Container Gardening Archives

5 Proven Steps to Starting Your Veggie Garden

As Spring approaches, our thoughts turn to gardening.

Raised bed vegetable garden in the summer

Maybe you want to build a raised bed garden, put some containers on your deck, or add in-ground beds.

In this post, I share a snapshot of my solid step-by-step strategy to start a veggie garden that has been used by hundreds of people to start their garden.

Step 1: Your Garden Dream, Vision & Goals

For Step 1 it is important to take time to document your garden vision, what goals you have, and your garden as you have dreamed it.

Many folks don’t take the time to document this, so their dream garden becomes a vaporous ‘some day’ vague memory, vs actualizing the manifestation of their garden dream.

Lynn comes to mind. When she bought her house, they randomly put the shed and some garden beds in various places. Then she realized later that she had not considered what she really wanted out of her garden and it was kind of a mess. 😏

Step 2: Observation & Assessment 👀

To avoid making a mistake like Lynn. Or on choosing the best the type, size and location of the garden you put in that works for you – take some time to observe your space, light, water and other resources as well as your time.

This way you can be sure the garden you put in not only is in the best place, but also fits into your lifestyle, and that is where Step 2, Observation & Assessment comes in.

This is a critical step to be sure you get a garden that will work for you, and hence move you along that success pathway.

Once Lynn learned how to look at her yard, she was able to see what was happening to make good choices. 😀

Step 3: Building Healthy Living Soil

a raised bed is one choice for your veggie garden — Building awesome living soil in a raised veggie bed

Healthy living soil is the foundation of any garden, so building soil that will support your garden and grow plants for you is Step 3.

You probably know that chemical pesticides and fertilizers kill your soil, but did you know that tilling does too?

Tilling allows the carbon in your soil to be released into the atmosphere thereby depleting your soil of it.

This is why commercial conventional growers add fertilizers, because they have, by their actions, depleted it from their soil. The soil becomes nothing more than an anchor for the plants, but it is the life in the soil, that grows healthy lively plants.

Quality soil is loaded with life and will grow plants for you.

Remember that soil is 25% air and 25% water, so you want to build soil that will allow water and air to penetrate it.

Also, be sure to use your subsoil, whatever that is, because that is where the soil life lives.

Step 4: Choosing Quality Plants & Seeds

locally grown veggie plants — Get chemical-free plants

Step 4 of how to start a vegetable garden, is choosing quality plants and seeds for your garden.

This is the step that most people start with, and they often fail because they didn’t do the first three steps.

Learn clues for buying plants and seeds.

These include such as purchasing plants with a USDA Organic tag or from small local growers you know are chemical free.

Find quality seed companies to be sure they have signed the Safe Seed Pledge.

This shows they are committed to offering non-GMO seeds.

They may belong to organizations committed to organic growing and sustainable biodiverse practices.

Get my full list of ways to choose a good seed company:

Get my FREE Guide on How to Know What Seed Company is Best.

seed company criteria by debby ward, now to choose quality seed companies

Step 5: Garden Layout & Planting

learn garden layout — Organic veggie & flower garden

Then, in the last step to start your vegetable garden – that can include herbs and flowers too! – is when you get to design your garden and layout where plants will go in your gardens.

This is also when you do your seeding and transplanting.

Once you have done the fist four steps, you will be confident you have started the right type of garden for you and your lifestyle and put it in the best spot.

This way those young plants and seedlings have the best chance of providing you the yummy home grown produce you desire.

I hope this short overview has clarified how you can start a vegetable garden.

These steps showed Lynn how to start the vegetable garden she had envisioned, but hadn’t been able to manifest.

She how has a garden she loves, full of food and beauty. It has become her joyful sanctuary.

cover image of How to Start a Vegetable Garden Guide and Workbook

So you can do the same, I have created an e-book: How to Start a Vegetable Garden Guide & Workbook that provides your more support for my proven 5-step process to successfully start a vegetable garden.

The system works for any sized garden, from containers to acres.

You get a 12 worksheet pages in a 4- page e-book that includes design ideas and action steps to keep you on track and having fun.

e-book, how to start a vegetable garden guide and workbook what you get graphic

Get the Workbook & Guide to do these 5 Steps

May these still step illuminate the path for you to start the garden you have always wanted. -Debby

Gardening with Natives & Veggies – Part 3 – From a Native Gardener’s View

Debby WardLeave a comment

My native gardening friends tend to prefer the “low maintenance” of native perennials for their garden. They love to feed the wildlife and so do I, to a point.

