Get your soil ready.
Even though it’s a cliché, I have to say it: the key to gardening is in the soil. Soil contains nutrients that plants need to grow and thrive.
Soil testing will let you know if your soil has a shortage of any important nutrients, including nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur and magnesium. With this information, you can amend your garden beds before planting—adding fertilizer or lime as needed.
It’s also important to check for soil pH (acidity or alkalinity) because different plants have different pH preferences. Most crops grow best in slightly acidic soils (pH 6.5). For example, tomatoes prefer a slightly more acidic soil (pH 6.2–6.8), while potatoes prefer a neutral pH (7). If your soil tests show your existing pH level is too high or low for the crops you want to plant, adding lime will raise the pH (and make your soil less acidic), while adding sulfur lowers it (making it more acidic).
Add rich, organic compost to your planting beds.
Compost is decomposed organic matter, like finished kitchen scraps and yard waste, that can be added to garden beds to provide nourishment for plants. Whether you buy compost or make it yourself (for the adventurous among us), adding rich, organic compost to your planting beds is an easy way to give your plants a boost this spring.
Because compost requires air, water, and decomposers like bacteria and fungi in order to properly break down waste materials into usable nutrients for plants, it’s important not to overpack compost into a small area. Compost also needs enough moisture in order for the decomposers do their work. If compost is too dry or too wet—or if there isn’t enough space between pieces of collected waste material—it may not break down properly.
Consider raised beds, which you can easily tailor to your soil and drainage needs.
As you start getting your garden together, it’s a good idea to consider the possibility of raised beds. While gardening directly in the ground works well for many people, sometimes the soil conditions aren’t conducive to planting straight into it. If your soil is rocky or otherwise difficult for plants to thrive in, raised beds can be a great way to create a better growing environment. Raised beds also help improve drainage and can keep weeds from popping up over your plants.
If you decide that raised beds are what you want to use, there are several options available. You can build your own box out of pressure-treated lumber or buy one pre-made at the gardening store. The type of material you use will determine how long-lasting your bed is–wood will typically last longer than other materials like metal and plastic but will cost more upfront.
Check local frost dates so you don’t plant too early.
Now that you know when to plant, we need to figure out what you should be planting. This is where research comes into play. The most important thing to do is check your local frost dates. First of all, what’s a frost date? It’s the average day when the temperature will dip below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius) and above 28 degrees Fahrenheit (-2 degrees Celsius) for the last time in spring, or rise above 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius) and below 36 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) for the first time in fall. While this can vary greatly depending on where you live, your state’s department of agriculture should be able to give you a pretty good estimate.
Start seeds indoors to give them a head start and extend the growing season.
Do you have a rooftop garden? What about a window garden? Do you want to try growing vegetables or herbs in clumps of soil that are on your kitchen counter?
If so, then welcome to gardening, an activity that can bring back memories of the long summer days and early spring mornings when you were an avid gardener, weeding and watering plants until they bloomed. While everyone can be a gardener for certain tasks like this, there are still some basic steps you should take before even thinking about planting seeds outdoors.
In order to help newbie gardeners get acquainted with this activity, I’ve written a guide for beginners. The goal here is to give you the tools that will make gardening easier for brand newbies and also give experienced gardners little tips and tricks so they’re not forgotten.
Don’t forget to water. This is easy to forget in cool weather.
The number one reason why gardeners have problems with their plants is that they forget to water. Even when the days are cool you will need to water your new seedlings, at least once a day. Once the temperatures rise, you will need to water more often. As a general rule of thumb, watering deeply once or twice a week is better than watering lightly every day. Because many of us don’t want to spend our entire Saturday in the garden, drip irrigation can be a good solution for gardens that are too far away from an outdoor spigot.
Use mulch to conserve moisture, suppress weeds and keep plants warm.
Mulch is a cover (usually made of wood chips, bark, leaves or grass clippings) that is placed around plants. It has many benefits: it conserves moisture by reducing evaporation and limits weed growth. Mulch also protects your plants from frost damage in the winter and helps keep soil cooler in the summer.
To protect your plants from frost damage, wait until after the ground has thawed to apply mulch. In the summer mulch will help keep soil cooler and in winter it will keep soil warmer.
Fertilize before the growing season starts.
Fertilizing is a great way to give your plants the nutrients they need to grow, but it’s important to do it right. First, make sure you use the right fertilizer for what you’re planning. If you’re looking to plant flowers in hanging baskets, don’t use fertilizer that’s meant for vegetables or trees. Next, if you buy your seeds from a nursery or store, read the instructions on the packet carefully—some plants require different amounts of fertilizer than others.
Finally, there are times during the year when fertilizing is not advised and can even damage your plants. The ground should never be fertilized when it’s frozen; this can have disastrous consequences for your plants. In addition, most flowering plants shouldn’t be fertilized while they’re flowering; this will keep them from producing flowers and could weaken them instead of strengthening them.
Include companion plants around potted plants or in the landscape for extra beautification and pest control.
You should also use companion planting as a natural form of pest control. Marigolds make a great example of this because they act as a natural insect repellent. When planted with tomatoes, they act as a natural way to keep aphids and other insects away from your tomato plants.
Another great tip is to create a planting schedule to help keep track of what you plant where and when. If you’re planting seeds with your children, it can quickly turn into an unorganized mess. Create a chart so that each square is marked off with the date the seed was planted, crops grown in that square, the stage they are at and any other important details such as how many seeds were planted per square or how far apart from each other the rows were placed. This will be extremely helpful when it comes time for harvest!
