If you want to start an herb or vegetable garden than the below written 11 gardening tips for beginners are for you. Save your time, energy, money, and other resources by following the below gardening tips.
Let’s start
Small Start
95% of people do the gardening to feed their families fresh and organic food. Others want to preserve the food for the coming winters. Therefore, they want to sow every single seed that they have. But in reality, if you start a huge garden at the beginning, you will face many difficulties and more than 50% of your plants will die. They will die because of your low gardening skills.
Beginner growers think growing a plant from seeds is easy. I admit it is easy but the problem comes when pests attack your plants. When your plant does not show healthy signs. Or when suddenly your plant stops growing or you choose the wrong growing medium etc.
Therefore, I suggest you start from growing few plants and increase the number as your gain experience. If you know someone who can help you to save your plants in hard conditions than you can start from a huge garden.
But the problem is
how many times you will ask others for help? It is best for you to take responsibility for your plants and learn something new every day. Learn Gardening for beginners not hard if the full concentration is paid on growing plants.
Don’t rely on others too much.
What you can plant?
At the beginning of your gardening carrier Start from planting few tomatoes and pepper plants. A small kitchen herb garden is a good option for beginners to learn new skills. Grow lettuce in containers with basil or mint. Grow them from seeds or cuttings and learn about the plant’s needs.
Try to grow plants from seeds and cuttings at the same time. This way you can learn the practical way of taking plant cuttings. The difference between seed grown plants and plants grown from cuttings.
Grow what you eat
Always grow such food plants that you and your family like to eat the most. Plants mentioned in the above sections are those that are very easy to grow. If your family likes to eat potatoes then go and grow potatoes. If you never grow any plant in your life till now, grow above-suggested plants (basil, tomatoes, mint, etc).
Moreover, you should check the outside temperature and season before start growing. In the outdoor garden, you can only grow seasonal plants.
But
In indoor gardening, you are free to grow any type of vegetable, herb, and fruit at any time of the year. Thanx to the artificial man-made grow lights that help us to grow the plant inside our home. Every plant needs light to grow and indoor plants receive light from Grow lights.
Learn more about LED grow lights
Gardening is very easy if you know everything about your plants.
Choose Best Location
In our Gardening for beginners guide, the second step of gardening is looking for a suitable location. Stop overcrowding your garden this is not good for growing plants and you will not get a good harvest.
When we grow too many plants at small space this reduces the airflow to their roots and bottom. Good airflow is a must for a plant to fight back to diseases and pests.
I know some people do not have big yards and they want to grow as many vegetables as they can in the available space.
But why they don’t adapt vertical gardening for beginners. When your growing space does not let you grow more plants change the way of your gardening. Start growing small plants (2 to 4 feet long) in containers, hanging baskets, etc. Container gardening is best for beginners because it is a technique that allows you to grow 50% more plants in the same growing space.
Use Mulch
We use a mulch to reduce weed growth in our garden area. Mulching also protects the plants from hot winds. It improves the soil fertility as well as the moisture-holding power of the soil. It also improves the overall appearance of your garden.
If you don’t like pulling weeds every other day then use mulch in your home garden. Your choices are wood chips (recommended), grass clipping, or plastic.
Make Notes
In gardening when you are a beginner try to make notes of everything. Don’t think you can memorize every tip and technique. In the beginning, you need to write down your experience because everybody has their own techniques for gardening.
Label every plant in your garden so that you know which plant needs which type of fertilizer or so.
You should also note down the temperature and fertilization process of plants. I always have a fertilization chart in my garden. This helps me to prevent over-fertilization. I always check this chart to know how many plants are already fertilized and how many are left?
Also, make notes at the time of germination this way you know how different seeds germinate.
Don’t think gardening for beginners is different than professionals. Anyone can learn gardening because learning steps are the same for all.
Nourish the Soil
Make it a rule to nourish your soil at least once a year. This will increase the health of garden soil; from soil health, I mean fertility of the soil. High fertile soil is required to grow beautiful plants and get a heavy harvest.
The easy way of nourishing soil is by
Making compost at home by using your kitchen and garden waste. No need to buy compost from the market use home waste and save money. All you need is to buy a good tumbler compost bin once in your life. Use it until it gets break or you want to make more compost and need big size composter.
Compost tumblers also make compost tea. Give compost tea to the growing plants especially to the container plants. You will see the huge improvements in a few days.
By composting your soil, you are fixing the nutrients deficiencies and increase the concentration of nutrients in your garden soil.
Ready to tackle Pests
Gardening for beginners also wants you to learn how to fight against pests. This is the most important part you need to focus on. Every gardener has to face the pests at some point in the gardening. Even all professional growers face pest problems. Be ready to fight back and save your plants from them.
Here is the secret,
Neem spray is the best solution to prevent all types of pests and fungus away from your plants. Spray neem on your plants once in a month this will keep all the plant diseases away.
Give Water Carefully
Give water to your plants when they need it otherwise overwatering can kill your plants. The most common type of mistake that beginner gardeners make is overwatering. Every new gardener thinks that giving more fertilizers and water to plants can speed up their growth. But in reality, this will hurt them and even can kill them.
Before watering check the soil condition. Insert your finger 1 inch deep into the soil and if you feel the soil is dry give water immediately. If the soil contains moisture don’t give water.
Invest in Best Gardening tools
The right kind of gardening tools makes your work fast and easy. So, invest some money in basic gardening tools because you cannot use your regular kitchen knife to chop the fresh carrots.
Pruners
Garden Hoes
Potting mix
Seedling domes and mats
Plant supports
Garden shovel (D handle)
If you have a good budget buy metal tools from the local garden tools. They give a warranty on them. If your budget is low you can still avoid plastic tools by visiting the local Garage sales. Used garden tools are better than plastic tools.
While buying them make sure you choose tools that are of the right size to avoid the risk of tool injury.
Tools make your work easy, fast, and also take care of your back. Always clean them after finishing the garden work.
Test your Garden Soil
Before growing plants in your garden, you need to do one most important thing and that is testing your garden soil.
To know about the nature of soil means is it acidic, alkaline, or Neutral (pH7). Also, about the percentage of basic nutrients in the soil. In some parts of the country, we do not have suitable soil for gardening.
If you are living in a green belt then you don’t need to test you because the soil of green belts has all the essential nutrients in it.
If you know your soil is good for growing plants even then at least do soil pH tests. Because some plants need little acidic soil where the majority of the plants need neutral soil.
For example, Potatoes need a little acidic side of soil, and brassicas like to grow in alkaline soil.
Harvesting
Harvesting is the easy part only if you know how many days your plants take to produce ripen fruit. Every fruit, vegetable, and herb has different growing cycles from seeds to harvest.
Harvesting methods are also different for different plants
For example, you cut the green lettuce and it grows again in 10 to 14 days. This way you can have many harvests before the season ends.
Vegetables like tomatoes and potatoes are only harvested once from one or more plants.
I hope you found this Gardening for beginners guide helpful.
