Planning and Building Your First Vegetable Garden: Tips, Options, Ideas, and Principles to Know!

Watch this video before you build your first vegetable garden. It will help you get off to a great start growing food and having fun in your garden.

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Welcome to The Rusted Garden Homestead today’s video is really for people that are just thinking about starting vegetable gardening I want to go over all the tips things that you should know really before you plan your first Garden let’s start with the basic my Garden’s really large you absolutely do not need

A garden as large we’re going to walk through here so I can give you some examples on ways to grow different kind of growing beds Etc and I have a smaller Garden on the other side I’ll show you that first thing I want you to think

About is sunlight you’re going to hear a lot about plants needing eight hours of Sun you’ll see questions well can you grow anything in six hours of Sun can it be a little bit of sun in the day more sun in the afternoon and it gets a little bit confusing you definitely want

To make sure that the Earth that you’re planting in gets 8 hours of Sun and the way that you figure that out is you come out really probably 10:00 a.m. you know Mark out the space that you want to grow in look at it is it getting getting sun

Come out 2 hours later is it getting sun come out 2 hours later is it getting sun come out 2 hours later is it getting Sun if it’s getting coverage for at least 8 hours you can grow just about anything in your garden and you really want to start with

That you can see metal raised beds in here you don’t have to dig right into the Earth you can get metal raised beds I have plenty of videos showing you how to fill them up how to use them but you could just have a space you know something like this where I’m using

Metal raise beds for um fruit trees I have blueberries planted in there strawberries in the tubs and I grow peppers in here and you can kind of change it up how you wish the idea is that the design can be really whatever you want some people want to grow more vegetables some people

Want to grow more fruit you don’t need necessarily a large space believe it or not that’s an app that’s not an apple tree we have nectarines and we have dwarf plum trees in here by dwarf trees you can grow them right in your garden the trick to that is also knowing where

North south east and west is in your garden so behind me the sun rises and then it tracks this way this is south and then West is over there so the Sun comes predominantly in right through here and when you’re setting up your garden with fruit trees

You wouldn’t want to put the fruit trees right here because the sun is mostly out that way during afternoon it’s going to cast shade onto your growing bed so I put the trees in the back the shade goes back that way there’s no issue so I can

Grow these dwarf H varieties of fruit trees in here blueberry bushes Blackberry brambles maybe you don’t have a lot of space for growing in the ground vertical towers are a great way to grow if you check out the video description you can see my link to greenstock

Gardens you’ll get a discount I’ve been growing in these now for for 8 years they’re wonderful some of these have been here sitting in the sun 24/7 for over 7 years I grow strawberries in most of these now today is January 26th but it is 68° it feels

Like spring one of the towers I had cool weather crops in and I will teach you how to grow in all these but in this little footprint right here I have five Towers it can provide a lot of greens peppers fruit strawberries lettu uses all kinds of different vegetables and

Fruits and you can even put flowers in here and it’s good to work moving into this space you can see basic raised beds you can build them framed out of wood of course you saw the metal ones they’re a little bit more expensive but they are

Going to last for years and years like 10 15 20 years Wood’s good for about 5 to 10 years depending on what kind of wood you use the tip for growing in rais beds that you build you don’t want them to be be more than 4T wide cuz your feet

Your feet your arms are 2T wide so you can reach in from both sides work the ground get your plants in tend to it so you can go you know 4T by 8 ft which is what this is I think three of these is plenty for somebody just getting started

Four them is enough for a family of four you can really pack all kinds of different plants into there for instance again the sun is predominantly over there and I get more than 8 hours so the shade is going to go this way I put the

Taller tomato plants here I could do one tomato two tomato plants then I could put in four to six pepper plants and then I could grow maybe some zucchini or squash down there those are warm weather crops they would come in really here in middle of May but I could also use the

Space for coold weather crops putting in kale lettuce um broccoli radishes turnips so there’s a lot of different things you can do but for today I just want to talk about the basic setup you know for the beds so you want 8 hours of Sun you can decide on the number of beds

The kind of beds that you want you know a good size if you have to fence it in my fencing has wire in there that keeps the rabbits out if you have problems with deer with rabbits you are going to want some sort of fencing and again if you’re just getting

Started I think maybe 20 ft x 20 ft is plenty you can fit in several of the type of beds that you see now you can again it’ll be fenced it’ll keep the rabbits from getting in there trellising is a whole different video I have plenty

Of videos on that if you want to subscribe and follow me I’ll be talking about that these are just options now even though it’s 68° today we had an 8° day several days ago so a deep freeze came in here I’ll be cleaning up pulling out my cool weather crops they do pretty

Good even when it’s in the 20s but when that deep freeze comes there’s a little bit of an issue going to clean this all up and I’ll be ready for planting come spring you could send something up like this metal raised beds just in a little