My neighbor three doors down has a managed native meadow for a front yard and it is always fun to walk by and see what is blooming, or what birds are munching on the fall seed heads.

These are some of the delights of growing natives.

They are not so picky about what soil they have, if you add compost each season or what native they are planted next to.

Yet, the low maintenance native garden approach leaves more time for other endeavors, and this is where the native gardener can grow a few things for them to eat.

One of the challenges a native gardener might have is all the wildlife they attract. This can be viewed as a problem, but it is my experience that an abundant mix in the right places gives everyone bounty.

Adding Vegetables to a Native Garden

So here are my suggestions for native gardeners to add a few veggies for themselves without compromising their native gardens.

Native gardeners already tend to attract pollinators and other helpful insects to their gardens, which can give them an immediate advantage.

Containers on the deck.

Adding one, two or a few containers on your deck is the first place I would recommend growing some veggies, or herbs as a native gardeners.

This will not take up your native bed space, and be right out the back door for easy access.

It is also the place least likely to be visited by larger animal critters.

You can grow anything you like to eat in a container, so choose a couple things you live to eat and start there. You might want to give your tomatoes a screen to protect from birds, but small animals that would go onto your desk don’t tend to bother cucumbers, melons or squash.

Winter Squash & Pumpkins

Let winter squash and pumpkins meander through your native beds. These crops are super low maintenance too.

They have a long “days to maturity”, meaning it takes a long time for them to ripen. You can put in the plants, let them ramble and harvest them in autumn. Then you’ll have some yummy squash in storage to enjoy all winter.

Add in a small fenced veggie garden close to one of your flowering native beds. Adding in a small veggie garden, with protection from wildlife can bring much joy and healthful food to your table.

It is satisfying to sit at your table, eating some fresh picked veggies and watching all the buzz of life in your native garden beds. If you are new to veggie gardening, and want some tips, get in touch, I’d be happy to help!

Hope you have enjoyed this three part series on growing natives and veggies. If you missed a part:

Part 1 covered three reasons to grow both natives and veggies.
In Part 2 we looked at the topic from the point of view of the veggie gardener, and
Here in Part 3, we saw three ideas for native gardeners to add some veggies.

Happy gardening, and if you have any topics you’d like me to cover, let me know.

Container Garden Master Class

Debby WardLeave a comment

Hi folks,

Times are weird, just weird. As we adjust to the new normal, many folks are concerned about their food supply and wanting to start a garden. Along with this desire, is trepidation for many about going out to stores.

Debby here, with my gift to you during this odd and different time. Enjoy a Master Class to “Start Your Container Garden”.

In this Free Mini-Course You’ll get:

Three Sessions plus Bonus material
Three 10 min-ish videos
Proven 5 Step Process to Start Your Container Garden
Resource Links
Professional Instruction
PLUS: one 20 Minute Organic Gardening Coaching & Discovery Call is included

Yes, it is free, we all need to help each other out now.

Get the Course

Great Garden Soil

Debby WardLeave a comment

Hi folks,

I’ve had several clients and new students ask about garden soil. It seems many folks that have tried to garden have wanted to quit because their garden didn’t do well. Most times it turns out it was their soil that was at issue.

Soil is the foundation of our garden and can grow our plants for us. I have put together a 5 Day Free email course on soil, so you can transform your understanding of good garden soil, to begin to transform your garden.

Yes – I want the Free Email Soil Course

Dealing with Extreme Heat, part 1

Debby WardLeave a comment

Learn How to Grow Soil & Water in one Simple System

Plants can withstand heat better when they are grown in high quality living soil.

Build Living Soil Master Class

Vibrant Living Soil is the foundation of your thriving soil because it grow plants for you.

Get the Master Class

Growing Great Blueberries

Debby Ward1 Comment

Enjoy home grown blueberries — Blueberries ripening on the bush

Blueberries are very satisfying and easy to grow.

They can cost a pretty hefty amount at the store and are really easy to grow here in the mid-Atlantic area of the US.

Blueberries are native here, so even if you choose to grow cultivar varieties which produce larger fruit like I do, you can be assured they like this climate.

Blueberries are beautiful in the landscape, having white or pink flowers in spring and bright red, yellow or bronze foliage in autumn.

There are two types of blueberries: high bush & low bush. Low bush are generally grown in northern climates like Maine and Canada. High bush are generally grown further south and the ones mostly grown in Virginia gardens.

