These are the best vegetable gardening tips for beginners and experts alike that I have learned over a lifetime of growing a large garden in Nebraska.
Hi, I’m LaRee Colburn from the blog wagonwheelhomestead.com, and this is a guest post for Tiffany at ministryofthehomemaker.com. I’m a homeschooling Mom of 5 living on a modern-day homestead in Nebraska. We raise or produce most all of our own food, and the purpose of our blog and YouTube channel is to teach people how to grow and preserve their own food, and then how to cook from scratch to reduce their dependence on conventional sources for their food.
We milk Jersey cows and make all of our dairy products, and enjoy baking with sourdough on a daily basis. Our garden is just over a ½ acre and our growing zone is a 4B, which means our growing season is fairly short. We can and preserve a lot of food in the fall to fill our large pantry that holds over 3,000 quart jars. If you’re interested in the homestead lifestyle, increased food security and preserving old fashioned skills, then we would welcome you to follow along at any of the links below:
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Best gardening tips for growing a large garden to fill your pantry
Location
If you are starting a new garden, and have the opportunity to choose the location, it is best if you have relatively flat ground with a slight south slope. Ground with a southern exposure will be a bit warmer so you can plant a little earlier in the spring. It is also best if your garden is not in a valley, because frost tends to settle in lower areas which will shorten your growing season. Warm air rises, so you’re better off if you can have your garden on a slightly higher elevation.
It is also best if your vegetable garden is in full sun, as most vegetable plants like to have as much sun as possible. If you don’t have options when it comes to choosing your garden space, then just make the best of it, and you will be surprised at what you can grow in even less than ideal locations.
Growing Zone
One of the first things you are going to want to find out is what growing zone you live in so that you know the best time to plant your seeds outdoors. The USDA has developed a map that shows the different climates across the country. It is based on the weather history over the last century and they have broken the country up into growing zones. The zone you live in will tell you how cold your winters get on average, and when you can expect to see your last frost date in the spring and first frost in the fall.
It is also important to find other people that garden near where you live and talk to them about their experiences because sometimes there is microclimates within the USDA hardiness zones that can be warmer or colder depending on elevation and many other factors. Over time you will get comfortable with growing a garden in your environment. Keep in mind that the USDA hardiness zones are based on averages, so before I plant anything outdoors that is sensitive to frost, I always check the 10 day weather forecast to make sure it won’t be near freezing temperatures at night.
Soil
The most important thing you can do to ensure a successful garden is to test your soil in the late fall or early spring before planting. This will ensure that your soil has the right amount of nutrients and organic matter for your different plants to thrive. It is best to get a detailed soil analysis done from a lab and then get recommendations from a soil scientist that can tell you exactly what soil amendments to add to your garden.
I recommend you contact Golden Moment Farm at goldenmomentfarm@gmail.com to get your soil test instructions. Once you send in your soil sample, they will give you detailed recommendations on what to add to your soil. Because I live in an agricultural area, I have been able to find local sources for most of my soil amendments, but I have also ordered organic amendments from Seven Springs Farm Supply in VA.
Till vs. No-Till
The debate on whether to till or not to till is a heated one, and not one that we want to get into here. Where I live, we have a heavy clay soil that has to be broken up in order to be soft enough to plant in. In order for me to do a no till garden, I would need mountains of compost for my large garden, and that simply isn’t feasible for our setup at this time.
I suggest that you till your garden especially if you’re developing a new garden spot. No till gardening is more beneficial for your soil, but there is a learning curve that goes along with gardening this way, so it’s probably not best to do in the beginning. If you are working with a smaller garder, and want to try doing no till, I suggest getting a broadfork from Johnny’s Seeds and using it to loosen the soil in your beds before planting.
Tarps
When starting a new garden, or leaving a portion of your garden fallow, you can utilize large tarps to cover your growing area. For a new garden space, this is helpful in killing off the grass and weeds before tilling. You can also use tarps to cover your soil after you till it which will allow all the weed seeds that have been brought to the surface by tilling to sprout under the warm tarp and die. This is called a stale seed bed. After 2-3 weeks of the soil being covered with a tarp, you can just pull it back and plant in the prepared soil. This will greatly reduce your weed pressure.
