The Beginner’s Guide to Growing Your Own Vegetables

If you’ve never sown a seed, grown a gourd, or bitten into a juicy, ripe tomato from your own garden, you’ve come to the right place. Whether you’re planting on a Brooklyn balcony or in a suburban backyard, we’ve asked gardening experts to weigh in on how to turn your barren space into a bountiful harvest by this summer. Read on as we take you through the steps of starting your first vegetable garden, which stands to deliver more than just sustenance in these strange times.

"Plants and flowers can provide so much joy in weird times of uncertainty—that’s what we’re doing while we’re all craving to get our doors back open," says Amy Lukas, head of garden design at Sprout Home, a retailer offering floral and landscape design services, furnishings, and workshops. Amid the pandemic, the team has shifted to offering weekly planting tutorials via Instagram and tending to their own home gardens. "We’re optimistic about the future, but we’re also turning inward to houseplants and gardens, and finding joy and pleasure in simple things," says Lukas. 

It’s not an unfamiliar sentiment. That connection to nature as an outlet for anxiety as well a practical exercise in self-sufficiency recalls the victory gardens of World War I and II.

Continuing the Legacy of Victory Gardens

In 1918, propaganda filled the streets, urging citizens to plant their own vegetables on whatever vacant grounds they could. It was just before World War I, and as farm workers traded their rakes for rations and headed into war, sustainability took on a whole new meaning. This also dovetailed with the Spanish flu pandemic, which took the lives of 50 million people. 

The U.S. government supplied pamphlets to guide citizens through their first gardens, supplying regional tips for where and what to sow. Boosting morale and easing food shortages, victory gardens resurfaced during World War II with some 15 million families turning to homesteading. As we navigate social distancing and food supply shortages yet again, there are lessons to be learned from those early days of front-porch farming— particularly from a mental health standpoint.  

"It sounds so cliché, but gardening is really therapeutic, not unlike yoga or running," says Lukas. "It’s great for clearing your mind and just focusing on a process that is very simple at times but also complicated, and sometimes out of our control." At Sprout Home, which has locations in Chicago and in Brooklyn, New York, Lukas focuses on growing "edibles"—i.e. fruits, vegetables, and foliage like herbs that you can eat. 

But where does one start? "For the novice, amateur gardener who wants to dive in and experiment with growing edibles for the first time, I look at three specifics: containers, soil quality, and the environment," says Lukas. Yet with 11 Plant Hardiness Zones defined by the USDA, varying sunlight, and overnight frost risk, there’s not a one-size-fits-all gardening guide. The most common advice you’ll hear about what and how to grow: "Well, it depends."

Determining Where to Plant