Dig less than you think. Plant more than you think. Mulch everything.
Step 1: Location. Most sun wins. Watch your yard for a day: where’s the sun at 9am, noon, 4pm? That’s your garden.
Step 2: Start small. One 4×8 bed. Seriously. A small garden you actually tend beats a big garden that becomes a weed museum by July.
Step 3: Soil. If your soil is garbage, build raised beds and fill them with a mix of topsoil and compost. Don’t fight your dirt; go around it.
Step 4: Plant what you eat. Don’t grow kohlrabi because a book told you to. Grow what your family actually puts on plates.
Step 5: Mulch. Wood chips, straw, leaves, 4 inches of it. This is the difference between watering every day and watering twice a week, and between weeding every weekend and barely weeding at all.
Step 6: Write it down. What you planted, when, what worked. Future you will thank present you.
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