Design
If you have the space, I suggest designing your garden for growing on 30” wide beds instead of growing in the traditional row format. If you grow in a single row format you are wasting a lot of growing space in your garden because there will be a lot more pathways. For example, I can grow 6 rows of carrot seeds in a 30” wide bed and still easily reach the middle of the bed from the pathway on each side for cultivating and harvest. I suggest using 18” wide pathways between each bed. This gives you four feet of space for one bed and one pathway, making it easier to do the math when planning out how many beds will fit in your growing space.
Uniform length – I also suggest making all of your beds the same length like 50’ or 100’ long. This will make it easier to do the math when figuring out how many soil amendments to apply to each bed (for example, a 30” wide bed that is 50’ long is 125 square feet). It will also make it easier for you to figure out how many plants you will need to fill each bed, and if you use ground cover fabric for weed control you can easily move the fabric from bed to bed when you rotate crops each year.
I have created a free printable vegetable plant spacing chart to show you how to properly space your vegetables when growing on a 30″ wide bed. You can download it here:
If you have a small amount of space, then a good way for you to garden might be to put in a raised bed or container garden. Tiffany talks more about that here.
Perennial vs. Annual crops
It is important to make space in your garden for both perennial and annual crops. Perennial crops will come back year after year without having to be replanted. Examples are asparagus, raspberries and grapes.
Annual crops will need to be replanted each year and include things like tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, cucumbers and green beans.
Trellising
Trellising is an excellent way of providing support to certain plants that like to climb, like peas or cucumbers. It not only keeps the plants from growing all over the ground, it also reduces the chance of fungus and disease because the plants get more airflow and it makes them easier to harvest. Using trellises to support certain crops like tomatoes is a more efficient use of space in your garden. Here is a list of crops that I trellis each year and the kind of trellis I like to use:
- Tomatoes (florida weave method)
- Cucumbers (I use a cattle panel at an angle supported by T posts)
- Peas (I use a wire mesh panel supported by T posts. You can also run twine back and forth between T posts making a grid for the peas to climb)
Wildlife Control
It’s important to plan ahead and think about easy ways to keep the deer and rabbits or other wildlife from eating your garden. If you are putting in a permanent garden space, you should consider putting in a permanent fence around your garden. I have a 7’ high fence around my garden that is made up of 4’ of woven wire on the bottom and 3 strands of barbed wire on the top. It has worked well for keeping out the deer.
If you have a smaller temporary garden space, the best way to keep the deer and other animals out of your garden is to put up this temporary fence barrier. You can support it with T posts on each corner. If you have a lot of rabbits or chickens, you should also staple it down around the edges so they can’t crawl underneath. To access your garden, you can just lift the fence up on one corner to get into the garden. You can easily take this fence down in the fall so you can clean out your garden easily.
There are some crops that the deer and rabbits don’t seem to like as well, and those are summer and winter squash and potatoes. I usually plant my vining crops like the squash out in our field without a deer fence because otherwise they would take up too much room inside my regular fenced garden.
Weed Control
It’s important to have a plan for controlling weeds in your garden. You can start by covering your garden with tarps (like we discussed eariler) for a few weeks before planting to let all the weed seeds sprout and die. You can also use one or more of the following methods for weed control.
Ground Cover Fabric
I cover most of my garden with ground cover fabric that is 4’ wide to cover each growing bed. I burn holes in the fabric with a small torch before planting to make places for the plants to grow and I secure the fabric to the ground with fabric staples every 12-18” on each side, and some in the middle. We get a lot of wind here in Nebraska and I’ve never had any trouble with the fabric blowing away.
The ground cover fabric helps to raise the temperature of the soil because it is black in color which helps your crops to grow faster. It also suppresses the weeds. You will still have to pull the occasional weed that comes up in the holes around the plants, but it will be a lot less weeds than you would have to pull otherwise. There are some crops that do not grow well on fabric because they are spaced to close together. Examples are carrots and beets. For those I suggest cultivation as mentioned below.
Fabric is also really nice if you live in an area that gets a lot of rain, because it’s easier to walk on the fabric after a rain than it is in the mud. It keeps the garden looking nice and neat.
Cultivation
Cultivation is an effective method at controlling weeds in your garden. Cultivating is done by disturbing the top ¼” to ½” of the soil once a week which kills off weeds when they are really small. It is best to cultivate the soil before you can see any evidence of weeds.
