How can you start a garden today? In the beginning, I had no idea where to even start. I had a whole bunch of houseplants but I had never grown anything outside of the house. I was afraid. I felt like leaving a plant outside was just out of sight, out of mind. At the time, I hardly went into the yard, it was just not my territory. I also feared bugs so I was afraid of what I might find in the dirt. Now that I know what I know now, I would like to tell you 5 easy steps on how to start a garden.
First, start small. Don’t start by building out raised beds and buying a lot of plants and gardening supplies unless you have some gardening experience and you feel confident that you can handle all of this. There is an upfront cost so you want to make sure you are interested in pursuing this before you start spending too much money. I would start with maybe even just five plants that you always wanted to grow. Unless you have the materials, you’ll want to hold off on building a raised bed. If you’re starting from nothing, you could start with grow bags. Grow bags are made out of fiber, and they are also called fabric pots. This is a much more budget friendly option to starting a garden. They are usually sold in bunches online so you’ll want to do the math one what it would cost per fabric pot. The grow bags come in different sizes, and for vegetables I would start with a 5 pound grow bag. If you live in hotter climates then you may want to increase this to 10-15 pound grow bag. However, when you do this, you’ll have to consider that you’re adding much more soil to each bag.
Second, pick out the vegetables that you want to eat and grow. This is a fail proof plan in my book when it comes to growing and cooking. Almost always, if you like the ingredients, you’ll like the dish. So if you like eating tomatoes, then grow tomatoes. Please note that plants like watermelon or pumpkin may not be the best to grow in a grow bag unless you will use a trellis for vertical gardening. If you don’t know what vegetables to choose, here are 5 vegetable plants to start with. Tomato, Corn, Basil, Jalapeño, and potato.
Third, if you have the option of collecting rain water, that will help you with the watering bill. If you don’t, make sure you water your plants either sunrise or sundown so that the water doesn’t evaporate as fast. The faster the water evaporates, you’ll have to add more water to each plant.
Fourth, there are a lot of gardening items that you can buy used. The starter set like a shovel, you can get at the dollar store. Of course, better quality items will cost a bit more upfront but if you’re unsure if you like gardening or not and really want to do it on a budget, I would go with the cheaper. You might even be able to find a used set of gardening tools.
Fifth, this is more to help you save for next season but if you learn how to save seeds, you won’t have to buy the same plant again. Please note that the only time saving seeds won’t work are for hybrid varieties. If you do save seeds at the end of every season, you will have so much seeds, that you could even share it with your neighbors and share the love of gardening. If you have a seed swap, then both of you will have more varieties to choose from and this cycle can go on and on.
You don’t need a lot of money up front to start gardening for really cheap. Where there is a will, there is a way and you can garden for as cheap as possible. Once you know you like it and you want to continue, then you can start looking into expanding to grow in your space. Good luck!