How To Get Your First Family Garden Ready For Success!

Part 1

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Benefits of a family garden

Are you debating if you should start your garden? There are so many good reasons why you should. Here are a few reasons:

Sustainable living and providing for yourself:

What an incredible feeling it is to be able to grow your organic vegetables while reducing your footprint on our planet. Plus, there are certain veggies your dog will love too. My favourite is bell pepper and carrots.

Saving money:

With food costs constantly rising, It is great having the opportunity to pick fresh vegetables right at your fingertips. Doing so will also reduce waste.

It’s a great hobby and family activity:

You will get a lot of vitamin D while spending family time taking care of the garden outside. I love relaxing in the sun and watching my human work.

Are you convinced yet?

Great! The first step in preparing your garden is to plan it! To make sure is project is a success,  let’s go over what you need to know before putting on your gloves and digging into the soil.

3 Tips to prepare your family garden:

TIP 1: Choose the vegetables you love

First, make a list of the vegetables you love to eat. It would be a waste to grow vegetables you will not end up eating.

TIP 2: Start small

Don’t get too ambitious by trying to grow too many varieties of vegetables at the beginning. Choose a few. The boys chose 3-4 different vegetables they wanted to grow. It will be their job to read how to take care of them. When you experience success, then you can expand your family garden. Choose plants that are easy to grow in your climate. Here is a list of vegetables you could start with :

• Lettuce: There are a lot of varieties, and they are easy to find at your local garden nursery. We find ours at Home Hardware. They carry many types such as romaine, iceberg, buttercrunch, etc.

Tip: planting garlic or chives between lettuce bunch will help reduce pests off your crops.

• Spinach: This is one of the easiest plants to grow. We did not plant these this year as only my Mom and Dad eat them. They can survive the cool weather too.

• Green Beans: They will grow an abundant harvest. Here in New Brunswick, Canada, we will only start them later on as they will grow fast.

• Cucumber: They are different types of cucumbers. They are one of my family’s favourites.

• Zucchini: My family enjoys these on the BBQ during summertime. My Mom read that it is recommended to start them indoors.

• Carrots: The root vegetable can’t be started in small pots as they need to grow.

Tip: Don’t overcrowd the seeds. They need space to grow.

• Bell Peppers: They are effortless to grow. There are different types and colours. Seeds are easy to find as well. Benjamin wants to try to grow Hot peppers too. I’ll update you in our next blog if we find some.

Tip: They don’t like the cold, so wait until the last frost before planting them outdoor.

• Tomatoes: There are different types of tomatoes. My family consumes tomatoes year around.

Tip: Don’t plant bell peppers and tomatoes beside each other. It will change the taste of your tomatoes due to pollination from the bees.

TIP 3: Design idea

Now that you have decided what seeds to buy, it is time to choose the location and the design of your garden. You might want a raised planter or vertical garden, depending on your space. You have to make sure that they will get plenty of sunlight. Here is what we have chosen for our family. We will have four raised planters, one for each boy. Check my Mom’s sketch :

My Mom made a Free Printable Garden Package just for you so you can get your first family garden ready for success.

Final Thoughts

Now that you have chosen the vegetables you love and have an idea of your garden design and location, it’s time to pick up your seeds. We can’t wait to guide you on how to start seeding indoors in our next blog. We will also see which vegetables are good companions and grow better side by side and which ones are bad companions. In the meantime, please share with us your garden experiences or questions.

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