It’s the time of new starts and new goals. Perhaps your New Year’s resolution is a distant memory but that doesn’t mean you can’t plan for success in the garden. If you’ve been thinking of starting a veg plot but don’t know where to start, then you’re in luck because this is my ultimate-new-year-beginners-guide-to-starting-a-veg-plot-in-the-current-year. 

If You’re Going to Start, Start Small

If you’ve decided to buy a bike and cycle more this year, how would you go about it? Would you spend several thousand pounds on a carbon fibre mountain bike, bike rack, padded shorts, shoes, gloves, and a top of the range helmet? Or would you buy an affordable hybrid bike that you can take along your local cycle path?

What’s my point? If you want to start gardening (and this applies to lots of other things), then it’s OK to start small. By small, I mean a small plot in the back garden, a single raised bed, or a few containers. You don’t have to spend a lot of money: just a few seeds, a bit of soil or compost, some patience, and away you go. 

The other advantage with starting small is if you make a mistake and all your plants die/get eaten by pigeons/dug up by the neighbour’s cat then it’s no biggie. You haven’t lost lots of money or wasted a lot of time. 

You might be surprised by how much food you can grow in a few containers, or bags, or a small patch of soil. If you pick a few easy crops (more on this next issue), and learn about how to grow them well, you’ll be set to take on bigger and better things in the garden. 

To Raised Bed or Not to Raised Bed?

If you spend a long time (like me) scrolling gardening accounts on Instagram, you’ll have seen a lot of different raised beds. Raised beds are very popular but do you have to have a raised bed for garden veg plot? Let’s look at the pros and cons of raised beds.

Pros

• works well with ‘no dig’ gardening
  
• easier to work if you have restricted mobility
  
• looks pretty for Instagram pictures
  

Cons

• high initial cost vs traditional beds
  
• the edges dry out (wood wicks moisture away) so more watering required 
  
• slugs love to hang out at the edges and eat your plants
  

There isn’t a right or wrong answer for raised beds but for beginners, the high up front cost, and more maintenance is worth considering. I grow almost all of my veg in ‘semi-raised beds’ which are elevated strips of enriched garden soil. They don’t have edges so don’t dry out and I rarely have problems with slugs. 

Location, Location, Location

Where you site your veg plot is very important. Ideally it should be in a sunny part of the garden, away from trees or hedges (these take a lot of water, light, and nutrients away from other plants). If you have rectangular beds, these should be orientated north-south to maximise the amount of sun that the plants get. 

Similarly with containers – these should be in a sunny spot and easy to get to – you need to water containers a lot more than a vegetable garden so access to a hose or water butt is important.

Neil M. White lives in Perthshire with his wife and three children. He has worked in horticulture as a landscape gardener and in a tree nursery. Now a ‘hobby’ gardener, he spends most of his time growing fruit or veg. Juggling gardening, family life, and a day job, Neil also finds time to write – his latest book on gardening ‘The Self Provisioner’ was published in April 2020. Catch up with Neil on his Twitter feed.