How to Pick the Perfect Garden Type

We’re often asked what type of gardens beginners should start with so they don’t get overwhelmed and fail. The struggle is real and normal! Bootstrap Farmer is here to help you succeed from day one. Let’s keep you gardening longer, learning and exploring, and gaining confidence. 

This article will focus on different types of gardens and help you decide which one is best for you. The one you choose should suit your space, needs, and lifestyle. Effective planning and realistic goal-setting will increase the odds of success. So, what type of garden should you start? Let’s dive in and help you decide. 

How to Choose the Right Garden Type for You

Factor in these considerations when choosing a garden type. 

What Space Are You Working With? 

Do you live in an urban area with very little yard space? Sloped land that needs erosion control? Flat land with drainage issues? 

Here are five things you may need to complete before putting seeds or plants in the ground: 

1. Level the ground 
2. Amend the soil 
3. Build raised beds or shape traditional garden rows 
4. Make a plan for weed control 
5. Install trellising or fencing to support tall crops

How Much Time Do You Have? 

Setting unrealistic goals is a sure way to become frustrated with your garden. For consistent production, stay on top of garden chores like: 

• Weeding 
• Watering 
• Dead-heading 
• Mulching 
• Fertilizing 
• Trellising/supporting 
• Harvesting 

If you don’t have time in your week to do the bare minimum, you might become overwhelmed. Remember, the bigger the garden, the more attention and time it will need to thrive. Stay ahead of your to-do list before adding more raised beds and crops. Stay realistic with your time commitments and start small. 

What Are Your Goals? 

Beginners, set realistic goals when starting. Here are a few examples of year 1-3 goals: 

• Growing all your herbs for meals
• Quick-growing greens for weekly salads
• Creating a beautiful landscape
• Avoiding purchasing tomatoes at the grocery store all summer
• Keeping your soil covered with flowers to prevent annual weeds from germinating
• Boost wildlife presence 

With experience, you’ll learn how much time to commit to each chore. Eventually, your goal might be to grow enough food to freeze and preserve for the winter. That will take more time, space, and maintenance, but it’s a good long-term goal. 

What’s Your Skill Level? 

If you’re starting from scratch, think of your first garden as learning how to ride a bike with training wheels on. Read seed packets, join gardening groups online, and read blogs written by experienced gardeners. 

Starting a garden is an exciting endeavor. First-timers often get overly excited and design a complicated garden. To avoid frustration:

• Keep it simple 
• Expect some failures
• Celebrate the small wins

Keep records of how things went. Note small details, big accomplishments, and unexpected challenges. Looking back on each season will show your growth as a grower. You’ll gain confidence and learn where you can improve each year.  

Main Types of Backyard Gardens

1. Container Gardens

Build a container garden with small pots, upcycled buckets, old coffee sacks, or grow bags. They’re 100% customizable to your space, whether you’re renting, have a small yard, or poor quality native soil. Grow leaf lettuce, basil, peppers, and tomatoes with ease in containers. Trellis or cage heavy or tall crops to ensure a long season.

Pros to container gardens: 

• They’re mobile! Just bring them inside if you’re expecting a frost or low temperatures
• Plants won’t become rootbound in fabric pots
• More control over the growing environment
• Adaptable and versatile
• Soil warms quicker than the ground soil 

Cons to container gardens:

• Can dry out quickly, so you have to water more
• Limited space for plants to grow 

2. Raised Bed Gardens

Raised beds are wooden or metal structures filled with soil. They are perfect for growers with poor native soil, pest issues, or soil-borne diseases. You only need enough space to fit the bed to grow in a raised bed! 

The set-up is easy and straightforward, and you can start growing in them as soon as they’re in place and filled. The cost is relatively low, depending on whether you build or buy a kit. Embrace versatility and dense planting with this type of garden. Mix veggies, herbs, and flowers. Maximize the space with vertical trellising or fencing. Yields will improve with regular harvests. Bootstrap tip: Trim lower leaves to free up air space and improve circulation. 

Bootstrap Farmer’s metal raised garden beds are easy to install, attractive, and long-lasting. They offer height for growers who have mobility issues or want to avoid bending over. The downside to raised beds is that they take a lot of material to fill them, which can be costly. And, while it’s possible, it’s best to avoid moving them once they’re in place. 