A question I am often asked is: Should I buy them in a container or bare root?

Either is fine.

It is best to only have bare root plants shipped vs. container grown because shipping container grown plants is pricey.

Bare root plants are grown in the nursery for a few years (a good company will tell you how old the plants will be that you are ordering) dug up in the dormant months, kept cool and shipped in spring.

Container grown plants would be obtained locally.

Currently, we do not have a good source of container grown blueberries locally. The nursery we liked is going out of business because the owners are retiring. Many local nurseries sell blueberry bushes for short, limited time in early spring. Be sure and ask them if their plants are sprayed with

grow fruit at home — Heavy fruit load not yet ripe

loads of chemicals that could kill your pollinators, including the neonicotinoids that have been so much in the news lately.

To get a great selection, we recommend ordering bare root from RainTree Nursery. They sell 2-to-3 year old blueberry plants that are good sized, at least 18” tall and bushy.

When buying blueberry plants, be sure to buy at least two varieties for pollination. Also check the ripening dates, choosing two bushes each of three varieties can extend your harvest and give you a very healthy crop.

Popular varieties include the old time ‘Jersey’, which has bright yellow leaves in autumn and ‘Bluecrop’ which has red fall color. Another yellow fall colored variety is ‘Bluegold’, which is popular with smaller space gardeners because the bushes are more compact at 4’ high. Most highbush blueberries are 6’ high. ‘Bluegold’ and ‘Earliblue’ can start your blueberry season off, then follow on with ‘Blueray’ for mid season and ‘Elliot’ or ‘Libery’ for late season fruit. We also really like ‘Patriot’ and ‘Northland’ as they has done very well for us.

growing blueberries — Blueberries that made it to the bowl

Container gardeners might like to try the cute ‘Top Hat’ that only grows to 18”. You can choose a variety that grows to 4’ for container culture and use a larger container.

In ground, space your blueberries as far apart as their listed mature height. So, if a variety is listed as 6′ high, plant them 6′ apart, or a little farther, if you have room, for good aeration and light.

Three important notes about growing blueberries:

Choose a sunny location. Although blueberries grow in partial shade, they need full sun to produce lots of berries.
Plant them separate from your annual vegetable garden because they have different soil requirements. Blueberries want acidic soil, unlike your annual veggies. A good mulch for blueberries is pine needles.
Plant your blueberries where they will naturally get plenty of water because they are shallow rooted plants. You can dig swales to capture water for your blueberries in heavy rains.

One last note, invest in a few post and bird netting so you get your crop instead of the birds.

Hope this inspires you to try growing some blueberries at home, whether you want to eat them fresh or make summer blueberry ice cream, they are an easy and satisfying perennial crop to grow.

Mix it up! Companion Plant your Annual Vegetable Garden

Debby WardLeave a comment

Make the most of your garden space by mixing flowers and herbs with your annual vegetables.

Backyard Foodscape incorporates flowers and herbs along with vegetables.

Pairing the right plants together, those that gardeners have observed grow well together, allows plants to do some of your garden work for you. This accomplishes several functions as we can see…

One classic example showing some ways plants work together is the native American corn/beans/squash combination:

Poll beans climb up the corn stalk, so the corn is the support, or trellis, for the bean. So the corn just saved you from building a pole bean trellis. The bean is a member of the legume family of plants. This plant family are what are called ‘nitrogen fixers’, which means they capture nitrogen and store it in nodules on their roots, making it available for other plants to take it in. Corn is a heavy nitrogen feeder, so in exchange for the support the corn gives the beans, the beans feed the corn. The beans just saved you from having to add something to feed your corn. The squash plants wind all around the base of the corn and beans, providing them shade cover to keep moisture in the soil longer for all of them. The squash just saved you from watering as much or putting down mulch to hold moisture in the soil. A couple nice additions to this already cool combo are:

Sunflowers in the mix to also support beans and provide seeds for humans and birds.
Nasturtiums attract a ‘beneficial bug’ called hoverflies. Beneficial bugs are so named because they prey on other bugs that like to eat your food, although, in a diverse ecosystem, all bugs are beneficial to maintain balance. Hoverflies like to eat bugs like aphids and thrips. Nasturtiums repel loads of critters who want to eat your crops including: cabbage loppers, worms and weevils; squash, cucumber and bean beetles and more. In addition, the leaves and flowers are edible!

