The Beginner Gardener's Blueprint - No Experience Needed!

Over the years I’ve helped countless beginners start growing a garden from scratch, and now I’ve distilled this into three fail-safe blueprints that will work for anyone.

Let’s check them out so you can decide which garden plan is right for you and – most importantly! – how to make it a reality. Let’s get going…

Blueprint 1: The Salad Garden Plan

First up is the fastest-growing garden of them all – a Salad Garden, which can be grown in just about any outdoor space. At the heart of any salad garden are leafy crops like rocket, lettuce and pea shoots, along with extras such as spring onions (also known as scallions), radishes, and perhaps baby beets for slicing or grating raw. Try including a few edible flowers too: calendula for their sunny blooms or nasturtium for a peppery tang.

The beauty of a salad garden is the sheer speed of growth, with the opportunity to re-sow and grow throughout the year, ensuring a steady supply of fresh pickings month after month.

I prefer to start my salads off in plug trays of multi-purpose potting mix, sown from the end of winter. Sowing into plug trays means I can enjoy an early start by keeping the seedlings under cover to protect them from the worst of the cold. By early spring, once daytime temperatures are consistently above about 50ºF (10ºC), they can be transplanted into their final positions. I usually like to cover them up with horticultural fleece until they settle in, and that will also help to keep pests like pigeons off.

Most salad crops are thirsty, so it’s important to keep plants well-watered to encourage steady growth. If your climate is especially hot, you may want to locate your salad beds somewhere that gets dappled shade, or that’s at least shaded during the hottest time of the day.

Keep things going by sowing the next batch of salads in plug trays before the earlier ones are finished. That way you can fill gaps as soon as you’ve harvested and guarantee a continuous supply.

Blueprint 2: The Low-Maintenance Garden Plan

You can also include a salad bed as part of a productive but easy-care garden, ideal for the gardener with bags of enthusiasm, but not much time. This Low-Maintenance Garden also includes some fruit, potatoes and garlic, and a bed of ultra-productive favourites that every garden should include if possible!

Strawberries are a fantastic low-maintenance choice because, once planted, they need little extra care, and will yield delicious, juicy berries for several summers to come. Include a slug trap among your plants to stop them nibbling fruits before you get a chance to!

Potatoes are a wise choice for time-starved gardeners because once they’re planted, all that’s needed is watering in dry weather til it’s time to dig them up. I’d include garlic alongside potatoes as it’s one of the easiest bulbs to grow and it stores for ages, meaning you’ll be able to include it in your cooking for many months after harvesting. The strong smell of the garlic could also help to deter pests, which will keep your potatoes happier and healthier.

Courgettes are my most-recommended go-to for any beginner gardener because they will pump out fruits all summer long, while dwarf beans give up plenty of pods without having to go to the faff of setting up the supports that climbing beans need.

Most of the vegetables featured in this garden can be planted within a few short weeks in spring: salads from early-sown seeds, garlic – using a spring-planting variety – in very early spring, and potatoes from mid-spring. Strawberries can be planted whenever they’re available to buy in your area. Then it’s just a case of starting beans and courgettes indoors in pots, and planting them outside once the danger of frost has passed.

If you have enough space, I’ve also included some raspberries and a few blackberries into this this Low-Maintenance Garden plan. These are both fast-growing cane fruits which should yield their first berries either the summer immediately following planting, or certainly in their second summer. They’re quick and easy to prune, usually simply by cutting the fruited canes back just once a year.

Blueprint 3: The Beginner Garden Plan

If you have a little more space and just a tad more time then my next plan has got your name written all over it! It tweaks and expands the salad and potato beds of our last plan then adds in a few more warm-season crops, protein-packed pods, and some spinach to keep us lean, green and keen!

This plan adds vertical interest, courtesy of the climbing beans and peas. If you’re in a hotter climate you could grow these on the sun-facing edge of the garden, because the spinach and salads that sit behind will relish the cooling shade they’ll cast.

Both peas and beans can be sown directly against supports, or (my preference) into plug trays or pots and then transplanted against the supports once they’ve grown on into sturdy young plants. Starting them in containers means there’s less risk of slugs and other pests nibbling at the emerging seedlings. I reckon it’s worth having slightly bigger plants to set out for this reason.

What I’m calling the ‘warm-season bed’ is a tried-and-tested collective of popular summer staples that love to bask in the sunshine: courgettes are joined by tomatoes, peppers and a few cucumbers, trained up an obelisk to add more of that valued vertical joie de vivre! All of these tender plants will need to be sown in warmth under cover or indoors in most areas, then grown on in a frost-free place before planting out once those chilly nights are done.

I’ve also added some companion plants into this bed, both to feed pollinating insects and to attract pest predators. So, we’ve got basil – a natural companion to tomatoes, and the tiny delicate flowers are just beautiful too – some parsley, and a few nasturtiums to sprawl and flower their pretty little hearts out.

I love this plan because it covers most bases in what’s still a fairly compact space: carbs courtesy of those potatoes, garlic for intense flavour, pods for protein, a leafy green, salads, and plenty of lovely sun-coaxed fruiting veggies for divine dishes and sassy sauces!

How to Set Up Garden Beds

All three of these plans use clearly defined beds. You could mark beds out on the ground or, as I’ve done in the plans, use raised beds, which is what I use in my garden too. I like raised beds because they look tidy, help soil to drain through and warm up quicker at the start of the season, and they make planning in future seasons a bit easier too.

You could be forgiven for thinking raised beds mean extra faff, but really this couldn’t be further from the truth – hear me out! Raised beds are very easy to make from lengths of timber, or you can use ready-to-go kits or pallet collars like I have. If your garden slopes, raised beds enable you to essentially terrace the garden, ensuring a perfectly smooth, flat surface to sow or plant into. Beds can be dug into the slope, built up on the lower side, or a combination of the two.

Then it’s just a case of lining the bottom of the bed with cardboard to stop any weeds growing through, then fill with compost or well-rotted manure. Put the lumpiest material into the bottom of the bed, finishing with your finest on top, as this is what you will sow or plant into. You could leave the paths between beds as they are, but I prefer to save precious time cutting grass or weeding by lining them with more cardboard before finishing with a topping of wood chips. And, I have to say, the end result is really very pleasing to the eye!

If you’d like to use or adapt any of the three plans featured today – you can! You can find them among the sample plans in our Garden Planner, which you can try for free by taking advantage of our risk-free 7 day trial. There’s no need to enter any payment details, and you can even print off your final plan before the end of the trial to keep forever if you want to! Best of all, the Garden Planner will use climate data from your nearest weather station to give you personalised growing dates for each crop so you sow and plant at just the right time for your garden. Nice! Try it out here.