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How to Start a Vegetable Garden

Today we’re getting back to basics and covering everything a complete beginner needs to know about starting a vegetable garden. Because that’s a question I get often…how do I start if I’m starting from the absolute beginning?

This guide covers everything I think you need to know so you can grow a vegetable garden with confidence. We’ll cover everything from the foundational necessities like figuring out your grow zone and picking the easiest plants to start with, to choosing the perfect garden spot, deciding on the type of garden to plant, harvesting, and more.

I’ll also touch on some common beginner mistakes to help ensure your first veggie garden gives you more food than you know what to do with. No complicated techniques, no expensive tools—just easy, practical advice to get you started on the right foot. So let’s jump in!

YouTube video

1. Determine your grow zone

The very first thing to do is learn what grow zone you live in. The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map is the standard. The map is divided into 13 total zones that each have 10-degree Fahrenheit differences. Those zones are separated further into 5-degree Fahrenheit half-zones.

The map is based on the average annual extreme minimum winter temperature using 30-year average data, and USDA redid the map in 2023 for the first time since 2012. Even if you think you know your grow zone, I recommend plugging your information into this map because many of us jumped a grow zone when they redid the map with updated information. I went from 6B to 7A!

USDA grow zone map

The 2023 map also shows you what your grow zone is in comparison to the 2012 map and also notes the temperature change. So, as you can see in the first photo below, when I input 21793, I see that my current grow zone is 7A. My old grow zone was 6B, and we’ve experienced a 5-degree temperature change in our extreme minimum temperatures.

I also recommend taking a look at the surrounding area around where your grow zone is. You can see in the second photo below that temperature changes can be related to urban sprawl. The area that covers the most densely populated areas of the city where I live—Frederick—is actually in grow zone 7B, likely due to the urban heat island effect.

USDA grow zone map
USDA grow zone map

By nature of how borders work, they have to stop and start somewhere. So if you see that you are very close to an area that is a lower grow zone, it’s probably a good idea to have that info in the back of your mind.

This used to be more important for us when we spanned zones 6 and 7, but it’s less important when you just span the A and B of one grow zone. Here’s an example—if we head out to very western Maryland, you can see that single cities can span multiple grow zones—I’m seeing 7A, 6B, 6A, and even a few blue pockets of grow zone 5. So get to know your surrounding area to get a feel for the likelihood that you could experience unexpected temperature swings.

USDA grow zone map

2. Learn the basic types of plants

After you learn your grow zone, you’ll want to figure out what makes the most sense to plant. However, there are a few different types of plants I want to cover before we get into garden planning. This information is essential in helping you plan a sustainable garden that you get more out of than you put into!

We’re going to cover four types of plants that I recommend getting to know before jumping into your garden: annuals, biennials, perennials, and woody or semiwoody shrubs.

  • Annuals are plants that complete their life cycle in a single growing season, so that means they grow, flower, produce seed, and die. You must replant these every year. Annuals are a great way to add color, fill out temporarily empty spaces, and attract pollinators. Some examples of annuals you might be familiar with are zinnias, marigolds, petunias, and many other spring and summer flowers.
  • Biennials are plants that take two years to complete their lifecycle, producing leaves in the first year and flowering, going to seed, and dying in their second year. You’re less likely to encounter these when you’re just getting started, but some examples are parsley and black-eyed Susan.
  • Perennials are plants that live for three or more years, often living for decades. They usually die back in the winter but resprout each spring. I love perennials for their easy maintenance and drought tolerance. Some of zone 7 perennials include coneflowers or echinacea, bee balm, milkweed shasta daisies, phlox, rosemary, lavender, and sage.
  • Shrubs are woody or semi-woody plants that have more permanence in your garden. By that I mean, the stems are thicker and look more like wood, but they can also have softer growth areas. A good example of this in my garden is rosemary. The rosemary looks lovely all year and does not die back to the ground, and it is a combination of woody and semi-woody growth. Hydrangeas are also shrubs.
rosemary and aster in a garden

Now you may be starting to notice a bit of crossover here…I mentioned rosemary when talking about perennials, but it’s a shrub, too? My best advice here is to accept that there can be a lot of gray area in gardening, and it’s often best to leave it that way 🙂

More examples of this crossover are certain vegetables. I treat vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers as annuals in my garden because they do complete their entire lifecycle in a single growing season and then die in frost.

However, in some tropical climates, the plants can survive for longer and behave like short-lived perennials. But they can experience declining productivity over time and must be replanted. Another example is sweet potatoes. We grow them as an annual here in zone 7, but in zones 9 through 11, you can grow them as perennials because you don’t get hard freezes.

So the moral of the story is to learn your grow zone, build on that knowledge with the different types of plants, and have fun going on deep dives learning about how to grow different things in your area.

3. Locating a spot for your garden

Now that you know your grow zone and the different things you can grow in your garden, it’s time to choose a spot for your garden. I recommend thinking about two factors when choosing a spot for your garden: sunlight and water sources.

