Easy Gardening Tips – Start Small
Starting your own garden can be easy if you follow a few easy gardening tips.
Easy Gardening Tip #1.
Start Small – One Project At A Time
When we started gardening it took us a few years to get up the nerve to fail. We just figured it was a huge task and because of that way of thinking we missed out on years of great fun and lots of great tasting produce and flowers.
When we finally decided to give gardening a start we started with flowers and a couple of tomato plants in containers.
Next I bought one strawberry plant, which quickly out grew the container it came in so I transplanted it to a bigger contain, which it grew out of even quicker.
I then put it into a raised bed in our backyard and now, just one year later, that strawberry plant has grown from just one plant to a bed of strawberry plants 3 feet by 8 feet. I am sure that next year it will fill the full 3 x 12 foot bed.
This year we started with a 4 foot square garden but I quickly realized it would be way too small for what we wanted and increased it to 2 – 4 foot squares and even then it was going to be too small.
By the time I was done, well done for now, it was 16 feet by 4 feet and next year I think I will double that.
The main point here is that I started small so as not to become overwhelmed and stop enjoying our newest hobby, gardening.
I didn’t dig up the garden in one day. I started early and did it a little at a time.
I decided to put the new vegetable garden at the back of our yard so I was going to have to remove sod. I used a spade and took out small strips of sod until I had the area I wanted.
I added a bag of top soil to each 4 by 4 area along with about the same amount of peatmoss. I didn’t measure things I just made the soil easy to dig as it had been clay and hard like a rock.
NOTE: I soaked the soil for a few hours before I started digging and it made the job so much easier than when I started digging it up dry.
Now the garden is planted with corn, peas, beans, swiss chard, tomatoes and potatoes and the soil is so easy to dig up.
It all started with a dream many years ago but nothing happened until I took my spade and made the first 4 by 4 plot.
Last year I started a three year project of cleaning up our property fence. It goes around three sides of our yard and is covered with thick thorny bushes.
It’s quite a job but I am only doing what I can and only one side of the property at a time.
Last year I removed a 16 foot section of the shrubs and replaced them with two grape vines and one maple tree.
We are waiting to do more but not before we see how the grape vines cover the fence. If it doesn’t give us enough privacy I will try something else.
This year I removed a smaller section of shrubs and planted another vine that I see growing all over fence here in Moncton, New Brunswick.
I think they may actually do much better than the grape vines but I will wait until fall to make up my mind.
So my easy gardening tip for today is to take it slow and easy. Try one project at a time and you will not get overwhelmed.
Filed under: backyard gardening • gardening • new brunswick
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I am overwhelmed by the way you have “slowly but surely grown” your vegetable and fruit garden! I am an advocate of organic vegetable gardening. Though we find some microorganism in organic vegetables and fruits, they are less harmful to our health as long as we wash them thoroughly. Although Organic vegetables and fruits are more rare, expensive, lesser in size and looks, they are safer, delicious and nutritious. Vegetables and fruits grown in
chemical fertilizers and pesticides are bigger, cheaper and “mouth-watering”, but if not handled properly, could be a big threat to our health and environment.
Happy gardening,
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