8 Gardening Tips for Beginners
“The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul”
A famous quote was written by Alfred Austin
In this busy society, gardening can be an easy way to forget all worries of this modern world. Gardening is an outstanding hobby one can have. Gardening is a superb opportunity to serve both body and mind. It eases the mind, makes your body work hard, and also beautifies your surroundings. Watching your own garden also refreshes the mind. Gardening is simple and also complicated both at the same time
Hello everyone my name is Hosain Ahmed and today I am going to share some useful tips for gardening so you guys can start your own garden in the best way.
So here are 8 gardening tips for people who want to start gardening:
1. Choosing the right place
To start gardening you have to pick the right place first. Study your surroundings to see which place will be the best. First, choose a piece of land where you want to start. Keep track of the sunny areas and also the areas where it’s mostly shady. Because as you know, certain plants grow in certain locations. For sunny areas, you can plant flowers such as salvia, marigold, sunflowers, Scaevola, lantana, etc. For veggies, you can plant tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, peas, beans, corn, squash, etc. For shady areas, you can plant Dracena, English Ivy, Parlor palm, Peperomia, Spider plants, etc.
2. Picking up the right tools
For gardening, you will obviously need some tools as you won’t dig with your bare hands…(it’s a joke) You won’t need that many tools, just some to start. The tools you may need are :
Gloves: gloves will be pretty useful as there will be many thorns and stuff that may hurt you. Also, it will protect your hand from getting dirty.
Pruning Shears: You will have to cut some stuff. Pruning shears, also known as hand pruners, are strong enough to shear hard branches of trees and shrubs sometimes even up to two centimetres thick.
Hoe: Hoe is a pretty iconic tool for gardening. We usually associate hoe with gardening and farming. Hoes can be used to shape soil, remove weeds, clear soil etc
Garden fork: Garden fork will come in good aid many times. You can use it for loosening, lifting and turning over the soil.
Spades: Spades is a must-go tool for gardening. It helps you in digging out the soil and weeds.
Garden hose: For watering plants, a garden hose can be a pretty useful tool. Watering the plant’s bucket by bucket will be pretty painful especially for the back. A hose with an adjustable nozzle will come in handy.
These tools will be enough to start. Most of the tools here are pretty important. Some of them you may already have at home. You can easily find these tools at your nearby plant centre or tool store.
3.Learn more about your surrounding weather
Different plants grow in different seasons. So knowing more about your surrounding weather is pretty important. Keep track of frost dates in your location. One mistake most new gardeners make is that they start their garden before the last frost of the season. If you are growing frost-sensitive plants, know the average of final frost dates in your place and don’t plant anything before then. If you are in a place where it rains, mostly consider planting plants that can absorb a lot of water or plants that can bear a lot of water.
Also if you stay in a place where it’s hot mostly choose plants which can bear the heat.
4.Check the soil
Before planting the plants you have to test the soil. As the nutrients in your soil play an important role in making a perfect garden. Test your soil’s Ph level, acidity level, potassium, phosphorus and salt levels with a soil testing kit. You can find a soil testing kit at your nearby plant centre or borrow it from a friend. Make sure the Ph level is between 6.0 to 7.0. Also, you have to amend the soil and add soil amendments. Also, add mulch if you want to prevent moisture loss. Weeds can be a headache sometimes, mulch also solves that.
If you don’t have mulch you can use compost instead. You can make compost from kitchen waste by letting it break down for a year and use it next season.
5.Picking the right plants for your compound
Now the most important part, you have to pick the right plants for your compound. As you have examined your land and soil and also picked up the right tools, now you have to choose the right plants. Most of the plants need 5–6 hours of sunlight daily and some only need a limited amount of light. As previously mentioned, if your compound has a lot of
sunlight, you should consider adding plants that need more sunlight to grow. For example, you can plant rosemary, yarrow, shasta daisy, lantana, cosmos etc.
6.Consider using garden beds and pots
If you want to keep your backyard cleaner and organized you can consider using garden beds and pots. They are good, keep the backyard clean and also provide other benefits. Pots can be useful if you want to have some indoor plants or have plants on your terrace or other places if you want to. It will be easier to manage the plants if you have garden beds. They also make the place kind of more pleasing to the eyes.
For the people who don’t have a backyard or don’t have enough place in your backyard but have a terrace, you can start a small garden there too. You can make some small garden beds to keep plants or have plants in medium to small-sized pots.
7.Watering your plants
Watering plants should be added to your daily routine as your plants will surely need water to survive. During summer, spring and winter you have to water your plants regularly or maybe once per 2–3 days, it totally depends on how much rain happens in your area. As I said previously in this blog, investing in a quality good garden hose will be worth it. It will be a lot
easier than watering them bucket by bucket. But if you want to work out then it’s your wish.
8.Keep full determination
Some may have known this before, some maybe didn’t but this is a pretty important point. Many beginners just give up too early thinking that this will never work, this was a whole waste of time blah blah and later they say to everyone that gardening is a waste of time, useless etc etc. Gardening needs patience. You have to be patient with this hobby. You just can’t expect that the plants will grow fast and give you fruits and veggies the next day. No, it doesn’t work that way. So, you have to keep full determination and work hard. Water your plants, fertilize them and take care of your plants as much as you can. For beginners, my suggestion is to start from a small garden. If you start big you will be overwhelmed and the garden will turn into a failure if you can’t catch up. So, start small and have the determination and don’t lose hope, if you work hard your work will surely be rewarded.
Conclusion: So these were the tips that you can use to build your garden in the best way. I hope you liked the tips. I can assure you if you follow these tips perfectly you will be able to build your own garden.
Note: These were some general tips. If you want in-depth information you can ask any experienced gardener that you know or reach out to your nearest garden centre.