1. Is it too late to start a garden?
There are plenty of fall crops you can start now including radishes, lettuce, and spinach. Tulip, daffodil, and crocus bulbs can also be planted in September to allow them time to grow roots before the first frost.
Adding a garden to your house is a wonderful addition. They bring you outside more, teach your family where your food comes from, and provides fresh healthy food in a time where trips to the grocery store feel like a cleanup mission at Chernobyl its nice to be able to grab a salad from the backyard or some fresh herbs to throw on pasta or to top a sourdough bread!
Think about your time and how much time do you want to spend in your garden two 4x4 beds will take you about an hour a week to maintain and harvest from. It scales up from there and you can certainly find more reason to be in the garden but that's a good guideline to have.
Next pick a spot
Plants need three things soil, sun, and water.
You need at least 6 but ideally 8 hours of the morning sun. If you get a little less than that you could still grow some greens and root veggies but fruiting edibles ( such as tomatoes, squash, eggplant, peppers, and melons, etc..) need full sun.
Think about where the water is coming from. Most gardens need an inch a week of water. For a 9 inch pot, an inch isn't much but if you are watering 12 x 4 feet of the garden bed that adds up quickly, you want to be close to a hose or irrigation system.
Next, think about soil, it should be alive and happy and worms should want to live in it. There lots of options and methods to get that happy dark warm soil... - leaf mulch, compost, or garden soil ( coast of Maine is my fav!). When you hire a garden coach or garden designer often times they have a secret sauce their soil growing mix. I sure do.
Do you have wildlife that might eat your plants? If yes then think about a fence or you can make an inexpensive fence to keep critter out of your yard and the height will depend on the size of the animal ( rabbit can be kept out with a 3-foot fence, deer is going to be closer to 6 feet ( or more).
Next, where will you grow your garden?
There are a ton of ways to grow a kitchen garden. All you need is soil and seeds!
My preference for myself and my clients at Acton Food Forest is to grow in a combination of planters and cedar raised beds. I like to keep a few pots of herbs and greens by the kitchen window and then a raised bed or a group of them and a few fruit trees ( that's a time investment but in a few years when they start growing apples, pears, or peaches its awesome!:) This is called a lot of things a kitchen garden, edible landscape, living pantry, food forest, or potager style garden. I call it a kitchen garden ( you're growing food for the kitchen)
In the French kitchen garden or potager, gardeners have intermingled vegetables, fruits, flowers, and herbs since medieval times. If that's not an option or you want to try gardening out to see if it's for you there are many other options to get growing this season.
In-ground gardens are budget-friendly and as long as you take up the grass and add some high-quality compost you are good to go. Weeding, edging, and keeping out the grass will be the trade-off for an in-ground garden so its something to think about.
Other options are containers, raised beds ( which is a just very large container), or recycled container gardens can be a really fun way to easily grow good, you can plant into anything that holds soil! Some ideas I have seen are washer tubs, kiddie pools, sandboxes, tires, and old dresser drawers! If you are planting into something that you are unsure about if it is food safe stick to flowers or lines the bed with landscape fabric.
If you are interested in starting a garden and need help planning the space and material Acton Food Forest takes care of that for you. We offer garden designs and install everything so you can get to planting OR we can work with you to make sure your DIY garden is off to the right start. :)
