Beginning Gardening Tips From A Novice Gardener
Grow your own fresh fruits and veggies this summer. Learn from my mistakes!
It’s June in Rhode Island as I write this, so pretty much wherever you live (if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere), you can start a garden right now. It’s not too late! Since I’ve been doing this for a couple years now, with a limited degree of success, I wanted to share the lessons I’ve learned. In other words, I am NOT an expert, but I do know what it’s like to have no idea what you’re doing so I can offer a bit of advice to the gardening newbies out there.
Start small
In your first year you’re inevitably going to face some setbacks. Also, you don’t yet know how much time it’s going to take to start and maintain your garden. So start small, and keep things as easy as possible. I started out with containers (see next point), then built out a small garden bed in my yard, and only after finding success with those did I build out a bigger garden.
Try raised beds or container gardening
This is a great idea if you don’t have much space. Even if all you have is a doorstep or a small porch, you can set up a small container garden. When I lived in a small apartment in Providence, I started out with a “City Pickers” garden, a small container on wheels (side note: that’s not an affiliate link, I just really liked the product and have no problem recommending it). It’s a cool little garden and I’ve successfully grown tomatoes, peppers, marigolds and leafy greens in it.
When I moved back to my hometown I didn’t have the energy to build out a garden in the yard so I bought another City Pickers container and that worked out really well. It’s a great way to start small and see if you even enjoy gardening.
Choose plants that are easy to grow
If you’re not sure what’s easy to grow, here’s a few suggestions based on my own experience: green beans, radishes, lettuce, spinach, baby kale, marigolds. All those plants will practically grow themselves as long as you provide decent soil and water.
Mint will grow like a weed but make sure you do it in a container or it’ll take over your garden. I’ve also found thyme and oregano to be easy herbs.
If you’re like most people, you probably want to grow tomatoes. I personally think tomatoes should go into the intermediate category. The reason is, you need to prune them to get a high fruit yield, and that’s something I’m still trying to figure out how to do, myself. It’s also a big plant that needs to be staked to keep it from flopping over once it gets bigger. A good resource for investigating which plants to grow is the Farmer’s Almanac. Check out their home gardening resources here.
Research what your plants need to thrive
Different plants have different needs. Some plants can only grow in a warm climate with plenty of sun: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, corn. Others will die when the weather gets too warm, or if they get too much sun. For instance: kale, cauliflower, broccoli, lots of leafy greens, and peas. Consider where your garden will be and see how much sun that space gets over the course of the day. Consider the time of year (season) you’re going to start your garden.
Also, some plants might need more nutrients, water, and space than others. So you’ll need to look into that, too. In terms of space, I use the square foot gardening method, which is basically a way of organizing your garden by square feet. A tomato plant gets one square. Beans can go nine per square. Check it out here or get the book- I highly recommend it!
Make sure you have a plan to fertilize and regularly water your plants
Your plants aren’t going to grow themselves. They need water and, depending on what kind of soil you’re using, they might need additional fertilizer or compost added throughout the season. But let’s focus on watering. It’s great to have a schedule, like every night at sunset for instance. Trust me, once you put in the work of planning and planting your garden, you’ll be kicking yourself if you forget to water for a few days and things start dying!
Anticipate pests and have a prevention plan
There are three types of pests you might need to deal with: animals, insects, and diseases. Do you have deer or groundhogs where you live? How will you protect your garden from them?
This year I wanted to grow a larger garden and what I learned from the previous years is that groundhogs live in my backyard. They would eat all my tomatoes (just as I was about to pick them), and they liked to munch of the green leaves of other plants. I thought herbs would be safe (they avoid thyme, oregano and rosemary) and then one day I woke up to find all my dill had been eaten! If you’ve seen a groundhog in your yard, you’ll need to deal with this.
Second, insects: I don’t know a ton about this except that some plants can help deter insects. For example, many people plant marigolds and basil around their tomatoes to prevent certain insects from getting to the tomatoes. This is one of those things where you kind of learn as you go.
Same with diseases. Last year all my basil was looking great, till it all started dying. I didn’t see any insects and couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. It turned out a disease (I think some kind of fungus) had killed basil all over southern Rhode Island that summer. Again, hard to plan for this but it’s something to keep an eye on.
Have a plan for the off-season
Since I built out a larger garden for the first time this year, I’m developing a plan for how I will plant a fall crop once the summer crops are gone, and how I will winterize the garden and hopefully improve the soil in the process. I spent too much time, effort, and money building the garden beds and filling them with good soil to not plan this out. Even if you have containers, you’ll probably be investing in soil, so have a plan for how you’ll cover the container over the winter in order to save the soil (and not have to buy more).
