Part of a parterre in an English garden. Photo...
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Gardening at home is a great way to help cut down on food costs so it’s a rewarding hobby in more ways than one. The only thing is a lot of people think that you need a lot of yard space to grow a garden, well we thought that.

I can definitely say that gardening has changed my life so I would like to share a couple of home gardening tips that will show you that you can have a garden with just a little space.

We started our first garden in containers. Yup, just a few pots and we were on our way to being home gardeners.

The first thing you need to think about is what basic needs do plants have.

  1. Light
  2. Soil
  3. Water
  4. Temperature

That’s pretty much it. Give a plant the right amount light, soil and water along with the right temperature and you can grow your own little veggie garden.

So here a few home gardening tips that will help you successfully grow veggies, even indoors if you want.

1. Your Garden Needs Light

You might have just looked at point #1 and said DUH!! but lighting is vital for a healthy plant. Without the proper lighting you could be doing everything else 100% and still fail, so pay close attention to your source of light.

When we first started gardening it was a pretty small garden and I didn’t pay any attention to the path the sun follows through the summer and ended up with a garden that pretty much had to grow in the shade most of the time.

2. The Soil You Plants Live In

Plants have to put down roots to survive. If the soil you use is too hard you need to change that. We had very clay soil so we dug up the little plot we chose for our garden and then mixed it with about the same amount of peatmoss.

Adding the peatmoss did a couple of things. 1. It allowed the soil to become less dense than the clay was so the plants could sink roots easily. 2. The ground didn’t drain well at all before the peatmoss and now it drains just fine.

3. We All Need Water, Even Plants

Your veggie plants are going to need watering on a regular basis so they don’t dry up and die. But at the same time you don’t want to water them so much that you drown them.

The top of the soil can look dry and people will run for the water but it’s better to stick your finger in the dirt about an inch or two and see if it’s dry down there. Lots of times they don’t need watering so you are just wasting water.

I already mentioned the soil needs to drain well, so pay attention to that when you water.

4. Temperature Is Kind Of Important

The temperature usually isn’t that important during the summer but when you are first planting outdoors in the spring you want to keep in mind the most common date for the last threat of frost.

Here where we live I have heard all my life to plant before June 10th at your own risk. You can plant before that most years but I would put a cover sheet over my plants at night until the threat is gone.

Using Containers For Gardening

I would add that you can grow your home garden in containers, even indoors, as long as you meet the needs of your plants.

The really cool thing about container gardening is that you can move them to the best spot, unlike my first garden.

Don’t be afraid to transplant your veggies into a container that’s big enough so they can grow a strong healthy root system.

We used containers to grow strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, so many things but the coolest thing I have grown in containers was potatoes. We got a lot of potatoes for the size of the pot we used. We hung the strawberry container and let the plant grow to the ground.

I planted the potatoes in the container and in our garden on the same day and harvested them at the same time. The potatoes in the ground were bigger but there were about the same amount in the container, they were just a little smaller, but just as good.

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