You want to start a garden, but you don’t know where to start and you’re not sure if you even have the space. This article is going to give you some tips for starting a garden with any space you have available. No space, small space, and larger spaces can all have lovely functional gardens. Let’s start with the apartment dweller with no actual yard to call their own. This is where container gardening can come in handy.

If you don’t have the money to head to the garden store and pick up a bunch of containers, there are many ways to improvise. Any container that holds at least five gallons can hold your plants and a variety of herbs. In fact, herbs are one of the easiest ways to get started at gardening because you don’t have to wait for them to “fruit”.

You can start using them the moment they show leaves for clipping. You can also make your own potting soil using one part peat moss, one part compost, and one part manure or soil. The peat moss keeps the mixture from getting too dense in your container, so don’t skip that.

The other components you can play around with though. The potting soil mix I described can also be used in a smaller space where you are going to want to build some simple raised beds. Raised beds work better for smaller spaces because they keep things neat, orderly, and much more efficient. You will have to buy some of the things that I described to fill containers to fill the raised beds as well. A raised bed does not take more than several pieces of wood, some nails or screws, and a hammer.

You can make them as fancy or plain as you want.

Finally, if you have a large space right in your yard it pays to rent or borrow a garden tiller of some kind to prepare the bed at least the first season. Using a shovel to double dig down 18-24 inches is time consuming and hard labor. It might not be the best way to break yourself into gardening. It’s the way I prefer to do it, but many people would give up before they could even halfway finish.

Give yourself and your body a break and find a way to till the garden with a machine designed for that. There is no greater joy than growing your own fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs.

Go get started!