If you are new to the gardening scene {Did you even know it is a scene? Well, it totally is.} and have decided this is YOUR year to finally start that garden you’ve always wanted–I thought I would put together a quick and easy couple of tips to get your started. Some people are food pushers, I am a garden pusher.
So, here you go, simple tips to push you to grow a garden:
- GROW WHAT YOU LOVE!! If I could leave you with one tip, it would be this one. Don’t bother yourself with anything that you don’t love to eat…it will become a chore, rather than the rad experiment in self-sufficiency and awesomeness that it is.
- Starting a garden is really the hardest part: Deciding how you will grow…be it square foot gardening, container gardening or raised bed. Do what works for your space. Don’t feel like you can only grow one thing, you’ll be left wishing you planted more variety. Decide what works for your space and time limits and go for it.
- Slow and steady wins the race. Think perennials. Edibles or ornamentals that you really only have to commit to the labor on once–and then they do the work year after year. It’s less commitment, but still has rewards.
- Don’t feel like you have to do everything start to finish. Your first couple of seasons will have a learning curve, don’t feel like you have to start ALL of your plants from seed, make your own compost, etc. You can buy starter plants at the local nursery, buy a bag of compost, buy garden soil and simplify until you feel comfortable enough to move on.
- Get comfy with death. You will kill things. There will be casualties. You will follow books to the letter, and still it will happen. I still kill plants. Sometimes I know why, sometimes I don’t. Just chalk it up to a bad year, like a fisherman says his big one got a way.
- Hand water. Hand watering your garden allows you to notice little changes {like pest infestation or disease} that you might not otherwise notice…until it’ too late. It also helps you to avoid the pitfalls of over or under-watering.
- Consider your individual space when you are designing your garden. If you have a yard that is almost entirely shade, your may have to choose plants that withstand that sort of thing. Likewise, full sun is going to have different watering demands {important to consider if water is at a premium}.
- Remember it’s a hobby and not a job. Of course you are growing food to feed your family and supplement your groceries, but don’t rely on it like you are small-scale farming. It will suck the joy out of the process and turn it into a stress-causer, rather than a stress reliever. Let it unfold in a really light-hearted way for the first several seasons, you’ll enjoy it more in the long run.
How about all of you seasoned gardeners out there, what is YOUR advice to newbies?
~Mavis
Spring! It’s almost here. 🙂 🙂 🙂
SHARE:
Cindi says
I’m going to contradict your advice to hand-water. When I invested in drip irrigation and set everything up on timers, it changed my gardening life. Watering almost every day is a necessity here in the arid West and watering my various garden beds by hand was taking hours of my life, and making me hate gardening. Automating that chore means my garden thrives and I have time to spend on the stuff I love, like picking vegetables and just enjoying watching the plants.
Teresa says
I agree with Cindi, something like corn that needs heavy water would never survive on hand watering. I too love drip irrigation. It keeps the water off the leaves too. Sunburn from water sitting on the leaves can kill plants.
Jen says
I love hand-watering! I agree with Mavis. But, would add that it is also great exercise.
Mary3M says
I hate to burst your bubble Mavis but you have at least 2.5 more months of winter. NE has had snow storms in April that have rivaled those in January. I think you are still in a NE learning gardening curve. But gotta love your outlook and enthusiasm!!!!! Too bad you can’t get rid of that pesky poison ivy now while it’s dormant. Are those plants that you have started this year?
Lisa says
I concur. I live in Maine outside of Portland. Last year, we had snow on the ground till April 20th. The longest we have gone without power was due to a Patriots Day storm. Miles to go….
Katie says
I think I’m finally going to take the plunge this year and buy either a tomato plant or a pepper plant. Both of which I believe are a little bit “idiot proof” here in Texas. I live in a townhouse right now and have a tiny postage stamp yard which my dog currently has reign over. But our five year plan involves buying LAND which I would love to put a garden on. So I want to get my hands dirty now and see if I can figure some things out. I found a new (to me) YouTube channel the other day (Roots and Refuge Farm) and she was talking about making your waiting room a class room. Essentially, while you’re waiting for a dream to become a reality, jump in and start learning those skills now. I love this and it’s what I’m trying to do. I picked up a book for $2 in the Half Price Books clearance section called Gardening for Young People by Kains. It’s been a fun read. It’s widening my knowledge of gardening in the sense that it’s alerting me to things that exist that I had never thought about before. But it does encourage lots of experiments rather than just giving you the answer. So I think it would make a good home school book, rather than a straightforward how-to. Anyway, hopefully I’ll be able to grow some tomatoes and/or peppers and then when I have a ton I’ll be forced to try the other thing that intimidates me, but I’ve always wanted to learn – canning 🙂
Laura says
If you plan to do tomatoes in Texas you need to start early and know that you will not have much in the way of crop in the mid-summer due to high heat. Then you will get a nice fall crop when temps cool down. I don’t consider tomatoes and idiot proof plant in TX for this reason. I had mine in the ground in Dallas by mid Feb and was harvesting by mid-May. Was a great way to make my family in colder climates jealous, but they had the last laugh because they got way more tomatoes in the heat of the summer!
Cass says
Start small. VERY small. If you love beans don’t plant 5 rows of them. One row will be enough to start. Like basil? One pot is enough. Let your garden enlarge as your joy of growing your own grows.
