Tips for starting a garden?

May not be the best advice, but it could help you not get stressed or bummed out when things go wrong: you will kill some plants. All the research and books and blog-posts you read will help, certainly, but starting off without much experience means you will probably lose some plants and not know exactly why. Even when things seemed perfectly ideal. You looked up the grow zone of the plant and it's compatible with your area. You put it in shade exactly like what the guides recommend. You watered it exactly as often as everyone said you should.

And yet the plant withers because of factors you might not have even considered. The soil was maybe a tad too acidic. The specific genus of the plant you got is actually a bit less heat tolerant than the label at the garden center said. There was a dry spell for a few weeks that meant that you actually should have watered it way more than the recommendations you read online. These things can and will happen, so just don't get discouraged and focus instead on trying to figure out where you can improve things for the next plant. Pretty soon you'll learn which plants grow best in your extremely specific location and soil type and garden layout. And which require a bit more attention.

For example, there are certain types of tomatoes that I just could not seem to grow, while others did just fine. Even though both were labeled as heat-tolerant and perfectly suitable for my region. Strawberries? Nope. Peppers? Heck yes. I have a rosemary bush that I'm pretty sure could survive a nuclear apocalypse. Had no idea it would thrive so much when I first planted it years ago. So aside from the other advice in this thread, just know that there's going to be a significant amount of trial and error involved in figuring things out, and be prepared to lose a few plants when you're first starting out.

Really focus on ease of maintenance:

• Mulch.
• Make sure you’re not mowing grass into your garden beds. Raise the height if you need to or make repairs. Thick 2” board and as high as you can stand to go.
• Make sure you can easily get a hose and water to where you need to water plants. You will likely need to water daily and if it’s difficult you’ll miss a few days and kill your yields or the garden entirely.
• Mulch!
• Seriously, mulch! Reduces weed growth, reduces evaporations, makes it easier to work your plants without getting covered in dirt, makes setting up next year easier, doesn’t blow around, doesn’t disintegrate like weed block does.
• Never use rocks. This is more a lawn care and patio thing but anywhere there’s gaps dirt will blown in and weeds will grow. Being able to mow over something is the lowest cost and lowest maintenance way to keep pathways clear. Everything else erodes and now instead of tending your garden you’re stuck dealing lawn care.
• Grass is a pain in the ass outside of the lawn, mulch, edging and raised beds will keep it bay. Grass is really hard to pull up by hand and once it gets its roots in then the nightmare begins.
• Herbs and flowers are the easiest to grow. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and peas are crazy easy as well.
• Don’t be ashamed to buy the pregrown starter plants just to get a head start in your garden. Worry about seeds next year.
• Get cages for the tomatoes, then plan to do some frozen jars of sauce at the end of the season. I think tomatoes are the best for learning because there’s so many helpful tricks that make sense as the season goes on and there’s a lot of written material.
• There’s a lot of plants that feel like a total scam or have massive gotchas that honestly only trying things out and being willing to go scorched earth is the best way to get first hand experience. For example, strawberries get raided by every slug, bug, squirrel and bird. Raspberries will absolutely take over a 10foot radius of everything each year, but yields but yikes. Trees are temperamental and yeah big chonky roots are a problem. Remember you can mow things over in the fall when everything is dried up and dead then tarp it over to kill anything.

I like the Gardenate strategy of looking at what things you can plant now rather than having to plan a ton ahead, but just plant stuff when you want to spend time in the garden.

I wouldn't start with too large areas or too many things, but since you'll be weeding, going too little means just checking as regularly with a tiny amount less time spent doing things during the actual check.

As general advice, I'd suggest keeping a mindset that's open to plants dying. Hopefully that doesn't sound too defeatist, lol. My wife and I do some gardening (I'm mostly just the shovel jockey), and even after several years of experience, some plants just don't sprout or end up wilting away. Maybe the soil is too acidic, maybe the seedling didn't get quite enough water for a week, maybe the roots got damaged beyond healing while transplanting, maybe bugs or rodents did some damage. In our experience, you'll never have 100% yield so it's a good idea to get lots of plants/seeds in the ground.

