LEARN HOW - to avoid gardening mistakes
What are the biggest garden planning mistakes and how do you avoid them?
1) Starting without a plan
One of the biggest mistakes that people make when planning a new garden is going in without a plan! Most people start planning by going to the store and buying seeds or ordering seeds after going through a seed catalogue. From there they plant them in the ground and that's the extent of their planning. They just pick out seeds that look interesting or pretty and put them in the ground.
We're going to talk about doing it in a way that is going to serve you much more effectively and get you a bigger yield.
Not where but what: If you do a Google search on how to plan a vegetable garden what you'll likely find is the number one starting point being deciding on where to plant your garden. But that isn't where you should be starting your garden planning.
You are missing a lot of key elements if that's where you start because it's not taking into account growing food that's going to take you through a year. There are key elements missing that need to be considered in your planning:
* Pick crops that your family eats the most of on a regular basis;
* Pick crops that will actually grow well in your gardening climate and gardening zone;
* Pick varieties that are best suited to the number of growing days you have available.
Decide on quantity: From there, decide how many of those specific crops you need to plant in order to feed your family for an entire year. Research how much yield one plant provides per growing season. From there you'll be able to calculate how many plants you need per the number of people in your family. Based on how much your family eats of a certain crop every week and month, that's going to dictate how many plants you need to put in.
2) Unrealistic expectations
It's good to want to provide for your family, but sometimes we can put unrealistic expectations on our garden to produce food right away.
There are things that can produce quickly, but one of the biggest gardening mistakes is that you move into a 'production mentality' before first taking a moment to appreciate nature and the process.
In other aspects of your life, you may have a process where you complete step one, step two, step three, and at the final step you have your desired results. However, with gardening you may do everything that people advise and then something comes along and it's a little bit different. And that has to do with the biodiversity of nature - the wonderful abundance of nature and the magnitude of diversity in our environment.
3) Having the idea you need a lot of land
After identifying crops and how much you need to get your family through a full year (plus choosing varieties that are best suited to your growing climate), you can then decide where to put your plants. Most of the time a lot more plants can be put in than we think.
Maximise the space you have: look at the space available to you in order that you can get even more plants in to hit the goals of having enough plants to take you through a whole year. A lot of people get really limited by just thinking of this big vegetable garden area or a certain yard size where maybe you can put in a few raised beds.
There are several steps you can take to make the most of the space you have. You can grow so much more in so many different areas than you think.
The following are some great options to consider:
* Sometimes all it takes is picking a slightly different variety that allows you to grow a lot more;
* Vertical gardening makes it possible for you to grow more in less space;
* Sneak food crops into your landscaping. Utilise spaces like decking or patio spaces.
Even if you don't have a lot of space, you can definitely go vertical with a much smaller footprint.
4) Consider sunlight
Look at the layout of your yard and how the sunlight travels over your property. When planning a garden in winter or spring, consider where the sun will be in the growing months and whether the sun will be shaded by trees that are leafed out.
Failure to do this can result in planting struggling to grow and needing to be moved, which can set plants back in their ability to prosper and produce fruit.
5) Water source
Another mistake frequently made is planting gardens without considering how close the nearest water source is.
Make sure you consider this for fruit trees and berry bushes during the first year of planting, but more importantly for your garden spaces.
6) Plant spacing & row direction
Appropriate plant spacing is generally has relevant for perennials, fruit bushes and trees.
Berry bushes and fruit trees need adequate space to grow up and still get enough sunlight without being shaded out by the plants next to them. It's important to consider the row direction of these plants to make sure they get maximum sunlight hours during the growing season.
Also consider leaving enough space for a wheelbarrow to go between rows - this also means a lawnmower will fit so you're able to keep grass under control.
7) Not understanding soil needs
Soil health is probably the number one issue when it comes to people having problems with their plants.
Whilst watering and the proper amount of sunlight come into play the majority of issues can be pinpointed to something lacking in the soil, or not the right soil conditions for your specific plant.
If leaves are turning unexpected colours, or pest and disease are present, it's very likely to go back to your soil health.
A mistake that's often made is using the wrong soil for the wrong usage. For example, using a potting mix in an outdoor garden, using soil from the garden in containers or growing in straight compost or manure thinking it's soil and not just a soil amendment.
Too much of a good thing isn't always good!
Don't assume if your plant is struggling that it's because it doesn't have enough of something. Sometimes plants struggle because of too much of something.
For beginners, we recommend asking yourself several questions.
In the example of the yellowing leaves ask:
* Does it mean that I'm watering too much?
* Or does it mean that there's a deficiency?
The first thing you can do is reduce the amount of water being given to the plant. You can also feel the soil. Is it moist all the time? If so, it needs to dry out a bit. Soil doesn't like to be moist all the time and actually needs to dry out a little bit.
If adjusting the watering doesn't work, see what else might be causing the yellowing of leaves. If it's a nutrient deficiency oftentimes that means a nitrogen deficiency. But you don't want to add too much at once - it's better to add a little at a time (you could try a little bit of seaweed fertiliser to see what happens).
Take things slow and steady and don't get ahead of yourself.
Another thing to consider is planting similar plants together (ones that have the same soil requirements). As an example, plant raspberry bushes next to rhubarb plants - they both like acidic soil.
8) Not keeping records
Keeping records is the most valuable thing to do when you're getting started with gardening. Take notes of what's happening and what you did to address it. Then take notes of the results so that next year when you encounter the same problem you can remember.
More often than not you won't have to refer to your notes, just the act of writing it down makes you remember. You're 50% more likely to remember things that you write down compared to things that you don't. So our advice is to keep a journal and take photos.
Records become invaluable for crop rotation because the seasons will really start to run together. Plus having data on your microclimates and micro-zones exactly where you live is so helpful.
