'Organic' Backyard vegetable garden in USA, design, idea, planting, process, cost per square foot in USA
It is good to utilise your empty lawn space or backyard in a vegetable garden, particularly an organic and sustainable vegetable garden.
It is not easy for a beginner to handle and make a vegetable garden perfectly or with fewer mistakes. So let's understand here, how to make a quality vegetable garden in your backyard with organic materials so you can run it throughout the year and fulfill all your needs for favorite vegetables.
Organic backyard vegetable garden in USA
Backyard vegetable garden design
It is quite obvious that no one wants a messed-looking vegetable garden in their backyard. There should be proper management of various plants growing, transplantation, open galleries, irrigation system, and low maintenance in the vegetable garden in the backyard.
Here, you will get a garden design in pieces so you can arrange them according to your comfort. Also, one suitable garden design too-
Area division for distinct vegetables
Consider a 50-square meter area as your backyard. Suppose you divide this area into 10x5 square meters. So you have to divide this area for vines, root vegetables, and twig vegetables either in the pots or directly in the ground.
You also have to keep in mind that you should make a proper gallery for walking and working space.
First, you have to fix an area for small containers for sprouting seeds. This area will help you in every season. In a 50 square meter area, you can fix a 4 square meter area for seeding and sprouting.
Following are vegetable managing sections in your lawn or backyard or garden-
- For vine vegetables
Vine vegetable cultivation is complementary to a backyard vegetable garden. You don't need to cover a big area for this.
You can make vines platforms stand in 50 to 80 percent area of your garden without covering a big portion of land. Either you can use metal rods or thick wooden sticks to make such structures. These stands don't cover space in the vegetable garden but can produce high vine vegetable yield.
But you should know the basics of vine cultivation of this.
- For root vegetables
After dividing the area into vine sections and cup sprouting sections, you have left a 40 square meter area. In this area, you have to make a gallery and space for various vegetables.
So take a 5 square meter area for root vegetables. If you transplant small vegetable plants directly into the land, then you have to be aware to not damage plants and weeding carefully. Land cultivation is time-saving and low-cost cultivation comparatively pots cultivation.
If you transplant sprouted plants into the bigger pots, then it becomes easier for you to manage the plants but it will increase your cost and time consumption.
You have to further divide the area according to the complementary crops and non-friendly crops. It is a huge step to be taken in the backyard vegetable garden.
- For twig vegetables
For twig vegetables, You can use the same method of growing root vegetables but comparatively, twig-yield vegetables take up extra space. For your comfort, we've divided this area into 20 square meters. For twig vegetables, it is better to use pots or big containers to save space and increase the variety of vegetables.
- For gallery
For walking and working, you need a proper gallery in your vegetable garden. You have left a 5 square meter area that is 4 meters long and 1.5 meters wide.
How to make a backyard vegetable garden in USA?
Before knowing the process and steps of developing the vegetable garden in the backyard, you should aware of its basic requirements of it-
Requirements for backyard vegetable garden in USA
- Seasonal vegetable seeds
You can grow certain varieties of vegetables in a particular season. It is another matter if you are thinking about the installation of a small vegetable greenhouse.
In an open vegetable garden, you have only the option of growing seasonal vegetables only. Following are season-wise vegetables that you can grow in your backyard garden.
Winter vegetable seeds are Red cabbage, Carrots, Radishes,Parsley, Kale, and Swiss chard. These vegetables can be used in lower temperatures from 5 degrees Celcius to 15 degrees Celcius. During this period, moisture keeps high in the air and overall light sun.
Summer vegetable seeds are Beets, celery, new potatoes, turnips, Broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, and green Beans. With very low humidity, these vegetables can grow in higher temperatures from 25 degrees to 38 degrees Celcius.
- Containers and small nursery bags
You should know that initially, it is better to grow vegetable plants from seeds in nursery pots. In direct land, chances are high that you may make a mistake so that seeds can't grow properly on time.
Nursery containers are very good to keep eye on every single vegetable seed initially and easy to check their regular health. These nursery containers are made of lightweight solid plastic or thin plastic sheet.
Either thick plastic bags or solid plastic containers are best for later transplantation. These pots are cheaper, lightweight, and last for a long time. Containers must have a proper drainage system according to the need of the particular vegetable. These plastic containers are available in various shapes and size like hollow cylindrical, hollow cubic, hollow semispherical, and hollow cuboid.
- Cultivation tools and stands
You don't need heavy or complicated cultivation tools for your backyard garden. Basic cultivation tools are quite good enough and helpful for vegetable gardens. You need a small cultivator tool, metal stands for vines and vegetables, a metal net, garden hoe, weed puller, etc.