I suggest that you invest in some basic tools that will make cultivating fast and easy. I like to use a collinear hoe from Johnny’s Seeds for most of my cultivation. It has a small blade on it simliar to a knife with a long handle, and to use it you just move it gently back and forth to disturb the weeds in the top of the soil. You can use this hoe while standing up so it’s comfortable to use, and you can cover a lot of ground with it without wasting much time. You can also get really close to your plants without hurting them which cuts down on any hand weeding you’ll have to do later on.
For pathways and larger areas that aren’t close to plants, I like to use a stirrup hoe. To use it you just slide it back and forth through the soil which cuts off the weeds under the ground. If some of your weeds get to be 2-3” tall because you missed a cultivation with the collinear hoe, you can usually get them taken care of with the stirrup hoe instead.
Mulch
Another effective method of weed control is to use grass clippings, straw or hay as mulch around your plants. This helps to keep the soil moist so you don’t have to water as often and works well at suppressing weeds as long as you put it on really thickly. The disadvantages of it are that garden pests like snails and slugs like to live down in the decomposing mulch and can attack your plants. Also, if the mulch doesn’t rot down enough before the next growing season, then you’ll have to remove it before you can till up the ground for the next season. I have used hay for mulch in many different gardens I’ve had over the years, but it’s too much work to spread hay over ½ acre garden, so fabric works best for my garden setup.
Cardboard
If you have a small garden, a great option is to get recycled boxes, break them down and use them as ground cover in your pathways and around the edges of your garden.
Edge Control Is Weed Control
Weeds aren’t near as hard to control in a garden as grass is, so wherever your garden touches the grass, like at the edges, you need to make sure you keep the grass pushed back or it will slowly take over your garden. I lay ground cover fabric around the edges of my garden to keep the grass pushed back, but you can do the same thing with mulch or cardboard in a small space.
How To Water Plants
Drip line
Most crops grow best if they have water only at the roots and not sprinkled on their leaves and fruit. I have a drip line system that I use on my garden year after year. I suggest getting a drip line system from Farmer’s Friend. You may also be able to find a drip line system from your local natural resources district especially if you live in an area where they plant a lot of trees like I do in Nebraska. The benefits of watering your garden with a drip line are you will have:
1. Less blight and fungus problems because you will only be watering the roots of the plants,
2. Better control over how much water you put on your garden. Most plants like 1-2” per week.
3. The ability to set it up on a timer so it will automatically water itself even if you’re gone.
Sprinklers
There are a few crops that like to be over head watered with sprinklers especially in the heat of the summer like lettuce because it keeps it cool so it doesn’t get as bitter from the heat. Sprinklers are also very effective for getting seeds to sprout like carrots and peas. I use sprinklers on a few crops early in the season, and then once those crops are started I switch everything over to drip line.
What Are The Best Plants To Grow In Your Garden
Perennial Crops
- Raspberries
- Grapes
- Strawberries
- Asparagus
- Rhubarb
- Fruit Trees
Annual Crops
The first five crops in this list are what I suggest beginner gardeners grow because they are fairly easy to grow, and you can preserve them easily to get a start on your homestead pantry which will help you reduce your grocery bill.
- Tomatoes
- Cucumbers
- Zucchini
- Potatoes
- Green Beans
- Sweet potatoes
- Winter squash
- Pumpkins
- Cabbage
- Broccoli
- Cauliflower
- Eggplant
- Garlic
- Onions
- Basil
- Other herbs like oregano, thyme, lavender, etc.
Direct Seeding vs. Transplanting
There are two main methods for planting crops into your garden, direct seeding and transplanting. Direct seeding is the process of planting the seeds directly into the garden soil. Transplanting is the process of taking young plants that have been given a head start by first being planted indoors under lights. Once the plants are big enough, and the weather is warm enough then your can transplant them out into the garden. Some crops do better when they are seeded directly into the garden because their roots do not like to be disturbed. Transplanting has many benefits.
- Crops that need a longer growing season will need to be started indoors and transplanted if you live in an area where your growing season is short, because otherwise, you would not be able to harvest fruit from them before your first frost in the fall.
- It allows you to harvest produce from crops sooner in the year because you are making your growing season longer by starting your seeds indoors when it is still to cold to plant them outside
- It helps the plants to get a head start on the weeds because the weeds are growing from seed, so if you put already started plants in the ground they will naturally be bigger than the weeds and will shade them out so they don’t grow as quickly.
Plant Sourcing
If you are a beginner gardener, I would suggest that you purchase your plants that need to be transplanted from a local nursery or greenhouse. There is enough of a learning curve when starting a garden without having to learn how to start your own seeds. If you are a more experienced gardener, than you might want to delve into starting your own seeds.