1) Starting without a plan
One of the biggest mistakes that people make when planning a new garden is going in without a plan! Most people start planning by going to the store and buying seeds or ordering seeds after going through a seed catalogue. From there they plant them in the ground and that's the extent of their planning. They just pick out seeds that look interesting or pretty and put them in the ground.
We're going to talk about doing it in a way that is going to serve you much more effectively and get you a bigger yield.
Not where but what: If you do a Google search on how to plan a vegetable garden what you'll likely find is the number one starting point being deciding on where to plant your garden. But that isn't where you should be starting your garden planning.
You are missing a lot of key elements if that's where you start because it's not taking into account growing food that's going to take you through a year. There are key elements missing that need to be considered in your planning:
* Pick crops that your family eats the most of on a regular basis;
* Pick crops that will actually grow well in your gardening climate and gardening zone;
* Pick varieties that are best suited to the number of growing days you have available.
Decide on quantity: From there, decide how many of those specific crops you need to plant in order to feed your family for an entire year. Research how much yield one plant provides per growing season. From there you'll be able to calculate how many plants you need per the number of people in your family. Based on how much your family eats of a certain crop every week and month, that's going to dictate how many plants you need to put in.
2) Unrealistic expectations
It's good to want to provide for your family, but sometimes we can put unrealistic expectations on our garden to produce food right away.
There are things that can produce quickly, but one of the biggest gardening mistakes is that you move into a 'production mentality' before first taking a moment to appreciate nature and the process.
In other aspects of your life, you may have a process where you complete step one, step two, step three, and at the final step you have your desired results. However, with gardening you may do everything that people advise and then something comes along and it's a little bit different. And that has to do with the biodiversity of nature - the wonderful abundance of nature and the magnitude of diversity in our environment.
3) Having the idea you need a lot of land
After identifying crops and how much you need to get your family through a full year (plus choosing varieties that are best suited to your growing climate), you can then decide where to put your plants. Most of the time a lot more plants can be put in than we think.
Maximise the space you have: look at the space available to you in order that you can get even more plants in to hit the goals of having enough plants to take you through a whole year. A lot of people get really limited by just thinking of this big vegetable garden area or a certain yard size where maybe you can put in a few raised beds.
There are several steps you can take to make the most of the space you have. You can grow so much more in so many different areas than you think.
The following are some great options to consider:
* Sometimes all it takes is picking a slightly different variety that allows you to grow a lot more;
* Vertical gardening makes it possible for you to grow more in less space;
* Sneak food crops into your landscaping. Utilise spaces like decking or patio spaces.
Even if you don't have a lot of space, you can definitely go vertical with a much smaller footprint.
4) Consider sunlight
Look at the layout of your yard and how the sunlight travels over your property. When planning a garden in winter or spring, consider where the sun will be in the growing months and whether the sun will be shaded by trees that are leafed out.
Failure to do this can result in planting struggling to grow and needing to be moved, which can set plants back in their ability to prosper and produce fruit.
5) Water source
Another mistake frequently made is planting gardens without considering how close the nearest water source is.
Make sure you consider this for fruit trees and berry bushes during the first year of planting, but more importantly for your garden spaces.
6) Plant spacing & row direction
Appropriate plant spacing is generally has relevant for perennials, fruit bushes and trees.
Berry bushes and fruit trees need adequate space to grow up and still get enough sunlight without being shaded out by the plants next to them. It's important to consider the row direction of these plants to make sure they get maximum sunlight hours during the growing season.
Also consider leaving enough space for a wheelbarrow to go between rows - this also means a lawnmower will fit so you're able to keep grass under control.
7) Not understanding soil needs
Soil health is probably the number one issue when it comes to people having problems with their plants.
Whilst watering and the proper amount of sunlight come into play the majority of issues can be pinpointed to something lacking in the soil, or not the right soil conditions for your specific plant.
If leaves are turning unexpected colours, or pest and disease are present, it's very likely to go back to your soil health.
A mistake that's often made is using the wrong soil for the wrong usage. For example, using a potting mix in an outdoor garden, using soil from the garden in containers or growing in straight compost or manure thinking it's soil and not just a soil amendment.
Too much of a good thing isn't always good!
Don't assume if your plant is struggling that it's because it doesn't have enough of something. Sometimes plants struggle because of too much of something.
For beginners, we recommend asking yourself several questions.
In the example of the yellowing leaves ask:
* Does it mean that I'm watering too much?
* Or does it mean that there's a deficiency?
The first thing you can do is reduce the amount of water being given to the plant. You can also feel the soil. Is it moist all the time? If so, it needs to dry out a bit. Soil doesn't like to be moist all the time and actually needs to dry out a little bit.
If adjusting the watering doesn't work, see what else might be causing the yellowing of leaves. If it's a nutrient deficiency oftentimes that means a nitrogen deficiency. But you don't want to add too much at once - it's better to add a little at a time (you could try a little bit of seaweed fertiliser to see what happens).
Take things slow and steady and don't get ahead of yourself.
Another thing to consider is planting similar plants together (ones that have the same soil requirements). As an example, plant raspberry bushes next to rhubarb plants - they both like acidic soil.
8) Not keeping records
Keeping records is the most valuable thing to do when you're getting started with gardening. Take notes of what's happening and what you did to address it. Then take notes of the results so that next year when you encounter the same problem you can remember.
More often than not you won't have to refer to your notes, just the act of writing it down makes you remember. You're 50% more likely to remember things that you write down compared to things that you don't. So our advice is to keep a journal and take photos.
Records become invaluable for crop rotation because the seasons will really start to run together. Plus having data on your microclimates and micro-zones exactly where you live is so helpful.
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