5 Home Gardening Tips & Tricks For A New Plant Parent

The Home Gardening trend really seems to be skyrocketing these days, right? Most of us do have a garden at home in the form of the numerous plants that adorn our windows and balconies, making for a beautiful sight. Today, with the climate crisis worsening and concerns about our health, many people are searching how to start home gardening or in their premises as a way to promote a healthier lifestyle for themselves and for their families.

However, this can be a challenging task, especially at the beginner level because these farms require a lot more care and attention than your average home plants but it can also be an equally rewarding experience, not to mention how great it is to improve your mental health and well-being! On that note, here are 5 helpful home gardening tips and tricks to grow your very own organic garden from Things2do! We hope that these serve you well in your healthy journey!

1Pick The Type Of Garden You Want

Now that you have made the choice to switch over to a healthier life, it is time to decide the type of garden you want to grow and the kind of aesthetic you are looking for because that is one of the most important home gardening tips and tricks for beginners. 

You have to also keep in mind whether you have the bandwidth to take care of that type of garden and if it is truly the type of garden you want. This is because the plants are living beings as well, right? They need to be cared for and nurtured and it would be unfair to them if that care and nurturing is missing. Pick one, stick to it, and you will soon have the perfect urban home garden that you had in mind.

2Have The Proper Home Gardening Tools

After you have made your choice about what type of garden you would like to have, the next of the home gardening tips is having the right set of tools or at least the basic ones with you. One of these includes having pruning scissors as they are to be used to control the growth of the plants and to remove the dead parts so that your garden stays healthy. 

The next 2 sets of tools are equally, perhaps more, important as they are the tools needed for digging and watering your plants. These are the spade, trowel, and a garden fork which are needed for digging the holes for your plants whereas the fork is for removing the lumps of soil and old roots that may clog the soil. For watering, a garden hose would be ideally suited for those with a large garden but many of us would find a small watering can be ideal.

3Be Careful When Planting

Now that you have the right set of tools, it is time to do the planting, and be extremely gentle while doing so. There are few home gardening tips and tricks for beginners you need to keep in mind while you are planting the seeds/saplings into the soil. If you are planting seeds, you have to plant them about 4 times as deep as the diameter of the seeds, cover them up completely with the soil and water them while being mindful of the fact that the seeds cannot be exposed. 

If you have purchased a sapling or a grown plant, especially for an urban home garden, the hole for planting has to be at least twice as wide as the ball of roots, cover the roots carefully and completely and just water gently.

4Water & Fertilise The Right Way

Plants are very much like us in this respect. They need just enough to sustain themselves while too much of anything can cause great damage. These important home gardening tips need to be followed as overwatering can cause water to be logged in and the plants will most certainly sustain damage. Water them slowly as it will allow the water to reach deep into the soil and lead to equitable distribution throughout the soil. The younger ones, like our own children, need to be watered and cared for everyday while the grown up ones can be watered once every 2-3 days (that does not mean you as a human should eat and drink water only once every 3 days okay?!). 

It is also recommended that you use organic fertiliser like compost as it prevents your plants from absorbing the toxic chemicals used in regular fertilisers and is equally effective in retaining moisture and keeping the soil pest-free. Moreover, it also helps in preventing those chemicals from leaching into the ground and causing pollution.

Voila! Your garden is now ready!

5The Final Vegetable Lesson

There is just something about having your own vegetable garden that is soul-satisfying. You are literally growing your own food just a few steps away from bed! The fresh and tasty veggies you pluck from the garden and put right onto your plate. While planting a vegetable garden, be mindful of the region you are living in as each vegetable has its own temperature and weather preferences. 

Keeping in mind that these are home gardening tips and tricks for beginners, you can begin with some basic vegetables like tomatoes, capsicums, herbs, and salad leaves which are also easy to grow and maintain. Once you have mastered the basics is when you can move on to the complicated ones like broccoli, cabbage, and more that need more effort and much more time.

On that note, we at Things2do hope that these important tips and tricks on how to start home gardening will serve you well in your endeavour to grow your own garden and have a healthy and green start to your mornings, not to mention that gardening is a great way to also improve your mental health. Talking to your plants and playing music to them encourages healthy plant growth too! Good luck and do let us know how much ‘fruit’ your efforts bore!

by Ritvik Agarwal

Content Writer at Things2do