Benefits of starting your seeds include choosing the varieties you want to grow, planting your seeds earlier or later depending on when you are going to want to harvest, and saving money. It can cost around $42 for a flat of 48 tomato plants, but with a small investment in a plant rack and some LED lights, you can easily start your own seeds indoors and save yourself the money on already started plants. You can check out my full tutorial on how to set up a budget friendly DIY plant rack here. I start my tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower indoors in late March or early April.
Seed Sourcing
If you are a beginner gardener, you can probably purchase all of your seed at the same nursery or greenhouse where you buy your plants. If you are wanting to start your own seeds, I would suggest you purchase high quality seed from reputable sources. Do not go down to your local hardware store and pick out random packets of seed. You don’t know how old the seed might be, and if those varieties will grow well in your area. I suggest that you purchase seeds from True Leaf Market, Johnny’s Seeds or Berlin Seeds. They all carry high quality seeds and they give information on each variety so you can choose ones that will work best for you. It’s also important not to get overwhelmed and try to grow too many varieties at once. Less is more when it comes to choosing the seed varieties for your garden.
Pest Control
Garden pests like cabbage worms, hornworms, and potato bugs are something you need to think about ahead of time and be prepared to deal with. If you have really great soil, you will not have nearly as much pest pressure as you will if you have poor soil. That’s one reason it pays to invest in building healthy soil. Here are some best practices that will help reduce the pest pressure:
Companion Planting
There are certain crops that like to grow next to each other like onions and lettuce for example. One reason for this is that some pests are repelled by certain crops and attracted to others, so if you pay attention to which crops are good companions with each other when designing your garden, you won’t have as many pests to deal with.
Crop Rotation
There are many reasons for rotating your crops and one of them is that some pests burrow down in the soil for the winter and if you plant the same crops in the same place year after year those pests will enjoy a feast on your plants. If you rotate your crops you will have less pest pressure and your crops will be healthier.
Diatomaceous earth
Diatomaceous earth is a natural substance made from fossilized algae and it will kill any insect with an exoskeleton. It is a white powder and you can sprinkle it on your plants to kill the insects. You will have to re-apply it after it rains or if you get heavy dew, but it is an all natural insecticide that works well.
Frost Protection
If you happen to get a late frost in the spring and your garden is already planted, you can do two things keep it from freezing.
- You can put a sprinkler on your plants before the sun comes up and leave it running until well after the sun has risen and the temperature is above freezing. The 54 degree water temperature from the ground will hit your plants and warm them enough that they won’t freeze.
- You can cover your plants with blankets or sheets or some kind of covering the night before the expected frost. This is really only practical if you have a smaller garden, but it does work really well.
Tips
Check your garden everyday
It’s important to take 10 minutes everyday to walk through your garden and check on it. You will notice little things like a weed growing here or there, or a drip line that might have leaked. It will be so much better than coming to your garden after two weeks and discovering that the weeds are a foot tall and your plants have fallen off the trellises, or whatever. I like to take time everyday especially in the cool of the early morning to walk through the garden and enjoy watching it grow.
Don’t overwater
Your garden doesn’t need as much water as you might think. Usually 1-2” of water per week is enough. If you overwater it, you will have more problems with disease and fungus and you won’t have very healthy plants because they won’t have had to grow deep roots to reach the moisture that is down in the soil. Obviously, if it’s hot you will need to water more, but be careful not to water too much.
Have a plan of what to do with the produce
There’s nothing worse than having a really successful garden and not having any idea of what to do with all the bounty when you harvest it in August and September. It is a good idea to make some plans of what you’d like to do with all the produce ahead of time. For example, if you’d like to learn to can, make sure you order some canning jars and all the supplies you will need to can ahead of time so that the harvest season is not so overwhelming. I will be giving a lot of tips and tricks in my email newsletter. You can subscribe to that here:
Enjoy the fruits of your labor
And last but not least, take time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Cook with the bountiful food that comes from your garden all summer long, preserve it by canning or dehydrating it in the fall and then cozy up during the winter and enjoy eating from your pantry without having to go to the grocery store.
Thank you for joining me as I walked you through my best vegetable gardening tips. If you have any questions on how to grow a garden that will fill your pantry, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me via email at laree@wagonwheelhomestead.com.
Happy gardening, LaRee.
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