Often people want to learn how to start gardening and then jump right in. While we encourage everyone to try gardening out, we know it can be frustrating for beginners to get into. Often the question we hear most is “where do I begin?” If this sounds like you then you’re in exactly the right place. Let’s look at what you should do when you want to get into gardening for the very first time.
1. Start In the Library, Not in the Garden
The best thing you can do to set yourself up for gardening success is to read as much about gardening as you possibly can. This can be challenging because a lot has been written on gardening throughout the years and there’s a whole lot of information out there. On top of this there are a lot blogs, forums, and online communities that not only do a bad job of organizing their content, but also do a terrible job of fact checking it. There are a million facebook groups about gardening full of myths and hearsay, not because people are trying to be malicious, but because a lot of gardening is unintuitive and it’s easy to want to repeat the thing that sounds right.
To find good books, blogs, and resources about gardening you’ll want to start by figuring our what a trusted source is. For starters we recommend trusting people with PHDs in agricultural science. Beyond that there will be good sources out there that are not specialists, but instead experts with experience. Blogs like epicgardening.com are written by enthusiasts, but you can see their results clearly and they do a good job of explaining the whys and hows of gardening knowledge that’s out there. Ultimately it can be difficult to figure out who to trust on this kind of information, but once you do find trustworthy sources consume as much information as you can.
The chief point of reading is to build up enough knowledge to understand how to troubleshoot your garden when you do get started. Tips about watering, understanding the lifecycle of plants, and knowing about good soil composition all typically come from experience, but you can get that information from others and start out strong.
In addition to reading up on some basics you’ll likely want to specialize your knowledge a bit and tailor your research to what you want to grow. If you’re growing vegetables, start with some easy to grow vegetables and read up on which varieties work for your region. If you’re looking into growing flowers you might want to spend more time reading up on landscaping and garden design. No matter what you read, it’s always worth it because you never know just how useful that information will be.
2. Start Small
When most gardeners start out they go big right out the gate. This is often a recipe for disaster as gardening is actually a decent amount of work. We recommend starting with a small plot or a single raised bed planter to get the feel for it. If your scope is too large you often can find yourself loosing control of your garden and it could cause you to give up before you’ve even really gotten the hang of it.
Despite our advice to start small you can actually still grow a lot in a very little space. If you’re careful about your choices, vegetables can be plentiful in a raised bed if you plant the right companions together. If you didn’t skip our first tip, you’ll have read up enough to understand a least a little bit about how to plan your first go at gardening without over taxing yourself.
3. Plan ahead
A great garden starts with a great plan. We typically do our planning for the next year in the winter so that we’re ready to start planting for the spring. A good garden plan helps you understand what you’re growing, where, and what it needs to thrive. Mixing plants that have similar soil needs and good compatibility not only makes sense, but helps increase yields and decrease garden maintenance.
For your absolute first gardening experience, be it vegetables, flowers, or herbs, you want to keep your plans small and achievable. Aim for plants that are easy to care for and don’t have crazy soil requirements. Hearty plants are step one, but space requirements are also something to consider. When planning your first garden it’s important to figure out exactly how much you can grow in the space you have and make some decisions about plant placement before you even prepare the ground for planting.
Another part of planning ahead is knowing WHEN you need to plant. Some plants will do better if started indoors and you might want to do that yourself. If you don’t want to start from seed you’re going to need to purchase your starters and you’ll want to make sure you can get then when you need to so that you can see your gardening efforts come to fruition in the actual growing season. Many first time gardeners plant way too late and if you’re trying to grow vegetables to eat this failure to plan can leave you with empty plates.
4. Practice Makes Perfect
Don’t get into gardening expecting to get it right on the first try. Gardening is a hobby that takes a lifetime to master, but often yields rewards gradually as you get better at it. You will likely get some beautiful flowers or edible crops in your first run at gardening, but the real secret to success to continue to learn and apply your knowledge again and again.
Our very first garden was a mess, but it still ended up providing us with several jars of pickles, a few bottles of fully home grown hot sauce, and a variety of beautiful flowers to decorate our outdoor space. This was not perfect. We lost tomatoes to blossom end rot, we grew too many green onions, and our carrots were crowded and grew weirdly misshapen. Despite all this our tiny urban garden turned into a bigger success year after year. We grew more in less space. We improved each time we planted.
Overall gardening is an art that requires patience and dedication. It’s very relaxing and very forgiving, so don’t stress out about it and give it plenty of chances.
Just Start Gardening
At the end of this, with each of these tips in mind, the best way to start gardening is to just start. Once you’re read up on some advice, reigned in your scope, planned a path, you’re ready. You won’t ever feel ready, but that’s just how it is starting something new. You need to put in the time, and often a little bit of cash, but a garden isn’t any one thing and you can get going with a simple pot or a whole plot. We hope you really enjoy your gardening adventure.