Start an in-ground vegetable garden

Turn a patch of lawn into a plot. Compost in, weeds out, plants in the ground by the weekend.

How big is the plot?

square feet

This fits in a car

About 534 lb of materials. Comfortably inside what a car carries (200 lb), so any shopper can take it. ⚠️ 1 item on the list has no weight on file, so the real load is a little heavier than this.

Before you start

Call 811 before breaking new ground — it is free and takes a couple of days. A rented cultivator can jump when it hits a root or rock, so keep both hands on it, wear boots, and keep kids and pets well back.

What to buy — untick anything you have

Soil

12 bags of compost, 1.5 cu ft

Lawn

1 bag of granular vegetable garden fertilizerA bag labeled for about 100 sq ft of garden. Organic or not is the customer’s call.
2 bales of wheat strawWheat straw, not hay. Hay is full of seeds.

Plants

5 packs of vegetable starts, 6-cell packWhatever the customer listed, or what the garden center says goes in now. Tomatoes and peppers after mid-April here; greens in spring and fall.

Tools — already ticked off, since most people have them

Tools

1 Rear-tine garden cultivator
1 Flat spade· most people have this
1 Garden rake· most people have this
1 Garden hose· most people have this

It lands in the shopping form, where you can edit anything and say what you think each thing costs. Nothing is ordered until you send it.

How it goes · about a weekend · beginner

Pick the sunniest flat spot you have — vegetables want at least six hours of direct sun.
Strip the grass with a spade, then break up the ground eight inches deep with the cultivator.
Spread the compost and fertilizer over the top and work them in with a second pass.
Rake it level and plant the starts at the spacing on their tags, tall plants on the north side.
Water them in, then spread the straw between the rows to hold moisture and keep weeds down.

Something else

Build a raised garden bed Mulch a flower bed Paint a room Put up garage shelving Fix a patchy lawn Build a fire pit Mount a TV on the wall Cookout for a crowd

Feeding people instead? The recipe book works the same way — pick a meal, say how many, every ingredient lands on the list.