How to Grow Vegetables: A Beginner Guide

What do you think about having your plucked fresh vegetables? Do you have some space at home? Want to grow vegetables at home without a lot of fuss? Does this idea fancy you? If yes is your answer, then this article is for you. Keep on reading.

Do you know that you can grow vegetables in your home garden? Yes, some vegetables can be grown in the garden, and you can fill up your plates with freshly plucked vegetables straight from the home garden.

If you’re tired of eating frozen vegetables dubbed like organic vegetables, but not organic at all, then grow your own fresh and juicy vegetables in the garden.

All you need is a perfect soil bed, seeds, optimum condition, and a bit of patience. Now you don’t need to shell out extra coins from your pocket to eat fresh vegetables grown in home garden.

Let’s grow your vegetables at home by following this stepwise guide. In this guide, we’ll provide you with every single detail about how to grow vegetables at home in your garden space and what kind of vegetables can be grown into the pots?

Where to Grow Vegetables

The first step to growing juicy and fresh vegetables is finding the right location.

Like flowers cannot blossom into the dark and undernourished soil similarly, vegetables do not grow optimally in unfavorable locations.

Yes, it’s crucial to choose the right location to grow the highly nutritious vegetable.

So, here are some of the tips that help find the right locations to grow vegetables at home.

1. Find the Perfect Bright Sunny Spot

To grow healthy and fresh vegetables, you need to keep them under the sunlight for at least 6-8 hours.

However, some veggies cannot tolerate the sunlight for more than 6 hours. So, you have to choose an ideal location where sunlight cannot exceed more than 6 hours.

2. Avoid Windy Places

A pleasant wind can make your plants smiley. But avoid the places where the plants encounter strong winds because it may knock out your fruiting plants.

Also, grow your vegetables in the garden areas where you roam around the most.

3. Nutrition Rich Soil

You need to grow your vegetables on nutrient-rich soil for healthy and nutrition-rich soil. Hence, before sowing the seeds into the soil, do a soil test and check the quality.

If it is not correctly fit, enrich it with the nutrients and fix the pH level by adding lime.

Read this guide to prepare the soil to grow plants.

4. Soil That Drains Well

When choosing the ideal location to grow the vegetables, ensure that the soil must drain well.

Make sure it doesn’t hold water for longer as it may result in rotted roots. Soil with poor draining quality does not support the optimum growth of the vegetables.

And that’s how you can choose the right location to grow vegetables at home garden easily.

What Vegetables to Grow

Just because you’ve garden space doesn’t mean that you’re good at growing all kinds of vegetables.

Keep in mind that not all vegetables grow in similar patterns and grow perfectly in all locations. Therefore, you need to have some patience and find easy growing vegetables initially.

For instance, first, monitor the geographical location and find out what kind of vegetables can be grown in your garden. To begin with, you can start by picking easy growing vegetables such as:

Green beans
Lettuce
Tomatoes
Radishes
Bell peppers
Chilies
Peas
Spinach

Additionally, follow these tips to choose the best vegetables that can be grown in your location ideally.

1. Go With Your Favorite Veggies

Your taste and choice matter. So, if you like to grow your favorite veggies, don’t bother to plant them.

However, keep in mind that your location does support their growth. If not, then create the optimum condition before planting.

2. Consider Those Vegetables That You Buy the Most

If you have the habit of buying certain vegetables over and over again, then do not hesitate to choose them.

In addition to this, choose the veggies your family members love to eat the most. Go with herbs like epazote herb and small vegetables to be grown easily in the home garden spaces.

3. Do Not Ditch Plants in Changing Season

Planting vegetables out of season requires extra care and protection. Therefore, make sure to create the ideal condition for your vegetable plants; otherwise, they may not survive longer.

For instance, if you want to grow vegetables in the spring season but that grow well in summer, make sure to create the optimum temperature, pH, and nutrients into the soil. This helps the crop to grow optimally even in the offseason.

