Precision & Petals: A Lifestyle Blog

I have always wanted a vegetable garden, and decided this was the year! I’m going to share the process and products that I used to get my garden started, and some tips/things I wish I’d known ahead of time.

In this article I’ll go over:

• The Process & Progression
• Tips & Things I Wish I Knew

The Process & Progression

1. Set up raised beds.
   
   Putting the beds together was not very time consuming. HOWEVER, I wanted mine to be level, and I was placing them on a hill. So before ever placing them, we had to dig out the approximate shape of the raised bed furthest up the hill (farthest away in picture) and this took some real time and effort.

I used two 7.5×7.5′ raised garden beds. Unfortunately they are sold out on EVERY platform that I can search, but the name brand is “OutdoorSunny” and this is the closest product I can find that’s similar: https://amzn.to/4cBzTst. And honestly, I also bought 4 of the exact linked product, but didn’t have space to put them out with the 7.5×7.5 beds.

2. Filling raised beds with soil.

I was not expecting to need as much dirt as I did. Since we’d dug out the far raised bed, we used that dirt in the other bed and I thought I’d only need about 15 bags of top soil. I was wrong.

By the end, it was just shy of 30 bags of top soil to fill the beds (that’s ON TOP of the dirt we’d already put in them from digging!).

3. Add a trellis.*

This is obviously optional, and really only works if you have two raised garden beds close enough that you can bridge them.

Here is a similar one to what I got: https://amzn.to/3xUMY0I
& here’s a slightly cheaper version, but I don’t know about it’s quality: https://amzn.to/3XZUbqS

4. Add plants.

I got all of mine from Lowes when they had the 3 for $12 deal in early summer!

5. Watering and fertilizer!

It’s been almost a drought around here, so we’ve watered the plants close to every day, & they love it!

We’ve also used fertilizer twice so far (once when planted, once early July).

6. Give them time & watch them grow!

Tips & Things I Wish I Knew

Cost

The first thing you might be thinking is what did this cost?

• Plants – $100
• Soil – $130
• Planters – $200
• Trellis – $30
• Fertilizer – $40

Yeah, it’s more of a hobby than anything. And when you think of it that way, $500 for a hobby for the whole summer into fall really isn’t that bad!

Lowering the Cost

1. Ordering during the off season.
   
   The *number one* thing that I did to lower cost was order all my raised garden beds (the two 7.5×7.5 ones and the four 2×8 ones) during Black Friday!
   
   The beds were WAY cheaper then, since gardening isn’t on everyone’s mind. You’re going to pay premium if you’re ordering during spring or summer.
   
2. Using filler material before the soil.
   
   I mentioned that we re-used dirt before putting in the soil, I also used cardboard boxes to fill up some space before putting in all the soil. These will decompose and just add to the soil overtime, but upfront it saves you a little less soil.
   
3. Take advantage of sales.
   
   Like I mentioned, I got all my plants when they were 3 for $12. Those same plants went up to $5 each only a week after I purchased them, and I haven’t seen them come back down since (& I’m a Lowes frequenter).

Closing Thoughts

I hope this article has helped you in your garden journeys! It’s very do-able, especially if you plan ahead and spread any costs out over a year-or-so, collecting the materials.

Additionally, for future years I’ll already have the beds, trellis, and soil! So I’ll just be getting the plants going forward.

Happy growing!