For sunlight, most vegetables, fruits, and flowering plants require 6-8 hours of direct sunlight daily, so you’ll want to choose a location with full sun. For water sources, think about how you’ll water your garden. Will it be near a hose or a rain barrel? I can speak from experience when I say that the easier it is to water a garden, the more likely I am to do it consistently!

beautiful vegetable garden

4. Choosing the type of garden

You have a great spot in mind for your garden. Now you need to decide what type of garden to plant. We’ll cover three basic types of gardens here: container gardens, raised bed gardens, and in-ground gardens.

  • Container gardens are the easiest and most accessible types of gardens. You can have a container garden basically anywhere that gets great sunlight! You can use many different things for container gardens, but I recommend large plastic pots because they are lightweight and easier to move. 5-gallon plastic buckets with holes drilled in the bottom are also great low-cost options.
  • Raised bed gardens are also a popular choice because you can put them wherever you want. They can be made of anything that can hold soil in. Often they are made of wood, but we have metal powder-coated beds that won’t degrade and break down in the elements over time.
  • In-ground beds are gardens planted directly in the ground. They are good for very large plants that need a lot of space and plants that are perennial—so you know they’ll be there every year!
vegetable garden

When choosing the type of garden you want to start, there are a few key factors to think about.

  • Container gardens are accessible, but they need more frequent watering because the soil dries out much faster. They also provide a limited space for growing and have bottoms, so it’s possible your plant won’t grow to its fullest potential depending on your container’s size.
  • Raised bed gardens are more of a cost investment up front, but they have better water retention and are generally bottomless. That means they are open to the ground and over time will improve that soil and provide more growing space.
  • In-ground beds require the least amount of watering because the ground retains water the best out of all of these options. However, killing off turf grass may be more than you’re willing to take on as a beginner, and you probably want to start small.

For all of these reasons, I recommend starting with a few container gardens and, if space and resources permit, a single raised bed when you’re first getting started. Remember that you can always expand your garden as you learn what you want to grow more of.

When we started our garden at this house, we began with two raised beds. We’ve built out our raised beds over the years and now have 7! We also added an in-ground growing space for perennial vegetables like asparagus and things that need a lot of space like sweet potatoes and watermelon. You can always add more if space permits.

vegetable garden
vegetable garden

5. Filling beds & getting tools

If you just have a few containers you’re getting started with, you can pick up bags of potting medium designed for container gardens at any local garden center. However, if you’re filling new raised beds, the soil can get expensive quickly!

I like to save money on soil by filling up the bottom half of new beds with cardboard on the bottom, yard waste, old logs, leaves, and grass clippings. You can get a lot of these things for free if your area has a yard waste pickup program! We grab our neighbors’ leaves for making leaf compost. 

You can also check out local nurseries to see if it would be cheaper to have them deliver compost to you in bulk. We have a local nursery that has a light and fluffy leaf compost I love.

Just make sure you’re not using soil from the ground. This is too heavy for raised beds—you want something that is rich and packed with nutrients but also lightweight and well-draining.

As far as tools go, you don’t need much to get started. I would recommend one digging shovel, one planting trowel, which is like a smaller shovel, and a good pair of garden gloves. Depending on the number of beds you are putting in and if you have a shed, you may want to consider a wheelbarrow.

But if you don’t have a ton of distance to go, you can just carry the soil or use 5-gallon buckets, which are also super handy to have around the garden. We didn’t use a wheelbarrow when we lived in our townhouse, but we got one when we moved to our current home.

I do have a post that expands on this topic you might want to check out if you want to expand your collection of tools—15 Garden Tools I Recommend Investing in.

fiskars trowel

6. Planning what to plant

Now it’s time to actually plan your garden! You probably have some idea of what you want to grow by now, but I have some recommendations for vegetables that I think are the easiest to grow. Gardening is all about building your confidence, and you want to get started off on the right foot!

A note on seed starting: If you’re just getting started, I don’t recommend starting seeds indoors. I recommend growing things that you can easily grow from seed directly in your garden, as well as a few other things you can buy starts of.

The things I recommend growing from seed are:

  • Lettuce
  • Spinach
  • Kale
  • Radishes
  • Sugar snap peas
  • Green beans
  • Green onions
  • Basil

As for things that you’ll want to buy starts of, I recommend sticking largely to nightshades. These include tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and potatoes. Cucumbers can also be a good starter vegetable, but they tend to take up a lot of space as they sprawl, so just keep that in mind.

greens growing in a raised bed

7. Creating a planting plan

Some of these things grow best in different times of year. For example, in my grow zone, I plant lettuce, spinach, and other greens, as well as radishes and sugar snap peas, directly outdoors in garden beds in March.

Once it starts getting too hot for these plants, I’ll pull them from the beds and plant something else like my tomato or pepper starts to make sure I’m maximizing space. The first photo below is an example of what my seed starting plan looks like. I simply make a bulleted list by month and note what I want to start that month and what I want to direct sow in the garden that month.

If I want to plant things multiple times to ensure I maintain a supply I can harvest for several weeks, like lettuce, I’ll list them for multiple months so I remember!