Companion planting is a good way to design your garden beds. See what plants go together and plant in those combinations. Start with simple combinations and then get more complex over time. Good places to start are:

tomatoes/lettuce/onions/marigolds/parsley
peppers/basil/marigolds/chamomile
peas/carrots/lettuce
bush beans/potatoes/flax
cucumbers/radishes/nasturtiums/dill

Squash & Nasturtiums. Nasturtiums are good companions for not only cucumbers, but also squash and melons.

Another reason to use companion planting is it makes a beautiful garden, as these photos show, and remember, beauty is food too!

Container gardeners, you can do this too! The same combinations apply, either in the same container, or containers that are next to each other.

I’ll write more companion planting, so check back.

Container Garden your Way to Yummy Food

Debby Ward1 Comment

grow great tomatoes at home — Container Grown Gold Roma Tomatoes

Happy Spring!

Tis the season we starting dreaming of gardening – what don’t have much time or space to garden?

No problem – Container garden.

Container gardening is a great place to start gardening and easy to add if you are an experienced gardener.

For the new gardener, it allows you to learn on a small scale. It is often where I recommend people start gardening, especially those who feel overwhelmed by gardening for the first time.

Experienced gardeners (and all of us really) can enjoy the convenience a container garden can provide, consider…

… 5 Reasons why container gardening is a great idea:

It doesn’t take much space
You can move the containers to where the sun and rain are
You don’t have a big area to maintain
You can grow loads of food
You can grow food year round

Lets take a peek at each of these 5 reasons.

Get Great Organic Garden Tips & a Free Workbook

Container gardens can be a various sizes and shapes and tucked into or onto most any place, making they great for small space gardening. Even if you have a large yard, growing food on your deck is convenient.

Live in a townhouse where the sun is limited. You can move your container garden around from place to place to follow the sun, getting more or less light depending on what you are growing. You can move them under the eves in a big rain storm, or under the sky if they need watering.

Many people seem to not have much time these days, so having a smaller area to maintain fits with many people’s lifestyles and still allows them to eat some food from their own place.

You can get a huge yield from a well planted container garden. Amazing really how much bounty you can haul in. You can grow pretty much anything you would grow in the ground in a container.

All those crops that grow in fall and winter can grow in containers too, so you can four season garden !

Get Great Organic Garden Tips & a Free Workbook

5 Garden Design Tips

Debby WardLeave a comment

Fall & Winter is the best time to do your garden planning.

Many gardeners just do the same thing they have always done, planting in rows, or adding the same plants to their container garden.

Here are 5 tips to help you get more from your garden design:

Plan out our garden spaces before you buy seed or plants to maximize your investment.
Learn what plants grow well together. This is called companion planting and will help you to avoid stressed or weakened plants.
Build your soil into a thriving living ecosystem that grows plants for you.
Find out what varieties grow well in your area to increase your success.
Start with quality organic seeds and plants from trusted sources

Want someone else to design your garden? … I offer design services, so you get to do the fun part – plant! Learn more.

Fall in the Garden

Debby WardLeave a comment

As we enjoy the beautiful and bountiful time of fall, there are several things we can do in the garden during this time when the weather cools down.

prepairing the fall hoop house — Hoop house prep, partially planted and preping to plant more

Get your hoop houses ready for the coming frost. If you have not already, decide which beds you want to hoop over winter. If you are container gardening, choose what containers you would like to cover.

Cold frames and hoop houses used last spring can be cleaned out and used to put seedlings before they go into the ground, or, simply readied to take plants out to extend your season. Lettuces can grow past frosty nights if protected, so you can sow some now for baby greens this fall from your protected garden areas.

If you want to create a garden for next year, or expand what you have, now is a great time to begin that process so nature does some of the work for you.

If you have bees, this is the time to check and see how they are storing honey and pollen for the winter and, depending on your mindset, be feeding them. There are still some great stands of goldenrod around for them to gather from.

potatoes dug from the garden — Potatoes from the garden

Fall is also the time to dig potatoes, beets, carrots and other root crops.

You can still order your garlic to plant in mid to late October.

As you harvest your pumpkins and winter squash, pull out your spent spring and summer plants, store your harvest and put all that green matter either on your compost pile or directly back onto the beds as mulch. If you had unwanted bugs on your plants, the heat of the compost pile next spring will kill any of their larvae that might be on the plant leaves.

And remember not to leave your garden beds exposed over winter, so pile those leaves on top and use them for mulch around the crops you are overwintering !