How to Plant a Beginner Vegetable Garden

If you are wanting to start an easy beginner vegetable garden, you’re in the right place.

Disclaimer: This post does contain some affiliate links.

Even though I am a Pinterest manager and spend time every month teaching people how to grow on Pinterest, the pressure to achieve the Pinterest perfect aesthetic can get a bit much some times!

I am here to show you the easiest and simplest ways for how to plant a beginner vegetable garden. From learning the best plants for beginner vegetable garden, my favorite tips I’ve learned along the way and what I am still currently learning as a very beginner gardener in Charleston, SC.

If you missed my last post sharing the story of how The Griffin Garden came to be, be sure to have a read here.

During the pandemic, everyone and their mother started to make their own sourdough and start a small beginner vegetable garden…..I missed the memo. My dad tried. He had some success with cucumbers and tomatoes but it didn’t last.

When I started The Griffin Garden in 2023, my friend strongly advised me….Amy start small. And I ignored her. 

I went to (with my incredibly limited knowledge, but we aren’t shaming anyone) Lowe’s and grabbed some tomato plants, the biggest ones I could find, that already had some tomatoes growing on it. 

A collection of herbs I knew nothing about. 

A cucumber plant….or 3. 3 pepper plants and some citronella, because why not?

Guys, if you haven’t figured it out by now. I had no clue what I was doing. 

I grabbed whatever I could see and hoped for the best. 

Learn from my mistakes:

Mistake 1: Buying too many plants. (I should have listened to my friend) I bought far too many plants without reading any labels. More on that in a minute.

Mistake 2: Buying vegetables I didn’t want to eat. Turns out I am allergic to peppers. No use growing them, if you can’t actually eat them.

Mistake 3: Not actually knowing anything about gardening! Again with the labels.

So here are my top tips to set you up for success when planning a small beginner vegetable garden.

Note. small beginner vegetable garden. It’s okay to start small. It’s okay to admit you’re a beginner. 

1. Get to know your garden. I mean get to know how much sun each spot gets, how much shade each spot gets. To grow certain vegetables, you need a certain amount of sunlight, others prefer a certain amount of shade. Before buying anything, get to know the best location for your garden.

   
   

2. Make a list of things you LIKE TO EAT. I just grew a bunch of radishes this spring for the very first time. They were amazing, massive, bountiful……but I had never actually eaten a radish before in my life!! So before you grab all the things, think about what you would actually like to grow, and eat!

   
   

3. Learn about the plants. As mentioned earlier, each require different soil types, different sunlight, different watering schedules. To name just a few of their funky cute growing requirements. Also….fun tip, some love to have companions, and some hate to be near certain plants, will save that for another blog post.

Now you have a rough plan in mind, it’s time to take some action. 

1. Are you planning to grow them in a raised bed? A container garden? Or no dig? I started with these raised bed containers from Amazon. This year Cliff built me a beautiful raised bed from scratch. I will share all the details soon. 

   
   

2. What is your soil like? Do you need to get soil? I learned this year, skip that bagged nonsense at the big box stores. The quality of your soil will greatly impact the quality of your plants. The soil matters! Again, get to know which soil type they prefer. 

   
   

3. Is it the right season? Did you know certain plants will only grow during certain times? For example, here in Charleston, SC we have our own unique growing season. Find out what zone you are in to get a much more accurate guide for when to plant what!

   
   

4. GO SHOPPING! If you’re planning an easy beginner vegetable garden, it can’t get much easier than buying plants someone else has already started. Make sure they’re looking healthy, make sure you plant them in the right spot, with the right conditions and my main recommendation: add some Biotone to give them a BIG BOOST to get going! They will LOVE IT.

Hopefully that wasn’t too much to overwhelm you for your small beginner vegetable garden.

Remember, it’s okay to start small, it’s okay to be a beginner.

We all start somewhere. And we are all still learning!