Some of these tools you can use as a complementary and as an alternative to another one.
- Irrigation tools
If you have a small vegetable garden, then you can use spray bucket irrigation. If you have a wide and lengthy area of the vegetable garden then it is better to install either sprinkler irrigation or micro-irrigation.
- Compost
Compost is an organic fertilizer that treats your garden soil as well as provides plenty of fertility for vegetable growth in the garden. There are many composts like cow dung compost, organic waste compost, vermicompost, and chicken manure. You can either make compost at home or you can buy it directly from the market. But compost must be properly decomposed with all the organic materials and should not be wet. It matters what kind of compost you use with particular vegetables.
In winters, it is better to use the least moist compost directly in the vegetables. In summers, you can use liquid compost(water+compost).
Process of growing vegetables in the backyard in the USA
Let's understand what should be your process and steps for devloping a vegetable garden in your backyard-
- Soil preparation
After land division, you need to prepare a garden soil mixture that is fertile for a particular season of vegetable seeds. So it depends on your variety of seeds and what ratio you are going to use of various organic materials and soil. Coco pit, garden soil, vermicompost, cow dung compost, chicken manure, organic waste compost, sand, and moisture are the components that we use to make soil mixture.
In winters, the seeds may ask for less nitrogen or high carbon, or vice versa. Similarly in summers, the seeds may ask for the different ratios of natural elements. For this, you should aware of the requirements of particular vegetable plants.
After calculating the ratio, mix the components well and use them fresh in your pots. Fill the plastic cups for sowing seeds in next step.
- Sowing seeds
Some vegetable seeds require treatment before sowing. For this, we use various methods in summers and winters. Although it is not necessary with packet seeds at least you can follow the instructions on the packet of seeds.
According to the size of the seeds, sow a single seed in a single soil mixture filled cup. Don't cover the seed with a thick layer of soil mixture. Spray some water and let the seeds grow. You can keep these seed cups for 2 hours in sunlight in a day. For the rest of the period, you can keep them in shade or at moderate temperature. Too much direct sunlight is bad for the initial growth of seeds.
- Sprouting and transplantation
After a couple of days, seeds start sprouting in the cups. Once, they become 3 to 4 inches tall, you can transplant them into bigger pots.
Now, fill the bigger pots with proper fertile soil mixture up to 60%. Now pull out the whole plant with cup soil as it is, and put it in the bigger pots. Cover the plant roots with the same soil mixture and spray water. Repeat this thing with each plant.
Remember, some of these plants are vines, root vegetable plants, and twig vegetable plants. So transplant them according to their further growth in proper containers or places.
- Later transplantation
Once the plant gets strong roots and establishes well, it needs to be transplanted either into the ground soil or in bigger pots. With vines, you can transplant them near your vine support metal structure. The rest of them you can arrange according to space.
- Weeding
Regular irrigation and moisture can invite spontaneous plants with vegetable plants. These spontaneous plants affect the growth of vegetables. So you need to clean these unnecessary plants from your garden.
Spontaneous plants can grow faster in summer and winter both seasons. You should weed your vegetable garden regularly when these spontaneous plants appear.
- Composting
In the initial stages, you used a certain ratio of multiple components to make garden soil fertile. For further growth, you can use direct vermicompost or any organic compost in your plants.
In summer, it is better to use liquid compost(water+compost) and in winters, you can use raw compost with plants.
In a 3-month vegetable crop, you can apply 2 compost cycles. First composting when plants become young. Second composting 10 days before plants start to produce vegetables.
- Irrigation
Irrigation of vegetable plants is very important. Most green vegetable plants grow in moisture. So you have to be aware of green vegetables to keep the soil moist. In summers, you can irrigate your garden two times a day, and in winters once in 2 days is quite enough for plants. Non-green vegetables don't ask for too much moisture. So make sure to not over irrigate such plants.
Harvesting of fresh vegetables
The best time to harvest your vegetable is morning. You can harvest vegetables multiple times in a season from your garden. Once, you establish your garden, you can get fresh vegetables daily in variety.
Some vegetables take time to grow but some of them grow faster. With multiple vegetable plants, you can get variety as well as daily vegetables. Don't damage the plants while you harvest the vegetables.
Backyard vegetable garden cost per 100 square foot in USA
Let's understand what are the expenses to make a vegetable garden in your backyard-
- Plastic cups(100 cups)- $5
- Big containers(60 pieces)- $50
- Metal stands cost- $120
- Wooden platforms making cost- $150
- Seed cost- $10
- Compost cost-$80
- Garden tools cost- $75
Total cost- $470
Per square foot cost- $4.7