You don't necessarily need a greenhouse to grow plants from seed. This year, we sprouted several kinds of seeds by putting soil in gallon ziploc bags, closed them 80% to keep moisture and warmth in while still letting air exchange, and held them up by poking a stick through the top. It worked great.

Sneak peeks at your neighbors' gardens. Odds are they have similar soil, sun, and rain conditions that you do. Do your neighbors always have huge success with bell peppers or cucumbers? Give those a try. In our area, there are often plant sales put on by neighborhood gardeners this time of year. They usually love to talk about their process. Keep an eye out for roadside signs, flyers on billboards, etc., buy a few of their plants (almost always just a few bucks each), and ask away.

The back of the seed packet is also a great source of information. It'll let you know how much sun, water, and fertilizer to give, what kind of soil is best, etc.

For one, being in zone 10a pretty much means you can grow whatever you want almost year round. If it gets really hot where you are, some shadecloth (and a way to mount it up to block the sun part of the day) may help your plants survive.

Make sure you understand the water requirements and preferences of the plants you're growing - for instance most plants prefer deep, intermittent watering to soil that is constantly damp, but some plants will die from more than a day or two of dry soil. Both tomatoes and peppers will do better with deep, intermittent watering and full sun.

It sounds like you already have an idea of what you want to grow, which is great. For any other plants my suggestion is to pick things that are either hard to find fresh, or expensive at the store. Growing roma or beefsteak tomatoes isn't going to be as rewarding as growing heirloom varieties since you can pop down to any store and buy the common varieties for like $1/lb. Same thing with peppers - growing jalapeños might be easy but it's hard to make it feel worth it.

Herbs are tons of fun to grow and the difference between fresh from the garden versus plastic clamshell or hydroponic herbs is night and day. For things like basil, make sure to clip the flowers and keep long branches pruned to encourage bushy growth.

I have a fair bit of experience growing plants in a hot climate. I worked on a commercial vegetable farm in Australia for eight years, and I have done home gardening in Georgia (humid subtropical climate) and still do home gardening in southeastern Australia (Mediterranean climate).

I am very happy to offer some advice, like how to increase your yield in tomato crops, and I might also be able to help you out with troubleshooting and identification issues (weeds, pests, diseases, etc.). I may also be able to suggest ways to save money — for example, alternatives to things like tomato cages if you plan to grow a lot of tomatoes.

The main things I want to know about are your sunlight, your rainfall, and your humidity. These things can greatly affect what you can grow and how. (If you were in a colder climate, I would also be asking about frost dates.)

So here are my questions:

How much sunlight and how much shade does the garden receive in spring/autumn and in peak summer? How does this change throughout the day (e.g., what part of the day is the garden sunny and when is it shaded)? As a general rule for most crops, you want as much direct sunlight as you can possibly get, though there are some crops that can tolerate more shade.

How much rainfall do you get, and is it higher or lower at certain times of the year? Is the garden in an area that tends to parch or tends to pool water (or even both, like my Mediterranean garden)?

What is your humidity level like outdoors? Is it generally pretty steady, or does it change a lot at different times of the year?

And just to get a broad idea of the general conditions where you live, what kinds of plants (including flowers, trees, and shrubs) do you see other people growing around your neighborhood?

Something that got me into it was the Square Foot Gardening book. Libraries usually have a copy. I had been thinking about getting into gardening but the amount of information that needed to be assembled on different plants and timings and stuff, starting from zero knowledge, and how much AI slop and recipe-style blog spam there was made it really hard to cut through the noise and understand the bigger picture online.

You can selectively ignore most of the stuff in that book as you get more comfortable, but I found it provided a good, easy baseline to get started. Most of the information you need to know on general gardening topics is covered in the front, and all the questions you may have about common garden plants is arranged conveniently in the back (When do I plant? Do I start it indoors first and transplant it, or just put seeds in the ground? How long does it take to grow? How much space does it need? How do I harvest it? Can I plant more after harvest or is it a one-plant-per-season type thing?).

