How do I start a vegetable garden?

The main reason new vegetable gardens fail is scale. An ambitious plot needs consistent attention through the busiest months, and a neglected one becomes weeds and disappointment. A small bed that succeeds teaches more, and expands naturally, than a large one that doesn't.

What you'll need

• A sunny site
• Raised bed, containers or a cleared area
• Compost or topsoil
• Basic tools: spade, trowel, watering can
• Seeds or young plants

Step by step

1. Find the sunniest spot you have.Most vegetables want six hours of direct sun or more. Sunlight is the constraint you can't work around.
2. Start with one bed of about 1.2m × 2.4m, or a few large containers.1.2m wide means you can reach the middle from both sides without standing on the soil.
3. Make sure there's water nearby.If watering means carrying cans across the garden, it won't happen reliably in July.
4. Fill with good soil and compost, or improve what's there with plenty of organic matter.Soil quality determines almost everything. This is where the money is best spent.
5. Choose crops you actually eat, that are expensive to buy.Salad leaves, herbs, tomatoes, courgettes, beans, chillies. Skip potatoes and onions in a small space — they're cheap and take up room.
6. Buy young plants rather than seed for the first year.It removes the germination stage, which is where most first-year attempts fail, and gets you to a harvest faster.
7. Plant successionally rather than all at once.Sowing salad every fortnight beats sowing a whole packet and having forty lettuces at once.
8. Mulch the bed to reduce weeding and watering.It's the single biggest labour saver, and it improves the soil at the same time.
9. Keep a simple record of what you planted, when, and how it did.By year three it's more useful than any general advice, because it's about your garden.

Tips

• One courgette plant produces more than most households can eat. Two is a mistake almost everyone makes once.
• Herbs are the highest-value thing to grow — expensive to buy, mostly wasted when bought, and easy to keep going.
• Water in the morning where you can. Evening watering leaves foliage damp overnight, which encourages disease and slugs.
• Expand in year two based on what worked. Ambition is better spent on the second season than the first.

Common mistakes

• Starting too large — A big plot needs consistent attention in the busiest months. Abandoned plots are the commonest outcome of an ambitious start.
• Growing things you don't eat — It's a surprisingly common trap, and the harvest goes to waste.
• Siting the bed away from water — Watering becomes a chore and stops happening exactly when it matters most.
• Sowing whole packets at once — Everything is ready simultaneously and most of it is wasted.

Questions people ask