Kitchen Garden Layouts

In this comprehensive guide, we cover how to start a vegetable garden from scratch, which vegetables to grow, and when to plant what. We’ve also added a “starter” garden plan consisting of easy-to-grow vegetables, companion planting techniques, and some lovelyflowers!

Why garden, you ask? How about enjoying the best vegetables and fruit you’ve ever eaten? If you’ve never tasted garden-fresh food, you will be amazed by the sweet, juicy flavors and vibrant textures. There’s absolutely nothing quite like fresh veggies, especially if you grow them yourself—which you can!

It may seem daunting at first, but gardening is a very rewarding hobby. On this page, we’ll highlight the basics of vegetable gardening and planning: how to pick the right site for your garden, how to create the right-size garden, and how to select which vegetables to grow.

How To Plan The Best Layout For Your Vegetable Garden

Picking a good location for your garden is absolutely key. A subpar location can result in subpar veggies! Here are a few tips for choosing a goodsite:

One of the most common errors that beginners make is planting too much too soon—way more than anybody could ever eat or want!Unless you want to have zucchinis taking up residence in your attic, plan your garden with care. Start small, and only grow what you know you and your family willeat.

As a beginner, start by choosing easy vegetables that are also productive.We’ve listed some of the easiest vegetables for beginners below. Most are best started by seeds planted directly into the soil, unless noted.

Free Garden Planners For Beginner Gardeners

However, it would also be wise to contact your state’s Cooperative Extension Service to find out what plants grow best in your area. For example, if you live in an area with extremely hot weather, vegetables that prefer cooler temps maystruggle.

If you are simply growing two or three tomato plants, this process is easy. But if you planto grow a full garden, you need toconsider:

Every region has a different planting time based mainly on the weather, and every vegetable has its temperature preferences, too.See the ’s Best Planting Dates—a gardening calendar customized to your local frost dates. Just enter your zip code (or postal code inCanada)!

Free Editable Garden Design Examples & Templates

For specific planting information, see our individual Grow Guides for over 100 popular vegetables, herbs, and fruit.For each crop, we provide specific information about how to plant, grow, and harvest, including watering and fertilizing, and pestcontrol!

To help out beginners, we thought that it may be useful to see a garden design. Here is an example of a starter family garden using thecommon easy-to-grow vegetables listed above.It also features companion planting (the practice of placing plants that thrive together next to eachother).

You’ll see that we have given the garden decent-sized paths and mixed in afew herbs and flowers, too. Frankly, ifwe had grown this garden in our very first year, we would be thrilled! In planning the garden this way, we have made it so much easier for you to succeed withit.

Backyard Vegetable Garden Ideas For Beginners

Offers an excellent online garden planning tool that makes your garden planning fun and easy. With this tool, draw your garden plan on the computer and drop in your preferred vegetables, and it automatically calculates the proper spacing for each type of crop!This way, you don’t waste seeds or crowd your plants. The Garden Planner automatically pulls in the frost dates for your specific location, identifies easy vegetables, and even identifies companion plants. Then you can print out your plan, and the tool reminds you of your seeding and harvesting dates for everyvegetable!

Plus, you’ll see many free garden plans for inspiration!Over time, you’ll see that this tool also provides “crop rotation” so that if you plan a second season, you can properly reposition your plants to avoid pests anddisease.

With new gardeners in mind, we offer a FREE week to try the Garden Planner—ample time to plan your first garden.Check it out here: http://gardenplanner./

Vegetable Garden Planning For Beginners

Any questions or advice about starting your garden? Check out some of the comments below. Many of your questions may have been answered already by our munity, or you are welcome to add your own comment. Happygardening!This is my version of the ultimate space efficient ideal kitchen garden design for maximum food production. It can be used in a variety of spaces where it is necessary to get maximum production from minimal area. This plan is specifically for an enclosed garden.

Over the 40 years of having a productive garden, birds are what has limited my harvest the most. They scratch up seeds, eat seedlings, plants and fruits or just enjoy destroying the plant for no reason (Sulfur-crested cockatoos are the worst at this).