4. Always Bring High-Quality Seeds

Seeds that are not favorable for growth are a big no. So, always bring high-quality seeds that can germinate well.

High-quality seeds may cost you, but it would be great to grow the best vegetables of all time. By choosing the right quality seeds, you’ll be able to cultivate high-quality, nutrient-loaded vegetables.

Now, you know what and how to choose vegetables to grow at home. It is time to plan a garden layout to grow vegetables at home with ease.

How to Plan Vegetable Garden Layout

Different vegetable plants grow well in different kinds of layouts. They need space to grow and to expand.

At the same time, some veggies can be grown in a small space. No matter whatever be the condition, first create the garden layout.

There are two basic cropping layouts which you can choose to grow vegetables.

Layout 1. Intensive Cropping

Intense cropping is perfect for enhancing the productivity of the garden. In the cropping pattern, you can choose two to four plants close to each other in one soil bed.

It should be at least 4 feet wider. The seeds must be sown, so the leaves barely touch the maturity.

This method uses nearly every inch of the compacted soil, functions well for most veggies, except cucumbers. The disadvantage of this approach is that because the crops are grown close enough, you must prune them by hand.

Moreover, you can choose the square foot methodology to grow the vegetable plants in the home garden.

In this, you need to subdivide the soil bed into four x4 feet and leave 1 foot for physical grids like lattice strips. This is a whole new version of intensive cropping.

Additionally, you can start with eight cubic feet of garden soil with a high nutrient that adequately supports plant growth.

The trick is simple: choose one extra-large size plant on each square foot, four plants per square, and 16 small plants. For optimum growth, you can combine two different size plants simultaneously.

Layout 2. Row Cropping

Plants should be arranged in a single line in columns at least 30 cm apart to allow easy walking between plants.

Rows simplify things to utilize mechanical equipment, including tillers, to combat weeds; hence this method is best for extensive vegetable gardens.

The disadvantage is that the amount of land set aside for walkways limits the number of veggies you may plant.

And might not be possible if you do have not much space available in your home garden.

How to Prepare Soil to Grow Vegetables

It is very important to know how you can prepare the soil to have high-quality and nutrient-rich vegetables.

Below is an extensive guide that will help you to prepare the soil to grow vegetables at home:

1. Start Planting Vegetables in Nutrient-Rich Soil

Here, vegetables grow well in nutrient-rich soil, so you must choose soil accordingly. Thus, healthy soil is something that supports the growth of plants.

In addition to this, the soil is easy to drain, has nutrients, adjusted pH, and supports plant growth adequately.

2. Mix Sandy Soil for Perfect Texture

To test the soil, you can take the soil into your hands and crumble it. If it is gritty, clay or sandy, then do ensure to choose the soil that has the ideal texture to support plant growth.

Keep in mind that the texture of the soil can affect the growth of the plant. You can improve the soil texture by adding organic matter into the soil.

If the soil is gritty, add some sandy soil to it. An ideal soil is easy to crumble and drains water easily.

The sandy soil is made up of large particles, so it creates optimum texture when you mix it with gritty soil.

This makes the soil fit to support vegetable growth and helps to retain the moisture for a longer time.

3. Composting with Clay Soil

Clay soil is densely packed and holds moisture for longer. However, clay soil doesn’t allow the plant roots to receive air properly.

Hence, adding compost into the clay soil to grow plants would be great. This helps loosen the soil and create pores so plant roots will receive adequate air and moisture.

However, if you’re unaware of the soil type, then take the soil sample at the certified lab to detect the soil type.

Last but not the least, add the compost as required for the growth of the crop. Apply NPK to enrich the soil with vital nutrients. Do not use the freshly tilled soil as it doesn’t have the ideal texture to grow the crop.

4. Leave Soil Bed for Few Weeks

Leave the soil for a few weeks once you are done with manuring and composting. This helps the soil recover from the loss of nutrients and helps the vegetable plants to grow optimally.