To develop your planting plan, I highly recommend plugging your zip code into the Old Farmer’s Almanac’s website for planting calendars (second photo below). It will tell you the window of time you should start seeds indoors, plant transplants outdoors, and direct sow seeds outdoors based on the plant and your climate. It’s SUPER handy, and I use it to guide my planting timeline list.

screenshot of my planting plan
screenshot of the old farmer's almanac planting dates

When planting things, make sure to keep in mind what their spacing requirements are. Your garden will look empty when you first plant it, but don’t worry—it will fill out! You don’t want to over plant.

If a plant says that it requires 24-36” of space, I generally take a measurement of 36” and plant in the center of that. Many plants like tomatoes, sugar snap peas, and pole beans will need some sort of support to grow.

I do not recommend using the traditional circular tomato cages you’re probably familiar with. Instead, a-frame trellises are sturdier and more versatile. If you are growing up against a fence, you can also run a string between two nails for things like pole pole beans to climb.

sugar snap peas growing on a trellis

8. Companion planting

Many people think that if they want to grow a vegetable garden, that’s all they have to grow—vegetables. But a great way to ward off pests on your plants before they move in is to plant things that attract beneficial insects. Some flowers are also said to have a pest deterrent quality due to their strong scent.

Instead of having a flower garden, a perennial garden, and a vegetable garden, I recommend mixing things up. For example, I have a dedicated space for my 7 raised beds. And then I have various pollinator-friendly perennials planted all around the beds like catmint, coneflowers, lavender, yarrow, and phlox. 

Since these are perennials, these plants will come back year after year! And they help attract a variety of beneficial bugs to my garden. I do recommend going to a local garden center and finding some native perennials to add to your garden. They are low maintenance and you won’t regret putting them in!

I also plant marigolds, nasturtiums, dill, and cilantro directly in my garden beds. These I treat as annuals, and I let the dill and cilantro flower. And finally, I love zinnias. They make great cut flowers and are super easy to grow. I grow them all around my garden beds to attract pollinators and add color.

I can’t promise that you won’t get any pests if you companion plant and integrate beneficial insects into your garden…but I can say it helps! And it’s good to have a garden that’s a thriving, diverse ecosystem. 

large vegetable garden

9. Weeding, watering, & feeding

Now once you’ve got everything planted, it’s time to watch your garden grow. Remember that some plants can be slow to take off—last year, my sweet potatoes were the same size for what felt like months, and then all of the sudden they completely took off.

Weeding

Weeding is less of an issue in container and raised garden beds, but make sure you stay vigilant for weeds. We always seem to have random weeds that seed themselves in our beds, and sometimes the weed seeds even come from the soil you put in. Pull any weeds out, making sure to get the root with them so they won’t come back.

Watering

The best water for your new garden beds is rain. A deep, soaking rain twice a week will probably be enough water for your garden in the spring. However, if you’re experiencing periods of drought, you may need to give your plants a drink with the hose.

Remember that deep, soaking water is better than daily shallow watering. So if you are watering with the hose, try to really soak the soil in the beds in the morning. And as temperatures rise, you’ll likely need to supplement mother nature’s watering with your own. Monitor your soil, and if it’s dry several inches down, it’s time to water.

Be especially vigilant with container gardens. Extreme heats tends to dehydrate that soil the fastest, and you might have to water every day. When temperatures soar north of 100 degrees Fahrenheit here, I sometimes water containers twice a day.

Feeding

If you used a high quality bagged potting soil for containers or amended your raised beds with compost, you probably don’t want to feed your plants with fertilizers right away. Many soils have a slow-release fertilizer in them that will feed your plants steadily for a month or so, it really just depends.

A good all purpose fertilizer for your vegetable garden is the Fox Farm Grow Big liquid concentrate. You just add it to your watering can, and a little goes a long way! I love this stuff—it really is a great quality product, and you don’t have to juggle different types of fertilizers for different plants. I like to keep it simple and feed my plants roughly once a month.

Remember not to overfeed. More frequent fertilizing doesn’t mean the plants will magically grow faster. You’re either throwing money down the drain or even potentially burning your plant’s roots.

large vegetable garden
Centrally located hose stand!

10. Harvesting

If you time your planting right, you can be harvesting and eating from your garden from April into October or even November in zone 7. And if you plant cooler weather crops like greens, radishes, and sugar snap peas in the very early spring, they will be petering out just as your heat-loving plants like tomatoes and cucumbers are taking off.

This will help you maximize your planting space and allow you to reap the benefits of gardening for longer than just the summer. When your plants are ready for harvesting, make sure you get out there at least every other day to pick, especially when it comes to tomatoes! 

Regular harvesting is really important because as you pick off the plant, the plant can focus its efforts on producing more for you. And there is nothing worse than seeing fruit rot on the vine!

harvesting lettuce

Wrapping up…

And that about wraps up what you need to start your very first successful vegetable garden. Remember that gardening is all about learning as you go and building your confidence. Don’t stress if things don’t go perfectly—they almost never do in gardening! Every season is a new opportunity to try something different, improve your skills, and enjoy the process. Happy planting!

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collage of a beautiful garden that says how to start a vegetable garden!

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