Carrie says
I love buying plants, growing from seed, planting and harvesting but I HATE watering and weeding. It’s my gardens downfall but I have found mulching really helps with both watering and weeding chores. When my boyfriend helps it makes the chore easier too.
Pam says
I am not a seasoned gardener by any means. Or maybe I should say I’m not a good gardener. I try. I really do. I grow a small garden (5 small raised beds)every year and I love it no matter how it turns out. I love being out there listening to the birds. Watching the occasional deer walk by (my garden is definitely fenced lol!) and harvesting whatever I managed to grow that season. I can’t imagine not having my little garden!
Marti Clark says
I have a large garden and the only time I water is when setting out transplants. My garden is too large and too far from my house to water. After seeds and plants have been established I mulch heavily with newspaper, cardboard, grass clippings, and leaves. That saves me from doing constant weeding and is a great moisture control factor. The only water my garden gets is from the rains.
Mavis Butterfield says
I was shocked last year to only have to give my garden a good watering 3 times.
Jen says
It’s okay if plants fail. It happens. I have great success at many types of vegetables nearly every year, but some vegetables, I just can’t seem to get to grow. I’ve given up on those and focus on the ones I seem to be good at.
Diane says
I’m with Teresa and Cindi. Two summers ago, through no fault of his own, my husband didn’t get the drip irrigation system set up (he has to reconfigure everything but the main water lines every year because my planting beds are still in flux, poor thing). He and I (mostly I) had to hand water every couple of days during a HOT summer and fall here in Portland. Even with his substantial help, and even though we only have a 4/10 acre lot, I spent AT LEAST 1 1/2 hours watering every other day, 3-ish hours if I was doing the job alone. I came to dread the garden rather than enjoying it, and other garden chores I’d wanted to do suffered because I was spending so much time hauling the hose around to keep plants alive.
My advice for keeping tabs on how plants are doing, whether you have pests, etc., is just to WALK the garden as much as you can, at different times of the day. Stop and say hello to individual plants. Turn over their leaves. Watch how they’re growing. Don’t spend your precious hours trying to hand water everything unless you only have a few potted plants on a small patio. You’ll never be sorry you took the time to install a drip system.
Mel says
I had to come to terms with the fact that the best ways to do things were sometimes the most painful. Seed starting is a good example. No matter what I do, we get fungal gnats immediately every single year, even with sterile seed starting mix and diatomaceous earth. Nothing seems to kill or prevent them. The months where we have to run grow lights are consequently awful. But, it’s the only way to get certain varieties of plants, and they tend to get a better start than they would with direct seeding.
This year I’m growing flowers for the first time, so I have flower and vegetable starts under lights from now until mid-April. I expect to be unhinged by the time it’s all done due to the gnats.
Margery Erckert says
Make local gardening mentors, many years when I was a young wife and new mother my neighbor was a older Italian man who had a wonderful garden. I listened to his advice he gave over the fence and grew a wonderful garden. Four years ago we moved to a new state with total different weather, I haven’t found a mentor yet as no one around me seems to garden but I have gotten advice from the local extension office.
Judy Mills says
It’s -24 C here, please Spring come soon!!!
Mable says
It is hazardous to listen to ad hoc gardening advice, like don’t water after transplanting or show pictures of using those mesh Jiffy seed containers for seedlings. In dry climates, not watering will kill or stunt your garden. In cold climates, Jiffy containers do not decompose in the soil and will kill off your transplants as the roots go round and round searching for a way to get to more soil. Your watering needs will be different depending on the health of your soil, whether or not you have raised beds, the types of plants you are growing. If you are new to an area, find an experienced gardener or contact your local cooperative extension service for free advice and pamphlets.
Lisa Millar says
First of all I need to stop laughing at the fabulous photo of you grimacing over your dead tomatoes! Gold. 🙂 (OK I felt bad for you too but I do love the photo still!! I am sure I have had that face a lot over the seasons)
What a great bunch of tips. I run a small facebook group for raw beginners and my number one tip is similar to yours. I say start with pen and paper and write down what you love to grow! People get excited about the fast growing radishes but not a lot of point growing them if you don’t actually like them!!
I hand water and use sprinklers… too much time to get around our full space by hand watering, but I do love to do it when I have time.
Good advice about expecting failure and success. As Aunty Ruby would say “Don’t break your heart over it!!”
One thing I find recently I am having to tell people is about carrots – DO NOT buy seedlings or pre grow carrots and transplant. In recent seasons the plant shops have been selling carrot seedlings!! Thats setting people up to fail and it annoys me. Direct sow carrots. Don’t fertilise and try to use a lighter sandier soil.
Anyway, loved the post and will link it on my facebook page.
The more people growing their own food the merrier!!
Lisa Millar says
Whoops… write down what you love to EAT!!! Eye roll!! 🙂
Nancy says
Speaking of tomatoes…someone told me that you can’t plant tomatoes in the same garden 2 years in a row. Is that true? I have a raised garden bed, and was planning on growing tomatoes in the same place I grew them last year.
Hmmm….
Lisa Millar says
It is better if you can rotate your crops around each season so you don’t run a higher risk of bugs/diseases etc. Same principle as farmers only on a smaller scale… that being said…. I grow tomatoes in my hothouse each year. I do top up the soil VERY generously with mushroom compost. They don’t really get the space rotation that they should have, but so far so good.
So… if you have a choice – try moving them and plant a different crop in your raised bed. If you have no choice – feed the soil up well and go for it.