Plan your best garden yet this year with these 10 simple steps! Watch below…

Thinking of starting a new garden this year? Or maybe you’re already an experienced gardener, but want to optimize your layout and garden success? This helpful video shares ten simple steps to planning the perfect vegetable garden. Just follow these guidelines to grow the most productive garden ever this growing season!

Planning ahead is key to garden success, so even though it may be a few months before the garden season starts (if you live in the Northern hemisphere), it’s not too soon to start planning your 2023 garden!

Here are several things you’ll want to consider as you get started:

1. Location, location, location!

Choosing the right location for your garden is essential for its future success. Sunlight is one of the most important factors when it comes to locating your garden. You’ll generally want as much sunlight as possible (unless you live in a hot climate), but at least 8 hours is ideal for most crops. But if you don’t have a spot like that, don’t worry – there are plenty of shade-loving crops you can grow as well!

2. Good soil

The next important factor to growing a great garden is your soil health. To be honest, you’re unlikely to have great soil in a new garden spot. But that’s okay! While building your soil up to optimal conditions may take a few growing seasons, there are plenty of things you can do to improve your soil right away and give your plants a good, healthy start.

Ideally, you’ll want to plant in an area that doesn’t get waterlogged every time it rains. However, you can also create raised beds to help deal with this issue – it’s just a bit more work to start.

3. Spacing

Whether you’re creating raised beds or simply planting in rows, you’ll want to keep spacing in mind. Be sure to leave plenty of room to move around in your garden, including pathways wide enough for a wheelbarrow or garden cart, and don’t make your beds so big that you can’t reach the middle from either side without stepping into the planting area (which you’ll want to avoid as much as possible as it will compact your soil and impact your plants’ health).

Drawing out your garden plan on paper, or using an online garden planner will be very helpful with this process.

4. Convenience

Speaking of making it easier to tend your garden, be sure you locate your garden near a water source for easy watering. This doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be right outside your front door. If you have a barn or shed, you can also locate the garden nearby that building, and set up a rainwater tank to collect free water for watering your garden. This is the method we use, and it works great – it’s just a simple tank up on blocks using a hose with gravity feed to deliver water to the garden!

5. Compost

Don’t forget to leave room for a compost heap or bin! This will make it easy to add compostable materials from your garden such as weeds and old, spent plants to your pile, which will turn into a naturally rich, organic soil amendment that you can add back to your garden next season.

Watch the video below for more helpful tips to get your 2023 garden off to a great start!