Your reasons for considering taking up gardening may be known to only you and might differ from others. But, it’s surely is everything positive. Gardening for yourself has numerous benefits universally. It helps in promoting nature friendliness, giving a hand in supporting nature, serving yourself with fresh and natural food, resulting in saving up money on buying groceries. This also will keep you involved, cultivate a hobby and develop a sense of responsibility in you. It could also become a group activity if you can convince people around you to participate.
But, anything at the beginning needs learning and practising. You will make tonnes of mistakes, but don’t give up and you will learn from your mistakes, be observant with the movements and responses of your plants. Here are though general beginners mistakes we all are guilty of.
1. Growing To Many Plants:-
It’s your beginning so you are bound to make many mistakes, which may also result in many of them dying too which can be avoided if you stick to the smaller number of plants. Also as much as excitement as starting your plants creates, as beginner gardener you need to make sure you have a plan and don’t grow too many plants. Planting more than you can eat is a waste. All the plants will ripe around the same time, and it will create so much work for you. For this reason alone, if this is your first time gardening, please start small. As a beginner gardener, you want to make sure you do your research plant only the plants that you or your family like and will eat. Don’t grow too much variety of plants stick to simple ones for starters. The urge to go full bound maybe strong but remember that it takes a lot of work to maintain a large garden. This could also lead to a burnout, and we don’t want that.
2. Not Investing In Good Soil:-
There is a reason why you started planting your own vegetables so that you could have the best kind of it which would be harvested by your own. The soil is considered as the home of the plant which is why it needs to be in it’s best possible version. Not preparing your soil plants or not investing in good quality soil is another reason why your plants will not thrive. Your soil must have the mineral and nutrients for your little plants to grow. Without it, they won’t, so investing in preparing your soil is extremely important when starting your garden.
3. Over Watering Plants:-
We have been taught in our science classes since childhood that sunlight and water are the only and most essential meals of the plants. But, anything extra always causes disturbance and so happens with plants too, just like your stomach gets upset when you overeat. As the excitement of having started a garden grows, so will your excitement to water and water some more. Over-watering can rotten the roots of the plants and kill them. Always check the soil before watering, please. To avoid killing your plants. You could try inserting your finger into the soil to make sure how wet or dry the soil is before water.
4. Planting Too Early:-
This is a common mistake we do as beginner gardeners, and that’s to plant too early. For this reason, you have to do your research and know what plants grow in what season. For example tomato plants grow in the summer, and lettuces grow in fall. You also need to know how long they will germinate and grow before you start. If you planted seeds into soil that is too cold, they will rot and die. If you are growing your plants inside and plant your seedlings into cold soil, they will not be able to handle the temperature and might die. If you are buying seed packets, check the back for information on how to grow your seeds.
5. Planting Your Plants Too Close:-
The small seedlings will grow and grow they did. Plants need space to grow. Not giving them space leads to giving your plants diseases. Also, plants will be stressed and won’t produce as much. For this reason, please follow the direction given to you in the seed packet.
Gardening is not hard, and shouldn’t be hard if you avoid these beginner gardener mistakes. Make sure you don’t over fertilise your plants, and always check the seed packet information if you are starting from seeds, to avoid any other mistakes.
