Starting A Garden From Scratch For Kitchen

Eating your own home grown vegetables is one of the most rewarding feeling that all graders get. Freshly picked veggies are packed with more vitamins and minerals than store bought veggies. Kids also enjoy growing them. This is a great way to encourage kids to eat veggies. However, lots of people are not sure about where to start. Setting up a veggie patch requires time, effort and money, so it makes sense to hope for giving the patch the best possible condition you can offer.
Location, Location, Location.
Most veggies LOVE sunlight. They need at least 4 hours of direct sunlight each day to thrive. I like to position the patch where the morning sun gets because it’s not too harsh for plants. It is wise to stay away from trees and shrubs if possible because they are not only shade creators but also root competitors for veggies. Consider for longer shadows in winter, especially near fences and buildings. A level ground is the best but you can make beds on the slope with retaining walls. If you have a nice and sunny spot, that’s a happy place for veggies.
Size
It gets harder to work if the beds are too wide because you would have trouble reaching in the middle of the bed. 1.5m wide is a nice width for me. I also like to have paths of 30cm between each bed to walk and work from both side of the beds. I have rows running north to south on the bed for maximum sunlight. The row direction is working very well.

For new gardeners, I recommend to start with a smaller area. It is better to look after a small garden well than to have a large garden which may be too hard to manage. You can always expand the area later. Depending on the size of area available, three beds is a good starting point.

If you are like me, dreaming about feeding your family from your garden in the future, the size you’d want as a reference is 100 square meters according to my garden book. That’s about 6 beds of 9m x 1.5m for an average family of 4.
Now, ground preparation
Preparation is always important. It might be the most boring part of all, but if you do this properly, you don’t need to do this again for a long time. So get your motivation ready and attack to this!! (or get someone to do it for you. i.e. husband in my case, ha ha)

1. Clearing the spot.
Those sunny spot might have already occupied by unwanted plants like weeds. It’s not surprising because it’s a perfect spot for many plants. Watch out for those weeds because some might be the worst kind - invasive type. Don’t underestimate small corner of those weeds. They are siting there, ready to sneaky leap into the veggie patch before you know it. Then, they steal all the necessary things for the veggies such as nutrients and sunlight. Weeds need to go. Some garden weeds like annual weeds can be eliminated by hands to a degree, you just need to prevent them from flowering so they cannot create seeds. Annual weeds are usually easy to pull out when they are young. For a bigger space or invasive tough weeds, I recommend weedkiller. There are natural ways of killing weeds without chemicals but some might harm the soil. Since my knowledge of natural weedkillers is currently limited, I prefer to go for relatively safe chemicals. I use glyphosate herbicide. It comes in spray. When the chemical is applied on the above ground parts of weeds, it travels through the weeds and goes to the underground parts. The best feature of this chemical is there is no residual, that means it doesn’t remain on the soil even it’s sprayed on the soil. Glyphosate brakes down rapidly in the soil or water.
I said it’s a relatively safe chemical to use, but you still need to take care to prevent unwanted damages. Always read the label carefully.

If you have plants you don’t want to kill near the spraying area, use a paint brush on weeds instead of spray. A pet bottle can be useful too. Cut the bottom of it and cover the weeds with the bottle, a bit like creating a dome over weeds, then spray weedkiller from the top. In this way you can minimize drift spray reaching wanted plants. It is wise to use weedkillers on a calm sunny day instead of windy or rainy day, and also check with your local regulation for the usage of the chemical. I don’t use the dead weeds in my compost. The chemical might break down, but just for my peace of mind. It usually takes a week or less for weeds to die after spray, but you might need another application depending on how tough the weeds are.

2. Prepare the soil
Ideal soil for veggies has a loose, crumbly structure. The structure encourages absorbing and holding of water and nutrients while providing good aeration and drainage. Dig the soil to about 30 cm, try not to bring subsoil to the surface. Mix in animal manure or compost. Animal manure is, yes, smelly. Some manure needs decomposing time before you can plant young veggies. For those of you who cannot wait, use sheep manure that is very mild and won’t cause roots damage to young seedlings. If you have a few weeks to spear before planting, mix in organic matters like manure, blood & bone and some gradual complete fertilizer into the soil, and let them cook for a few weeks. Turn the soil over and loosen up the surface before planting.

Now your veggie patches are set. What veggies would you like to plan in there?