No matter what you plant or where you grow it, gardening has many advantages that make it a calming and fulfilling activity. Still, it takes a lot of time and preparation to begin a garden from the beginning.
Here are some broad stages to help you create your first garden from scratch; however, the fundamentals of gardening rely on many aspects, including your location, the time of year, your local microclimate, soil, and plant selections. The first step to your gardening journey will start by you ordering from a reliable plant delivery service and you are good to go.
Choose Your Garden Type
It’s important to decide on the kind of garden you want before you dig. Are you looking for native decorative plants in a low-maintenance bed? Or do you want to cultivate vegetables in a garden that needs rich soil in nutrients to produce food? This choice will determine the kind of soil you need and how much sunshine your plants need, whether you’re growing in containers, raised beds, or the ground.
Pick Your Garden Spot
Finding the ideal location for your garden gets easier after you’ve decided on its style. Make sure there is enough room for your plants to grow, whether they are on your patio, balcony, or yard. As summer heat builds, take into account having access to water to prevent having to carry it over long distances.
Test Your Soil
Ensure that your soil is acceptable before you begin planting. Testing is necessary for raised beds and in-ground gardens, even if it’s not necessarily necessary for new container gardens. To correctly test your soil, you may either do it yourself or obtain assistance from a local university extension.
Amend Your Soil
It’s time to amend your soil to meet the demands of your garden based on the findings of your soil test. This might include altering pH levels or adding certain nutrients to provide the ideal growth environment for your plants.
Determine A Weed Strategy
There are many strategies to keep weeds at bay. While some tug on them sometimes, others struggle with them all the time. Both mulches applied directly to the garden surface and geotextiles, often known as “weed cloth” or “weed barrier fabrics,” might be helpful. Make your decision as soon as possible since planting should occur after the installation of geotextiles.
Consider Your Sunlight
While some plants need direct sunshine throughout the day, others do better in shaded areas. To determine if you need plants that enjoy full sun, medium shade, or complete shade, keep an eye on the amount of sunshine in your yard. As you plan, refer to plant tags and do internet research to choose plants that are appropriate for the particular lighting circumstances in your garden.
Plant Your Plot
The size of your garden will determine how much planning you need to do. Plotting on paper or on a graph may be necessary for bigger gardens, but a modest six-by-three-foot bed is simple to see. Make sure all areas of the garden have paths for convenient access to water, and limit the width of your rows to four feet to allow for simple access to everything.
When planting time-sensitive plants, timing is everything. For example, lettuce suffers in warm weather, so grow it early in a vegetable garden. Plant the warm-weather tomatoes later, being careful to provide room to dig holes for the new plants.
Buy Your Plants
Although you may start your garden from seed the first year, we usually advise buying plants from a reputable nursery. This takes the complexities of seed beginning so you can concentrate on learning the fundamentals.
Choose colourful plants with lush green foliage when making your selections. Leaves and stems should be robust rather than brittle or limp. Keep an eye out for any strange darkening on leaves, as this might be a sign of an issue. If the plants are blooming, make sure the flowers seem healthy and are consistent.
Harden Off Your Plants
Hardening off your plants is the next step after selecting and purchasing them. This procedure gets them ready for the move from the protected environment of a greenhouse or nursery to the open air. By lessening their need for regulated inside circumstances, hardening off helps plants progressively adjust to outside life.
Plant Your Plants
The most exciting step is about to begin: actually planting your plants. Determine where each plant will go in its container and arrange the plants around your garden using the tags that came with it. After determining the spacing, plant them by excavating holes. Tomatoes, for example, do better when planted deeply, while certain other plants do better when planted closer to the soil’s top. Before you begin planting, read the instructions on your plant tags to find out the particular requirements of each plant.
Water And Mulch
Watering your plants well to settle the soil and make sure everything is completely soaked is the last stage in creating a garden from scratch. Apply a thick layer of mulch—two to four inches of organic mulch, such as crushed bark—after watering.
It is crucial not to omit the mulching phase since it helps retain moisture on hot days and keeps roots cooler in the summer. As organic mulches decay over the course of the year, they feed the soil with nutrients.