How To Grow A Garden

Growing a vegetable garden is fairly simple you give your plants what they need when they need them and the proper environment to live in and they give you fruit and vegetables at the end of the season. You can plant a garden directly in the ground in your backyard or what have you but as a lot of people now don't have large yards to give so much space I prefer raised garden beds. For these raised garden beds I like to use raised garden bed corners

Raised Garden Bed Corners

Raised garden bed corners are simply powder coated aluminum flanges. When you have whatever size lumber for the raised garden beds you would like, you simply slide the ends into the aluminum flange that fits that size lumber and screw it on. Then you go on to the next piece until you have a square garden box. You can use posts instead of the raised garden bed corners but it is a lot simpler and faster not to mention looks a lot more professional if you use the corners. So with literally a few screws you will have your garden box built. 

     Another option is to have your whole bed raised up instead of sitting on the ground. This is great for older people or younger people who have had back problems and things like that. What you do is you build the beds on 4 by 4 legs with the top being about waist high and make sure you put thick plywood on the bottom and cut drill some holes in it to allow the water to run out to the ground below. For sideboards use the same as before 2 by 12 or 2 by 10's should do it. Remember though that all of that soil especially when whet is very heavy so I would put about six 4 by 4 legs on each 4 by 8 garden box and cross brace it to allow more anchor points to attach the bottom. This will help with the extra weight of the soil.

Garden Soil

Now for the fun part. you need to fill your boxes with soil for growing your garden. You can go and have a company deliver a load of soil to your driveway and wheelbarrow it to the backyard or buy it by the bag. If you buy it by the bag it will be quite a bit more expensive but you can get exactly what you want and as much as you need no more no less. Fill the box or boxes to a little below the top and wet it all down. Not soaking but good and wet it should soak in pretty good and be nice and loose since it's newly placed soil.

Choosing Plants For Your Garden

Choosing plants for your garden, a lot will depend on where you live and what types of vegetables you like to eat. If you live in a place that stays frozen late in the year that will determine some of the plants that you can grow. On the other hand if it's fairly mild where you live you may be able to grow something most of the year. So, decide what you like to eat and get your kids involved in this make it a family thing they will enjoy seeing where their food comes from and helping with it all.

Once you've decided what to plant in your garden get your seeds and read how they need to be planted. some plants need three feet between each plant and such i'm thinking melons and things like that and others can be planted close like corn. Since you are probably working with four by eight or so boxes plant them a lot closer than three feet and see what happens you may be surprised.

Watering Your Garden

     After you put the plants in or seeds whichever you need to water them everyday at first to get them going. Once they start growing well cut back on the water to every other day or so and your plants will still grow but with a lot less work and also some plants like tomatoes, too much water causes problems. Also some things like melons get mold from too much water. So the main point here is like I stated at the top give your plants what they need and not too much of it and you will have healthier plants overall.