3. In-Ground Gardens with Traditional Rows

A traditional way of gardening is with in-ground gardens in rows. It’s also the most labor-intensive. When starting from scratch, you’ll need to complete these seven steps: 

1. Kill the grass. Learn how to use silage tarps here. 
2. Do a perc test to check drainage and send a soil sample to the lab. Cornell Cooperative Extension walks through how to take a soil sample properly. 
3. Amend the soil based on test results and level the ground. 
4. Stake out beds and paths.
5. Using a shovel, scrape out soil for paths, scooping it onto the beds. 
6. Broadfork the beds, working backwards to avoid stepping on them.
7. Do one last bed shape with a rake, remeasuring to make sure they didn’t get too wide or narrow. 

If you have a large, flat, sunny space to work, this garden type is for you. Intercrop to maximize the space:

• Kale with herbs 
• Radishes with tomatoes
• Lettuce along trellised peas

A broadfork and a standing hand cultivator will minimize soil disturbance and save your body. 

While rows are generally the same length and run parallel on farms, the home garden is your oyster. Get creative and work with your space. Shape your garden beds around large trees, grilling, or play areas. Design something that makes sense in your space for a higher success rate. When it’s time to expand, consider a hoop house. 

4. Vertical and Small-Space Gardens

Small-space gardeners are creative and inventive. They use wall planters for herbs, grow cucumbers and beans up trellises, and add strawberries in hanging baskets. Maximize vertical space by installing a tiered system with deep pockets. A productive patio garden is a guaranteed conversation starter. 

We take our advice from Meg Austin at Ninnescah Made to grow greens indoors, and you should too. She recommends getting through winter by growing microgreens. They’re quick to mature, highly nutritious, and fun for the whole family. Invest in quality grow lights, seeds, and potting soil for success. Learn more about what she has to say about getting started in her beginner’s guide to homestead gardening.

5. Specialty Gardens

Themed or specialty gardens are the next step for adventurous growers. Here are a few of our favorite types and details for you to consider. 

Themed garden options are endless. Change it up each season if one doesn’t work out the way you’d planned. Loving the color purple? Mix blue, violet, and purple veggies and flowers. Enjoy drinking herbal tea in the winter? An herbal tea garden makes perfect sense. 

Our beginner’s guide to tea gardens will help you design your own. Our guide to starting a grilling garden helps you decide which perennials, herbs, and veggies to plant. Not into grilling, but love making fresh summer salsa? Fill a raised bed with peppers, tomatoes, cilantro, onions, and garlic, and you’re on your way.

Maybe flowers are your thing. Jessica Chase of Sierra Flower Farm lists these 7 as a few of her favorite, low-maintenance flowers perfect for beginners: 

1. Cosmos
2. Zinnias
3. Sunflowers
4. Marigolds 
5. Calendula 
6. Yarrow
7. Coreopsis 

Check out the rest of what she has to say about planning and designing a compact cut flower garden here. 

Comparing Garden Types: Quick Reference Table

Real-World Decision Examples

We want to help make your gardening dreams come true. Here are some real-life suggestions for beginners. 

Small-Space Growers

Fill fabric grow bags, window planters, and tiered planters with salad greens, green onions, strawberries, and cucumbers. Nasturtium, cosmos, and sweet alyssum nearby will:

• Boost pollination 
• Attract beneficial insects 
• Deter certain pests

The Busy Parent 

You spend hours weekly driving kids to and from various friends’ houses and extracurricular activities. There are only so many hours a day to garden! Install a raised bed or two, fill it with high-quality mix and compost, and grow these five crops: 

1. Head lettuce: Lots of varieties to choose from, grows well in all seasons
2. Hybrid slicing tomatoes: Hybrids are more disease-resistant and produce more. Cherry tomatoes are great too, but they get much taller and need support.
3. Green beans: Very productive, nitrogen fixers, extended harvest period 
4. Carrots: Direct sow these in the shade of your tomato plant. They’ll keep weeds down and are relatively pest-free.
5. Small sweet peppers: Mature quicker than large bell peppers, produce for a long time, and are easy to preserve. 

Surround the area with grow bags full of flowers for pops of color and to attract pollinators. Think of these companions as garden partners. 

Bootstrap tip: Incorporate perennials like rhubarb, asparagus, and self-seeding dill to save some work in future years. 

The Eager DIYer

A DIYer has a toolbox full of drills, impact drivers, hammers, and bits, and you have every type of screw you might need. If this sounds like you, you’re ready to tackle a more hands-on approach to your gardening. This could mean building wooden raised beds, installing trellis systems from scratch, or designing a passive solar greenhouse. 

