Hello. I'm interested in starting my own garden at home. I'm planning to plant strawberries, tomatoes, blueberries, watermelon, and grapes. I've chosen a plot of land, but I don't know exactly how to start a garden. The plot of land is riddled with weeds, soil seems to be poor, a bit sandy. What can I do to make it suitable for gardening? I'm an absolute beginner.
Take the grapes off your list, for starters. If you're a newbie, start small, with a few plants, and expand your garden as you gain experience. A common mistake for first-timers is that they put in too big a garden, with too much, and then are overwhelmed, and give up in frustration. Strawberries I recommend growing in containers where you see them every day, and can keep an eye on them. A small vegetable garden with a couple tomatoes or peppers, or 1 or 2 other things is a good start. Pick your spot - a 3 foot by 10 or 12 foot is plenty big for your first year - in a sunny place, that isn't too far from water or a hose. Till or just turn the soil with a shovel, and work in a lot of compost a couple weeks before your last frost date, and you'll be ready to plant. Grapes are a whole learning curve in themselves, and I recommend them NOT being the first thing your plant. Blueberries, if your soil ph is below 6.5, are do-able, as they're fairly simple to plant. If your soil ph is close to 7.0, though, they will never be very happy. Tomatoes will want about 9 square feet of space per plant (I often see them planted about a foot apart - easy to do when they're so small when you plant). Watermelon will sprawl - the vines traveling 10 to 20 feet...but if you have the space, you can kind of direct where the vine goes as it grows.
It sounds like you need to take care of your weed and soil problem first. Use compost to bring back the nutrients in you r soil but make sure to test your soil and make sure it doesn't become to acidic or basic. Kill the weeds early in the season before they bloom and set seed, depending on the weed sometimes its good to get them with a herbicide in the fall when they are storing nutrients and water for the winter, the is a better chance they will die from the roots. But yes start small and then work your way up into more challenging plants like grapes. Good luck!
First of all you need to create a list of vegetables and fruits that you want to grow . See the requirement of every veggies and fruits so maintained a garden soil according to this .Good luck!
My suggestion for first timers can be a no-dig backyard. you are able to take care of to discover some thing in this by a glance for engine. in reality you construct up layers of soil, manure and organic and organic count number, and plant your seedlings into the great layer of soil, by ability of a layer of mulch.