Leaving the soil bed for weeks can also help settle the compost and make your soil perfect for growing vegetables.

If you keep things in mind while preparing the soil to grow vegetables at home garden, you need not worry. You will see nutrient-rich and juicy vegetables at the time of harvest.

Control Pests on Vegetable Plants

You can’t ignore the pests and diseases when growing vegetables. Sometimes, the unwanted plants growing near the vegetables can harm them and invite diseases.

We fall ill with the microbes; similarly, plants are affected by pests and insects.

Hence, you need to take preventive steps to control diseases and pests. Here’s a quick guide on how to prevent vegetable plants from pests and diseases:

1. Pull Out Weeds

Weeds growing near vegetables can affect the growth of plants. It consumes the nutrition that you are supplying to your vegetable plants.

It is crucial to get rid of the weeds before it affects the plant’s growth. Hand plucked the weeds. You can also use weedicide to control the growth of the weeds.

2. Throw Insects Out of Garden

Caterpillars and insects can destroy the growing crops. So, prevent them from spoiling your crops. Large insects can be thrown out manually.

However, if the insects are numerous, then insecticidal spray would be ideal for killing them.

Pest control chemicals are also an excellent alternative. People these days prefer to have organic crops, so you can also go with the biological control method for pest control.

3. Deal With Fungal Diseases

Fungus diseases are inevitable, and you can’t ignore them as they may affect plant growth and damage the entire plant.

So, timely you need to sprinkle the fungicide to avoid the fungal infection.

If you find the plant infected with the fungus, cut the part infected with fungal diseases. Do not add the fungal part into the soil because it may spread and affect other plants.

To avoid spraying fungicides, choose the disease resistance variety of the vegetables. It may cost you extra but cut down the cost of spraying fungicides. Ultimately, it balances the overall cost.

4. Keep Grazing Animals Away from Garden

Some animals can graze into the gardens like rabbits, small rodents, and others. It is better to create fencing around the garden areas.

A wiring fence would be better to keep the small animals away from the garden areas and protect your vegetables.

Make sure that you follow everything we have mentioned above to prevent your beloved vegetable plants from pests, insects, and diseases.

What Vegetables You can Grow Easily

Garden areas may be fit to grow vegetables, but it doesn’t support all kinds of vegetables.

Some vegetables require extra care and grow well in open fields instead of gardens.

So, here are some of the vegetables that can be grown easily in the home gardens.

1. Spinach

Spinach is the most straightforward vegetable that can be grown in the garden area during the spring season.

It grows faster and requires minimum care. So, you can grow spinach into the garden areas easily.

2. Green Chillies

Chilli can be grown easily into pots and garden spaces. It doesn’t affect extreme sunlight and survives excellently in harsh environmental conditions.

The best thing is it doesn’t require water, so it would be perfect for growing in the garden spaces.

3. Tomatoes

Tomatoes can be grown into pots and also in the garden areas. It consumes less space, but you need to take care extra.

The baby plants can get affected by the fungal attack and white bugs. So, you need to apply insecticide and fungicide timely.

4. Garden Peas

You can grow the pea into the garden areas. The lifecycle of the pea plant is short and very easy to maintain. You can grow them in all seasons but are best suited in moderate climate seasons.

5. Beet Root

Beet Root can also be grown into small space garden areas. However, it requires rich soil and a lot of care as it is prone to insect attack.

You can also grow if you take little extra care:

1. Brinjal

2. Pumpkins

3. Potatoes

Will you Grow Vegetables

In a nutshell, growing vegetables in the home garden can be fun but require care and attention.

But it is all worth it when you get fresh and juicy vegetables to eat right from the comfort of your home.

Now, you’ve got the complete guide on how to grow vegetables at home garden, it is time to follow the guide and start growing vegetables of your own choice.

If you have any confusion related to growing vegetables at home, do connect with us. We will help you solve it as soon as possible.