Gardening Basics

Gardening need not be intimidating as many people regard it. When starting a garden, you need to first identify the purpose of your garden. Is it for landscaping or for growing food? This gives you a clear indication on how to go about your gardening since each use of the garden space comes with its own requirements.

Regardless of whether you are planting a vegetable or flower garden, you need to find a suitable location for your garden and conduct some research about your soil type and its suitability for the crops you want to grow.

Below are some gardening basics for beginners.

Soil preparation

Plants depends on soil for nutrients and the soil in your garden should be conducive for the types of crops you want to plant. Growing a plant in unsuitable will definitely lead to failure.

For maximum yields, have your soil tested before you plant anything on it. This will help you know if you need to add anything on it like compost manure or fertilizer and/or import top soil from elsewhere for your plants to thrive. More importantly, this should inform your choice of crops for the garden since different crops require different soil conditions to grow and bloom.

Choosing your plants

You will be spoilt for choice when deciding on your garden plants but don’t let the excitement of starting a garden fool you into believing you can have them all. Even the gardens with a wide variety of plant species started with a few ones before gradually expanding over the years.

Start with at most three plant species as you learn the basics of gardening.

The safest way to garden is choosing a plant that is native or common to the area. You won’t spend a lot of time caring for native plants as you would do to exotic ones. 

Caring for your garden

Your work doesn’t end at planting - you have to maintain the garden. Your plants will wilt and die if you don’t care for them. How demanding the maintenance work for your garden will be depends on your choice of plants. 

Generally, expect to water your plants, weed the garden and occasionally deal with pests and diseases. For this, you will need gardening tools like a wheelbarrow, hoe, gloves, and Backpack Sprayer. 

You should also mulch your garden. Mulching controls the growth of weeds and also helps with maintaining soil temperature at optimal levels for plant growth.

Harvesting

Again, this depends on the type of garden you have. For flower plants, they have their own blooming season depending on whether they are perennials or annuals. Annuals have a lifespan of one year after which you have to replant but they have a longer blooming period. Annuals have a longer lifespan and will bloom season after season for at least three years but their blooming period is shorter. 

Most vegetables are ready for harvesting between 3-6 months after planting. For leafy vegetables, the more you harvest them the more they produce so you can you enjoy fresh produce throughout the year as long as you take good care of them.