably find a lot more success if you start with plants from the store than trying to start these seeds on your own.
Gardening for beginners doesn’t have to be complicated. Check out the videos for a great tutorial on how to get started. Click the link to see what is available.
Once you have your garden set up, filled with soil, ready to water and planted with seeds and plants, you just have to keep the weeds at bay, pests under control and water it well. Did you know you can even grow your own mosquito repellant? Check out this overview of how to manage common pests and diseases in your garden for ideas on stopping problems before they start!
Should you use compost or fertilizer? Check to see which is best. Check out how you can make your own homemade plant food too.
I’m so excited you are thinking of planning a new gardening adventure for yourself. I love it so much and I hope you do too! Happy gardening. Don’t forget the importance of gardening for the world.
If you want to learn how to hand pollinate, check this out. And here is information on How to Prune Tomato Plants for Maximum Harvest.
For herb gardening basics, check this out. Check out the best fruit to grow in Oklahoma here. And the best vegetables to grow in Oklahoma here.
Are you interested in growing gourds? Here’s a great guide for that too!