Got a knack for colors? Design a cottage garden by mixing shades, textures, and heights. 

Hot climate grower? Consider a gravel garden with drought-resistant varieties. You can also check out some tips on How to Keep Plants Alive in a Drought. 

Love taking trips to the hardware store? Grab some cattle panels and t-posts for a DIY arch trellis for all your climbing veggies. 

Prefer your garden space to look tidy? We bet you’ll love the square-foot gardening method that uses neat boxes for planting. It looks clean, is versatile, and manageable for beginners to design. 

The Avid Home Cooker

If you love to cook, you’ll love heading out to the garden to grab your ingredients. You’ll immediately improve as a cook when you use fresh produce and herbs. Elevate your dinners by ditching the grocery store and using items from your garden instead. 

Grow the basics used in most recipes: 

• Onions 
• Garlic 
• Herbs
• Peppers
• Tomatoes 
• Carrots 
• Lettuce 

Learn More About Great Starter Gardens

• Herb gardens are a great place to start if you lack time and space. Herbs don't require much attention and tend to do well when ignored. 
• Flower cutting gardens are a joy if you love fresh flowers on the table or want to attract lots of birds and pollinators. 
• Grilling gardens can be ideal for the BBQ enthusiast. Fill it with easy-to-grill veggies to widen your menu options.  
• Container gardens are perfect for small space growers.
• Salad gardens focus on producing salad ingredients week after week. 

Bootstrap Tips for Early Success

• Start simple. Don’t over-plan. Over-designing is a sure way to fail or become frustrated. Set realistic goals.
• Quality matters. Use good soil and seeds. Related: Why Organic Matter is Key to Sustainable Soil Management
• Water, but not too much. Get an irrigation system in place. If you’re forgetful, we've got you. Attach a water timer to avoid dried-up greens. 
• Plan for pests. They may not find you in the first year, but eventually, they’ll be out there, wreaking havoc. Be ready with a plan.
• Get the facts. Check your frost date on the USDA website and monitor overnight lows in the spring. 

Ready to get started? Snag our Ultimate Backyard Gardener Bundle as a one-stop starter kit. Take advice from Milan from ATL Grow, who started gardening in 2020. He wants you to remember: 

1. Location is everything 
2. Sunlight is the key 
3. Timing is also everything! 
4. Your garden really wants to grow 
5. Pests really want to eat your garden 

Read his blog about being a new gardener for the remaining five things he’s learned over the years. 

FAQs 

What type of garden should I start if I have zero experience?

Pick your top five to eight veggies and herbs that you buy from the grocery store each week. Flip through seed catalogs to find the ones marked “easy pick”. These varieties will be the most resilient, highest-producing, and forgiving for beginners. 

Which garden is best for small spaces or patios?

Herb, vegetable, and pollinator gardens work well in small spaces. Since herbs and annual veggies grow well together, you can fit more in a small space. 

How much time does each garden type take weekly?

Commit at least two hours a week for various tasks like weeding, planting, harvesting, and watering. You can easily spend 10+ hours in the garden weekly as you expand and grow more advanced crops. 

Can I grow food without a yard?

Container growing is a popular growing trend in urban areas and among apartment dwellers. One of our farm partners in Phoenix grows about half her crops in grow bags to control the soil quality. Learn more about how to get started here. 

What’s the fastest vegetable I can grow?

Direct-sown baby greens mature quickly and can be cut several times. 

Are raised beds really worth the cost?

Raised beds are a great option for folks with mobility concerns or whose native soil is not great. They may warm a bit earlier in the spring, have fewer critter issues, and are easy to cover with our low tunnel kits. We think they’re worth every penny!

How do I keep my starter garden from failing?

Bootstrap tips: 

• Start small and simple
• Choose crops that are foolproof
• Don’t forget to water and weed
• Grow things you like to eat

When should I try a specialty or themed garden?

Experienced or adventurous gardeners should try a specialty or themed garden. Save these until you’re comfortable working in your space and have the proper tools and supplies. 

What is the easiest garden for beginners?

We recommend an annual vegetable and herb garden for beginners. Tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers are very forgiving. Herbs make excellent companions and may help deter pests. Toss some flowers in grow bags or hanging baskets for pops of color. Just don’t forget to water!

Can I combine different garden types in my yard?

You can absolutely combine different garden types in your yard. Create separate areas to ensure all your plants receive proper light, soil, and water.