Grouping and I think you kind of get the idea you don’t need all this space I even dropped a fruit tree in here cuz I had extra space that’s a dwarf apple I’m going to be growing cucumber plants up there and just give you a look from this

Side the whole key is to pick the space that is the best in your yard 8 hours or more of sun sometimes people are worried that they have clay soil you do not need to go and fix the soil down to depth like 2 ft down you can actually grow

Just right on top of clay soil with a no dig method I can teach you how to do that so you don’t need to over worry about your soil you don’t have to over worry about doing soil tests or anything like that if the space that you pick has

Grass and weeds and flowers and other things growing it’s going to be fine for the first year and you slowly build the soil over time and that’s a great way to save money where you don’t have to feel like you have to go in and make this

Perfect beautiful soil to to grow plants you don’t you just kind of have to get started so you’re picking the area that has the most Sun sometimes you might be on a little bit of a slope if you’re on a slope that’s okay you’re going to have

To you know you can grow on a slope that’s slight it’s really big you have to build to raise beds in a different way and bring soil in but a slight slope is all right drainage we’ve had a lot of snow this drains really well the best

Way to think about drainage is if you have a big Thunder storm rains hit your ground if the water’s gone in about an hour the drainage is just fine you don’t want to be planting necessarily where the water sits for days usually you can tell because the soil smells and again I

Just I want people to understand you don’t have to overthink the soil the space 8 hours of Sun when you’re picking the space when you have trees make sure you take into account the leaves on the trees so when you’re doing that check every 2 hours

You want to make sure there’s no shade coming in from the tree branches cuz when the leaves come in it’s going to cause problems this is a space that’s made up of fabric pots I sell these at my seed shop you can set up a garden like this where you’re filling fabric

Pots and these are made out of recycled plastic bottles the ones that would end up on the shore and you can see the different stuff growing in here of course you know it’s the end of January not much is going on but you can buy different Siz pots you can tomatoes

Peppers beans cucumbers squash zucchini broccoli cauliflower everything you want to grow you could grow in something like this in these um fabric pots they’re a lot cheaper than the metal raised beds they are cheaper than building them yourself out of wood and if you buy them small enough if

You’re in a place that’s maybe temporary you can pick them up and you can take them with you these are you know raised beds again in something like this these are usually about 3 ft by 6 ft right in here three of those these are fire Rings used for

Firewood you just drop them down I repurpose them into something for growing this is a good size if you’re just getting started you can grow plenty of things in here and I want you to kind of think as we walk through my garden this is you know one example of a small

Garden that would work you can even drop in some vertical Towers spinning back around let me go slowly this would be another example you could just use fabric pots in this space right here that’s going to work too we’ll step outside in a second and then spinning

Around this is my larger Garden we have a big walkway the wooden bed set up along there if you’re going to design something larger you need to make sure you can get a wheelbarrow down your path this is wide enough for wheelbarrow of course but as you come down here this is

Spaced I think I think maybe 2 ft but you want to just check that you can move any of your supplies or things you need through your path so you can get to the rest of your garden again I want to stress you don’t need to start with something this large

Just think of these as you know ideas that you can use in your garden let’s go out to the other garden and I don’t want to forget to say looking at the metal raised beds the wood beds that I made the vertical Towers you don’t have to spend money on

That that’s something you can get to maybe you don’t like the look maybe you’re on a budget you can just start with simple rows this is an example it’s a little bit overgrown with weeds but it’s about when it’s cleaned up 2 and 1/2 ft wide and it goes all the way down

There I’m growing kale under there that’s a way to protect the crops during the winter but you can just do a row like this 2 to 3 ft wide as long as you want 3 ft in between for a walking path another row as long as you want and you

Can plant that way too so you don’t have to spend the money on building up framed wooden beds or buying anything you can just set the soil up in nice long rows walking paths in between and plants grow just as well in that as they do in some

Of these different beds now you may choose the raised beds the metal raised beds for reasons like maybe you have unworkable soil you want to raise the soil level stuff like that but I just want to be clear so that you’re not you know shocked by the budget and buying

All that stuff you can just start with a simple row like this and build as many as you want if you don’t have animal pressure you can build something like this this is a combination of fabric pots metal beds in a small space and again this is

Enough space to really get started you won’t believe how many tomatoes you can grow pepper plants you can grow how many zucchini and squash you can get out of here cucumbers and something like this and you can really design it however you want because I have animal pressure I

Grow plants in here that aren’t really of interest to the deer and to the rabbits garlic onion Etc this is a no dig Garden this is probably 6 12 I don’t know 15 by 12 or something like that I have posts in the ground some cord going

