If you’re thinking about a healthy hobby that has the potential to benefit you and your family immensely, a patio vegetable garden may be what you need.
It needs a bit of planning to do right, but once you start, you can be sure that it will be easy to maintain. Have a look below to see four tips that can help you start a patio vegetable garden that will be a success and ensure that you get to enjoy the fruits of your hard work.
1. Grow What You Know Will Thrive
To start off, you want to have an idea of what you want to grow in your patio garden. There are many herbs and vegetables that you can grow, but make sure to check the requirements of the specific ones that you choose to grow.
This can help you avoid growing something that won’t do well in your region’s climate or in the soil type that you have. To find out what to grow, you could check online or talk to other people nearby who have gardens themselves.
You can even take a look at the local plants you encounter while taking walks, especially if you have a park with lots of native greenery nearby. Jacksonville, FL, for example, boasts the nation’s largest urban park system. While much of this greenery won’t be vegetables, of course, you might find a variety of interesting edible plants to inspire you.
2. Integrate the Garden into Your Patio Life
Next, you need to make sure that you start your patio garden in the right spot. This means that you need to pick a spot on your patio that will have enough shade or sunlight depending on the vegetation that you want to grow.
More than that, though, your garden should enhance your family’s pleasure in spending time outside whenever you want to.
Note that 75% of all Americans feel that it’s important to spend time outdoors in their yards, according to a survey done for the National Association of Landscape Professionals by Harris Poll.
This may also be the case for you, so you need to make sure that you leave ample room for relaxing on your patio once you set up your garden. Rather than building one large garden plot that dominates the patio, consider breaking it up into several smaller sections to create interesting focal points, seating areas and little walkways.
3. Get the Right Soils
In order for your garden to thrive, it’s important to understand that there are different types of soil. Some types are better suited to growing certain crops than others, so your soil choice is something that will be informed by the crops you choose to grow.
You may choose to purchase soil that’s already optimized for drainage or mix your own soil yourself. If you’re going to elevate your patio garden on crates, pots or something similar, you can benefit from selecting a few different types of soil specific to what you intend to grow in each crate or pot.
You can research to find the optimal soil mixtures online or talk to local gardening authorities so that they advise you on the right details.
4. Think About Aesthetics
Last but not least, you need to make sure that your patio garden is beautiful to look at. Not only will that enhance your own enjoyment of your outdoor space, but a fashionable patio addition project can add between 8% and 10% to the overall value of a home, according to Space Wise.
Choosing gorgeous pots for your patio garden is one easy way to help improve your home’s appeal. Growing colourful veggies like kale, rainbow chard and other brassicas is another. Then you can play around with the arrangement until you find something that will be both functional and lovely.
These four tips should help you start a successful patio garden. They can make a massive difference in whether it’s a failure or it’s a success. That said, remember that it may take a few tries to get it right, so don’t set your expectations too high or get disheartened if your garden doesn’t turn out the way you imagined it would right from the start.
Gardening is a skill it can take a lifetime to master, and you’ll be improving your methods and your patio as you go.
Feature image: Lukas; Image 1: Zen Chung