I'd say my biggest recommendation if you go that route is to understand why the soil they describe works well, but don't feel like you're locked into its very prescriptive (and expensive) soil recipe. I did use it, and it works great, but so do all sorts of other mixes. If you take away an understanding of why it works great that's the key. Also, in places where the book is light on timing information, it's expecting you to check the timing information on the seed packet. I feel like that's something that's completely obvious to gardeners, but again, starting from zero, it took me a while to realize since I was doing my planning without a bunch of seed packets already collected.

Get to know your site and soil. Note how many hours of sun/shade each area gets, and plant accordingly. Grab a trowel and dig in various patches, see how deep your topsoil is. Get your hands dirty and do a soil ribbon test. If there's less than 6 - 8 inches of deep brown to black rich topsoil, you'll need to build raised beds or use containers, which you already have. If your soil is otherwise sandy, dry, or thin, it's a good idea to start with a few inches of compost.

I found Mel's Mix (and Square Foot Gardening in general) to work perfectly in raised beds. Mel's Mix drains torrential rains quickly and handles long dry spells with only moderate watering. Grab a big plastic tarp, dump the ingredients in (aim for about 5 cu. ft. total at a time to ease handling), fold the corners and edges around the contents, roll it a few times to mix, and pour the mixture in the beds.

Seconding /u/nacho's recommendation for Gardenate, especially for tropical and subtropical zones. It blew my mind that the real gardening season in South Florida is essentially "winter" anywhere further north in the U.S. It's likely that October is the month new plantings will do best, and your harvest will be March/April for tomatoes and peppers.

It's probably not a good time to start right now. Vegetables and fruits grown as annuals elsewhere don't thrive in the subtropical highest heat/humidity months. Basil and other tender herbs succumb to mildew. Most tomato varieties need nighttime temperatures below 70 °F to set fruit, etc. Cilantro will bolt immediately, and spinach, lettuces, and other tender greens won't even start.

However, hot peppers are practically perennials in Zone 10a. I had a two-meter tall 7-Pot pepper tree that produced five pounds of nuclear fire per season, and it lasted until a hurricane knocked it over. There are many subtropical Asian vegetables/herbs/fruits that do fine. Look for seeds in Asian grocery stores. Woody Chinese basil doesn't taste like Italian basil (much stronger anise/licorice flavor), but it was extremely tolerant of South Florida conditions and very productive. Malabar spinach is a tropical semi-vining plant that tastes and cooks like traditional spinach. Growing your own lemongrass is a easy treat, and it's attractive in containers. Nasturtiums did surprisingly well as a bed border throughout the cooler months. The leaves, flowers, and unripe seeds are all edible and delicious, and it's very easy to save ripe seeds for endless replanting. The flowers attract pollinators and repel some pests and critters.

Longer term, give some thought to trees - mango, citrus, sapodilla/sapote, starfruit (starfruit flowers are a pretty pink and smell heavenly). Fruit-bearing shrubs can double as ornamentals, like guava, banana and papaya.

Enjoy yourself and have fun!

My late mom was the local gardening influencer and my wife has stated taking on that mantle. So it seems I'm fated to be the unpaid hole digger and soil mover. But this is the advice I've picked up from proximity.

Most importantly, theres no rule that you need to maximize your space. My mom always told people to grow with their garden becbecause we had way too many jobs where ambitious cliets could not keep up. It's tempting to look at all that garden and want to fill every little bit of it immediately. But if you've not gardened too much before, it's easy to overinvest, get overwhelmed and eventually loose hope when plans fall short. My wifes first garden was a little soil strip in the common yard of our apartment. And when that did very well, over the next few years we slowly expanded over that entire yard. And part of the reason we moved was because my wife needed more garden and at times it feels like we bit off more than we can handle. To illustrate my point: we just moved, did less than half of our plans for the space and this is what happened after extreme summer rains and getting swamped over the holidays (southern hemisphere so summer Christmas). More produce than we could give away, lots of lessons learned and we actually loved letting the chaos garden go wild. But for some people, loosing control of a garden can be just as disheartening as a garden that will not take. You're not gardening to go off grid or to put food on the table (there are so many people who ask about that), you're gardening for enjoyment. So don't set yourself up for any unwanted misery.