Across with bells on it believe it or not that keeps the deer from getting out Small Deer might crawl in there but it keeps them out a bit it’s not 100% you know foolproof but if you’re in a budget maybe you don’t want to put up a

Fence this does work a little bit still rabbits could get in here grew peppers in here the no dig Garden is something I really like you lay down cardboard you put four 6 in of good quality soil in air compost and then you can plant right into that and then you

Just add more compost over time to your no dig bed and you’ve never you didn’t even have to turn it you could have some rocky soil into there you get have some clay soil in there but the plants are using that top 2 4 6 8 in and The Roots

Will grow into anything really so the plants are going to be okay I grow potatoes in here these are the remains of some pepper plants that you see another combination of metal beds and fabric pots again I want to point out there are no wooden beds in here no

Raised beds no metal beds you can just grow in the earth these are my potato rows you can see them a little bit like right in there and then there’s a walking path when this is up and going it’s beautiful you don’t have to spend a lot of money

I’m just using basic boards right there to walk through to tend the peppers on the left those are artichoke remains you see in the front and then like I said I was growing potatoes in here but you don’t have to overspend on the fabric pots the metal rais beds the wooden beds

The vertical Towers you can just grow right in the earth and this is more than enough for a family of four you can really pack in all the plants and if you want to subscribe I will teach you how how to grow just about everything in your

Garden every year I start in January with seed starts take the transplants out into the garden plant tend care for them Etc just did a video on this space here let’s pick this up this is a quick way to get ready for the spring this was a 4T X 4T space put

Down two layers of cardboard 4 to 6 in of cheap soil it could be soil from around your yard some Bag stuff you buy don’t buy potting mix it’s way too expensive just buy the cheap stuff some compost I have set it on here I’ll come

Back to this end of April beginning of may get it set up I’ll put transplants into here it’s a real easy way to kind of get your bed started probably the biggest thing I would say to people that are just getting started is to compost we tend to

Get more excited about getting out to the the garden figuring out what we want to grow and we forget about composting this is truly organic gardening buying all labeled packaged stuff or whatever is really expensive it’s not really organic gardening yes the products are organic but

Compost what do I mean by that this is just leaves and grass leaves and grass in a pen this is for dogs that I got off of Amazon built some different things you can check out my channel for more information on that but if you have the

Space before you even start your garden I recommend just building a 4tx 4ft pen whatever leaves you have from around your property right now throw them in there this could be ready in a year maybe 2 years but get started now because if you love gardening you’re

Going to need this kind of stuff to really have your garden Thrive you know you can’t have a Garden’s not going to thrive off of organic granular fertilizer you have to put in organic matter you have to put put in compost this is my compost that’s pretty much

Finished up I’ve been using it over the fall I’m almost done but I have it growing in other places and I understand if you don’t have space you know you can’t get composting um right away but if you do build the pen first four posts four feet apart some fencing around

There and just throw in leaves grass clippings Etc finally this is a garden that I repurposed from fencing that I found in my wooded area when I moved here it’s actually about 18 ft x 18 ft and in here you can fit a 4tx 4T raised

Bed 4X 6 two 4x4s some fabric pots still space that’s a little compost area that I’ll probably be moving out now I don’t need it anymore but this is plenty of space this kind of fence of course has holes in it you can put chicken wire along there keep the rabbits out deer

Could still jump in here but the tip for deer is they don’t want to jump from here and then land on something like this and break a leg so if you put your beds up against here you have different supports I use this for cucumbers different things for

Trellising the deer aren’t going to bother with it you know if they’re super starving yeah maybe otherwise they’re not going to want to jump over this just like a person’s not going to want to jump over it I think this is a nice design for somebody just getting started 18 ft by

18 ft that’s just how the you know the fencing was but 20×20 is perfect you could fit in another 4×6 raised bed right there another one right in there plenty of growing room so when you’re thinking about starting a garden you want to know where North is east south west is over

There to the left and that’s going to be how you figure out where you want your garden to be and the reason I want to stress the sunlight the placement is cuz once you build it once you set it up you can take care of the soil you can take

Care of the bed heads you can change designs but if you put in a fence you get everything set up it’s really hard to move your entire Garden so spend the time really picking a place that gets 8 plus hours of Sun nowhere the sun rises where the sun sets because again behind

Me and over to here is where the sun sits for most of the afternoon and I know the Shadows cast that way so that allows me to figure out where I might want to put in fruit trees where I want to put in my taller plants so they don’t

Shade out the other parts of the garden thanks so much for watching if you have questions about starting a garden please just leave it in the comments I’ll get back to you and please follow me I will teach you how to grow food and how to

Take care of an entire garden and check out my seed shop at The Rusted garden.com thanks for watching