Vegetable patch starter checklist
Most of the work in a first vegetable patch happens before anything is sown. Get the site and the soil right and the growing part looks after itself.
24 items
Makes your own editable copy. No account needed.
The items
- Sunny spot chosenSix hours of direct sun a day, minimum. Anything shadier grows leaves, not fruit.
- Ground cleared of perennial weed rootsBindweed and couch grass regrow from the smallest fragment left in the soil.
- Soil tested for pHA cheap kit tells you whether it needs lime before you plant anything.
- Bed shape decided
- Rows, for a traditional look
- Raised bed, if the ground drains badly
- Width kept to an arm's reach from each sideSo you never have to stand on the soil.
- Compost or well-rotted manure dug in
- Path laid between bedsGravel or bark keeps boots out of the mud by October.
- Edging installed, if the bed is raised
- Water source within reachDragging a hose the length of the garden every evening is how people give up by July.
- Fencing or netting against rabbits and deer, if they're about
- First crops chosen
- Something quick, to keep morale up — radishes or salad leaves
- Something greedy for space later — squash or sweetcorn
- A perennial, if there's room — rhubarb or asparagus
- Seed packets bought or ordered
- Seed trays, pots and seed compost for raising under cover
- Canes or supports for anything that climbs
- Watering can or hose fitted with a rose
- Hand trowel and fork
- Garden twine and labelsSix weeks after sowing, nothing looks like its packet.
- Slug pellets or copper tapeYoung seedlings can vanish overnight without some defence.
- A note of what went whereThe plan you're certain you'll remember in March is gone by June.
Makes your own editable copy. No account needed.
Questions people ask
- What's the easiest vegetable to start with?
- Salad leaves and radishes — both are up within a fortnight, which keeps morale high while slower crops like squash or sweetcorn are still doing nothing visible.
- How big should a first vegetable patch be?
- Smaller than you want it to be — three or four square metres is plenty. A patch you can keep weeded beats a bigger one that gets away from you by July.
- Do I need to rotate crops in a small patch?
- Loosely. Avoid growing the same family (potatoes, brassicas, onions) in exactly the same spot two years running, but a patch this size doesn't need a formal four-year plan.