Another thing would be that I'm a big believer in Chares Dowding idea of no-dig gardening. This is a good introduction to the idea but the theory is essentially that as soil settles, it develops a strong micro biome that facilities the movement of moisture and nutrients. By aggressively tilling the soil every season, that is being reset to zero. A more effective solution would be to layer up and give that ecosystem the space and means to expand. There's quite a bit too it but I've found that it really does keep soil richer for longer and significantly reduces the need for compost and fertilizer. Little fact : the farmer from the "its an honest days work" meme, Dave Brandt, was actually a massive supporter of this style of farming and his meme was when I first learned of it.

Also mulch. Everyone will tell you it's important. You will never have enough of it. And you really dont need to buy a lot. Is it weird that I keep bin bags in my car and look out for mulch material on the side of the road? A little. Can I afford to spend any more money on this garden? Hell no. (Will we spend that money is entirely different question.) But it helps to be in a mulching and composting mindset. If you see grass being cut at local park or trees being trimmed at the side of the road, there's no shame in asking. And bribe your neighbors with promises of fresh produce should they make regular offerings of mulch for the mulch throne. It's just a bit of dirt that no ones going to miss. (Unless your neighbors are also gardeners, in which case you best prepare for the coming mulch wars in the fall)

Other little things.
Wood and bark chunks make a more cozy ground coverings than gravel.

There's a lot of different types of tomatoes. Some grow in bushes, others in vines. Some are excellent for slices and some are good for sauces. Plan accordingly and go nuts.

For the love of god, do not go down the chicken rabbit hole. Especially not at this moment. And if you eventually do, do not ever get unsexed (or even claimed to be sexed) chicks. A good chicken seller will be happy to sell you (or put you on the list for) hens that are about to start laying. There are a lot of people looking for new buyers to offload roosters

I find peppers are better to grow in pots that can go in the greenhouse when frost starts.

Pickling and preserving are you friend.

Seedlings can be hard to do yourself. Some are very demanding. Others are plant and forget.

Find local groups for heirloom seeds and seed collectors/libraries. These people are the heros for every new gardener and they are happy to help or just throw a few rare seeds your way. Be sure to pay it forward however you can. The produce is not pretty but is miles above what you get at stores.

There are a lot of losses. Pests. Birds. Weeds. Take precautions but don't get obsessive. If a bird gets to that big tomato you've been eyeing for days, it's fair game. Also, diatomaceous dirt/ash is ridiculously effective for some bugs and non toxic.

I suggest going to a local nursery, telling the folks there what your plan is, and asking for help picking out varieties that grow well where you are. Maybe take some pictures of the area you’re going to use and bring them along. Ask a million questions, those folks love to help people grow successfully. You might need to do something like put up shade cloth when deep summer hits, they’ll know if you do and what kind to use.

I also suggest picking out some flowers that you like. Tomatoes and peppers need pollinating; getting a good baseline of bees and such will make pollination more likely.

Tomatoes and hot peppers are some of the things that I grow the most of. I don't think it is too late for either of those if you get started now unless you want to start from actual seeds. You should be able to get some seedlings from a local plant or hardware store and be fine. My main advice is to perhaps make some effort to contain the tomatoes as they tend to spread as far as they can within a garden bed and crowd out the other plants. If you want some easy varieties for your first try, I find that cherry tomatoes or plum/roma tomatoes are more forgiving and give you lot of produce. For hot (ish) peppers, I find that cayenne are very easy to grow and will give you plenty of peppers. If you plan on growing actually hot peppers, especially super hots, make sure you don't go overboard because you'll likely find it is difficult to make use of a very large number of those peppers. You can't really give them away to most people and there are only so many things you can do with them before they go bad. I find that I have to dehydrate most of mine and just use them throughout the year.

Pay attention to which plants like sun all day and which like some shade.

Florida 10a or California 10a? Those are very different climates, in spite of the warmer winter temperatures.

I live where >100F temperatures in the summer are common. I find my chile peppers do better with afternoon shade, so I'd suggest putting the basil out with the tomatoes and the chiles on the porch where the get some sun but are shaded from the strongest rays in the afternoon.