I struggled with netting for many years, trialing all sorts of support systems (see my blog article here) until eventually, I went with a permanent welded metal enclosure. You can read about that process here.

Kitchen Garden Plans

I am still marveling at how easy is to work in an enclosure and how much protection it gives my plants, resulting in bumper harvests.

If I had had the insight to know an enclosure was going to be necessary to get a decent harvest when I first started my current productive garden, then this how I would have planned it.

The idea is to keep the size of the garden as compact as possible to reduce the construction cost of an enclosure, whilst still giving sufficient space to grow what you want.

This Easy Children's Vegetable Garden Plan Appeals To All Ages

The following is what I would grow given my family’s food preferences and the fact that I am growing in a cool climate. You can adjust this plan to suit your climate, the amount of food you wish to grow and your food preferences.

With this system, you will be producing fresh fruit and vegetables all year. You may have to supplement in the cooler months, but during summer and autumn, most of the fruit and vegetable needs for a household of 4-5 people could be met.

I have incorporated this into the system as the construction of a chicken run can be similar to a vegetable garden/orchard enclosure and having them close to your productive garden makes a lot of sense. I would discourage you from free-ranging your chickens in your productive space as they dig up seedlings, scatter mulch and dig under the roots of trees to create dust baths. Chickens can be very destructive in a garden.

Planning A Spring Vegetable Garden

This plan  allows for five1.5m x 8m annual garden beds. These can either be at ground level or raised depending on which system suits you better. As I get older a raised bed is much more appealing then working at ground level. Again, thinking of the future and planning appropriately is essential.

The 1.5 width makes it easy to be able to reach the middle of the bed from either side without treading onto the garden which can cause soil compaction and plant damage.

These annual garden beds are the heart of my food production system with space to grow all the annual vegetables I need to feed my family. With successive planting of seasonal crops, I can be harvesting vegetables all year.

Design Ideas For Vegetable Gardens

A Perennial vegetable and herb bed will contain all the perennial vegetables I like to grow as well as any non-invasive herbs. Perennial vegetables and herbs are best planted separately to annual vegetables, so their roots are not disturbed with cultivation or the continual planting of annuals.

What I would include are 2 x rhubarb plant, 10 x asparagus plants, 3 x globe artichokes, 2 x sorrel, 1 x rosemary, 3 x thyme, 1 x sage and 3 x chive plants. The front of these beds also can grow strawberries though I do get better crops from my hanging baskets.

In beds surrounding the annual garden beds, I have selected a variety of fruit trees that grow well in my climate and that I like to eat and preserve. Larger trees and climbers are placed on the southern sides of the enclosure (Southern hemisphere), so they do not shade the annual garden beds.

Vegetable Garden Layout: 7 Best Design Secrets

3 apples (gala, and granny smith espaliered on the chicken run fence and one pink lady pillar apple in a garden bed) For good pollination at least three different apple varieties are needed.

4 x dwarf citrus – 2 x lemon (Meyer and Eureka) 2 x mandarin (Imperial and Ellendale), 2 x orange (Navel and Valencia)

10 x blueberry bushes (various varieties planted in front of the espaliered apples and pergola) Again there is better pollination if you have a several different varieties.

A Vegetable Garden Planner For High Yields & Healthy Plants

10 x hanging baskets of strawberries. This utilises unused space, increases air flow around the plants reducing fungal infection and prevents soil dwelling bugs eating the fruit.

1 x Bay tree (Bay tends to sucker and develop into a large thicket, I have a chance of  controlling it in a container)

I like to grow the extra vigorous herds such as mint, peppermint, lemon balm, oregano, and marjoram in pots. All these herbs will very quickly take over a garden bed if not contained. I would place these in the pots below the various containerised trees.

The Ideal Kitchen Garden Design For Maximum Food Production

In my ideal garden I have used this pace for a glass house/garden shed/ potting area for growing seedling and propagating plants. I move