You will enjoy gardening if you put some thought into it before you begin
Unlike sowing a crop of wild oats, planting an actual garden isn’t as simple as throwing some seeds together. A thoughtful approach is going to pay off in the long run. If you don’t plan accordingly, you might end up with a messy yard and no idea where to start cleaning it up.
Planting gives you an opportunity to make something beautiful. To quote Gunter Blobel: “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.”
Gardening offers us a similar opportunity for innovation; choose your plants wisely and turn them into a work of art!Spring might be the most popular season for planting, but it’s not always the best.
One of the most common mistakes new gardeners make is to plant too early in the spring. If you live in an area where it snows, you might find yourself out of luck if your plants freeze before they’ve had a chance to grow and adapt.
The best time to plant is during a mild period when there’s no snow on the ground or rain in the forecast. This will let your plants get a good start on their growth, and help them stay healthy through the summer months.
And while it may seem like there are endless things to do when it comes to gardening, you can make your life easier by doing some simple things right off the bat:
1) Start with easy-to-grow plants that don’t need much care such as herbs, flowers, tomatoes or peppers.
2) Even if you live in an area where there are lots of deer or other pests that like to nibble on your plants, you can still keep them at bay with a fence around your garden or by using some kind of repellent spray on their leaves (which will also work against rabbits).
3) Plant
The best way to become a gardening master is to start small and work your way up. It can get overwhelming if you have too many things to keep track of, so start with just a few plants and build from there.
To help you get started on your spring garden, here are some great tips:
*Start with a small garden that has lots of light. If you don’t have a lot of space, maybe just do some container gardening.
*Pick something that is easy to grow. A good starter plant would be something that is low-maintenance like tomatoes or zucchini.
*Be sure to water your plants regularly! Watering them every day will help them grow faster than if you were only watering them once a week or less often than that.
Spring is here! Or, it will be soon enough. Finally, the days are longer and warmer, and you’re ready to get your hands dirty after a long, cold winter. You’ve decided to start growing your own vegetables, so you can enjoy fresh food straight from your garden all summer long.
But wait—you don’t know a thing about gardening. How do you get started? How do you know what supplies to buy and what seeds to plant? What’s the best way to make sure your plants actually survive?
Gardening can seem intimidating at first, but it’s really not that hard if you have the right tools and a little bit of guidance. Here are some tips for getting started with your own garden this spring.
Spring is in the air, and now’s the time to get outdoors and get your hands dirty!
If you’re a beginner gardener looking for a few tips to get started off on the right foot, look no further. We put together this quick guide to help you get the most out of your garden and have fun doing it!
1. Be realistic about what you can grow.
This one might be hard if you have visions of growing enough food to feed your family for a year, but it’s important to stay grounded. Unless you’ve been gardening for years or are particularly green-thumbed, you don’t want to overcomplicate things by trying to grow something that is difficult or requires a lot of sun/water/fertilizer. In fact, it’s often best to start off with something simple like basil or tomatoes (if you’re lucky enough to live in an area where tomatoes thrive). It’s better to experience success with small plants than failure with large ones.
2. Stay organized!
Before you start planting anything, make sure that you have a plan for how everything will go in the ground. This includes thinking about which plants will grow well together (or not), what type of spacing is necessary between each plant
If you’ve never gardened before, spring is a great time to start. The days are longer, the weather is warmer, and the ground is soft from winter thaws—perfect for adding fertilizer, planting your seeds, and seeing what you can grow!
But if you’re also a beginner like me, gardening can seem overwhelming. How do I know what seeds to plant? What do I need to buy? What am I doing wrong? And why doesn’t my garden look like the ones in magazines?
There’s a lot to learn when it comes to gardening, but it’s not all that hard once you get going. Here are some tips I wish someone had told me when I started:
1) Pick a sunny area with good drainage.
2) Add some compost or other organic material to the soil—it will help your plants grow better.
3) Don’t be afraid of mistakes! You’ll make them (I did!), but each one will teach you something new about what works for your garden and where you need to make improvements next time. And remember: if your plants don’t grow this year, try again next year!
Spring is here, which means it’s time to get out into the garden and plant your favorite flowers! If you’re like most of us here at [company name], you probably still have some of last year’s plants hanging on, but now is a great time to get things going for next year. Here are some tips to get you started.
First, decide what kind of plants you’ll be growing. Do you want something that blooms in the spring? Or do you want a plant that will bloom all summer long? At [company name], we’re big fans of perennials, because they come back every year without any help from us.
The next thing to do is find a sunny spot in your yard and dig up any old roots or weeds that might be in there. You can do this with a shovel or even just by hand if you’re feeling adventurous! If the soil feels very dry, add some water before planting anything new so it doesn’t get too hot for your plants when they start growing again.
Now it’s time to prepare the soil, which means adding compost (or manure) and mixing it well with existing dirt until everything looks nice and loose like chocolate cake batter! You don’t want anything clumping together because then roots
The earth is rousing from a long winter’s nap, and that means all the plants are coming out to play, too!
As a beginner gardener, it can be intimidating to get your first garden set up. There are so many different plants out there with so many different needs—it makes sense that you’d want to make sure you’re doing everything right before you get started.
But with these tips, you’ll be good to go:
1. Make sure you have enough space for your garden, and that it gets plenty of sunlight. Most plants need at least six hours of direct sun per day to thrive.
2. Decide on what you want in your garden—vegetables? Flowers? Both? Research the plants you’re thinking of and make sure they will work together in the same space and will have similar needs for soil, drainage, and light conditions.
3. Once you have your plan down, feel free to experiment! Gardening is a great opportunity to immerse yourself in nature and nurture something growing right before your eyes. You might not succeed on your first try with every plant, but that’s okay—learning as you go is one of the best parts of gardening!
