How do I start a garden?

@nikipedia Gardening is always a very local affair for which local knowledge of rainfall, soil type, other trees and plants that you want to keep and general layout of the land needs to be taken into account. But you probably knew that, right! ;-)

I would suggest you plan your garden around the things the community garden grew, but on a smaller scale.

When I first started gardening in the early 1980’s in Australia, I concentrated on things that were expensive to buy but easy to grow. So for me they were beans of all sorts in summer except broad beans, which are a winter crop, peas of all sorts in winter, strawberries, rhubarb, silverbeet (aka Swiss chard, which is a leafy green, a little similar to spinach, but not spinach) passionfruit (passiflora is the botanic name), a rambling heavy-fruiting vine that’ll grow just about anywhere and potatoes and onions that had started to sprout. This is just for an idea of what you might try.

What I can suggest more generally is to check online for plants that you would like to grow that others have grown in your local area and try them, whether flowers, vegetables or others.

Is there a gardening group where you live? Have you got a local nursery you could visit to see what they might suggest? Or if you visit a local nursery you might be able to read the plant labels to get some ideas.

As for any sort of arbour, fencing sheds, etc, you might need to check with the local municipal authority for help there because local laws vary quite widely from place to place.

I hope this helps.

Maybe some of the traditional companion plant guilds like the Three Sisters.

@incendiary_dan That’s a method of gardening I would never have thought of and yet it’s perfectly logical. That may be a little difficult in my neck of the woods as where I live is just sand, not unlike a desert. There’s very little organic matter in the ground. In other parts of Australia and the world it would work a treat. Thanks for sharing.

If your ground is really rocky and gnarly, the first thing you’re going to have to do is prepare the soil. You have two choices – you can either prepare the soil, or you can consider trying the square foot gardening method.

If you opt for digging, in order to prepare the soil properly, you’re going to need to dig down at least 12 -18 inches, break up and turn the dirt, remove the rocks, and mix in cow manure, peat moss, compost, top soil, and possibly some sand, if your soil tends to clump. If your soil is really rocky, it’s helpful to build a garden sieve that you can shovel the dirt into and capture the rocks, leaving nice soil.

Once you put the work into preparing the beds, you only have to do annual maintenance, adding compost, to keep the dirt nice and productive.

If you opt to do the raised bed method, you will want to level the area where the beds will be, and create your raised frames. There are several ways you can make beds, ranging from building frames, to buying frames, to buying corner brackets and adding wood, to using containers such as plastic kiddie pools or used recycling bins. There is a standard dirt mix in the square foot gardening book; you mix the growing medium on a tarp, fill the frames, and off you go.

@Andreas I’ve seen various eleagnus species grow in what amounted to desert, and establish small islands of life around them. It’s because they’re nitrogen fixers, and also produce a ton of organic matter for mulch. You might want to consider some of them for building up some soil. Also, the fruit tends to be tasty, and they cooperate with lots of other plants.

@incendiary_dan An incredible plant species, no doubt. However, some of this species (maybe all?) have the very good possibility to become weeds of various types, and that might be the case where I live in Autralia.

This is always a negative side to any gardening activity: What we plant today might become a class(es) of weed(s) in the future.

Before planting this species check locally of the weed factor as ALL plants can become weeds in the wrong place. Many fine Australian plants out of Australia are weeds.

One I know of is hakea in the Pacific islands, and possibly melaleuca (paperbark) in the USA.

Look into raised bed gardening. You can custom build the soil type and drainage and even install watering systems. Raised bed gardening is the best!

@nikipedia

Our weather here in SoCA this winter is anything but normal- at least in San Diego! 100 degrees last week, rain today…

My gardening aspirations are currently on hold because we have too many rabbits, squirrels and other critters here (I am on the edge of a 200 acre hay field that backs to thousands of acres of wildlife preserve) to grow much of anything, although I did for a couple of years until they discovered the bounty! I had the best luck with raised beds, as our soil was just too rocky and hard to cultivate. Line the raised beds with wire mesh to keep gophers out.

If we get a normally cool winter and it doesn’t heat up too much again, lettuce and other greens, peas and all the brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, collards, kale, etc.) are dependable winter growers.

Start by lifting weights to improve upper body, lower back and arm strength. Gardening is heavy work but wonderfully rewarding.

Find a friend with a horse and have him (friend and not horse) save the manure. It is black gold. Begin, also, to compost.

As others have said, a garden is only as good as the soil and preparation.

The only way to keep out the predators is to build a serious fence, sunk to at least 10”, around the garden.

The first thing I’d try to do is find out about your dirt. I would want to know if it’s clean, no pollutants for instance, before I would plant a garden there. It’s also good to check for acidity/alkalinity since that affects what will grow well.
Next, dig it up, get the rocks out, and work on improving the soil. One way to do this is to call a local farm and buy a truckload of manure and mix it in with the soil. Then buy a roll of chicken wire and some wooden stakes, pound in the stakes, and put up the chicken wire around the garden, It’s not high security, but it should keep out the rabbits.
After that, start planting! One of my favorite cool weather crops is Sugar Snap Peas.
If it doesn’t freeze where you are, you could even grow tomatoes in the winter. Tomatoes don’t like it too hot nor too cold.

@GeorgeGee

I am not sure exactly where Nikipedia is, but where I am tomatoes don’t do well until February or so.

It was specified in the question that it is Southern California with average temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s :D Most (but not all) SoCal locales are frost-free. A little known fact about tomatoes are that they are perennials, not annuals, so if they’re kept from frost, bugs, wilt and drying out, the same plant could potentially be producing for years!

@GeorgeGee

“Most (but not all) SoCal locales are frost-free.”

Not so- and, like Nikipedia, I live in Southern CA and I have also grown tomatoes here.. What you say is true along the coast, but most of SoCA isn’t the beach, despite what people think :>D The inland areas regularly get winter frosts. I am about 25 miles inland, and we generally get a few frost days every winter.

Here’s some info from folks in Southern CA, who recommend planting in March through May.

Orange County, about six miles inland :)

@nikipedia

Orange County? You poor soul…:>)

I’m with @Cruiser. Raised beds are easy to construct and manage. Easier to amend. Easy to add organic matter to. You can even create trellises and cover beds for cool crops as needed. You might also consider having debris boxes to create mulch and enclosed worm boxes. What you grow and when will be a matter of where you live and what is popular.

For me I like to start with free….save the seeds from stuff you buy and eat. If it grows great! If not, what’d ya lose?
I love the California or haas avocado