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March 23, 2016 · Leave a Comment

5 Mistakes Beginner Gardeners Make

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Garden· Gardening Tips

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beginner gardener mistakes

The summer of 2008, while Hubs and I were in grad school, we decided that we wanted to grow some fresh veggies at our apartment.  We bought a pepper and tomato plant since they were veggies we use frequently and they can be pretty expensive to buy at the store.  The following year we expanded what we grew to include cucumbers, squash, beans and peas.  We now have 300 square feet of raised bed garden space that we grow and preserve a lot of our own foods.

summer harvest

Back at our first apartment, we had no clue about all the mistakes we would make as first time gardeners, as well as all the things we would learn over the next 8 years.  But the biggest way to learn when it comes to gardening is by doing.  Over the years I’ve developed a love for gardening, and while it can be frustrating and hectic, the hard work pays off in the end.  I haven’t had to buy spaghetti sauce & pizza sauce, canned green beans, diced tomatoes, pickles, frozen peas, jellies and jams in a long time.  And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

If you have no experience growing things and you’re thinking about starting a garden this year, here are 5 common gardening mistakes made by first time gardeners.

Planting in an area where there’s not enough light.

Our first pepper and tomato plant that I talked about?  We killed them.  Our first year gardening, and we killed the only two plants we bought.  It was devastating.  We almost didn’t grow anything the following year because “it would be wasted money”.  But the problem wasn’t our care.  Our problem was location.  While we chose the sunniest spot we had in our tiny yard, that spot only received 6 hours of sunlight maximum.

Some plants are shade tolerant and don’t mind few hours of sunlight per day, while tomatoes and peppers thrive on 12-16 hours of sunlight.  To prevent your plants from not getting enough light, determine whether your plants need full sun or can grow in some shade.  While most will say they require full sun, plants like spinach, arugula, chard, lettuce and kale, will still grow on a 2 to 6 hours of sunlight a day.

Not leaving enough spacing between plants.

Some plants love to sprawl out and need the space.  Tomatoes, melons, cucumbers and squash fall into this category.  Other plants, like carrots, peas, pole beans and leaf lettuces do well in smaller spaces.  When you’re first planting in the spring, it’s really easy to plant too close together.  I’ve fallen into that trap many times, especially with tomatoes. and zucchini.  3 feet spacing is a lot bigger than you’d think!  But if you don’t leave enough space, your tomatoes and squash will become unruly and eventyally overcrowd and kill any nearby plants.  A really easy fix to this is to make sure you have a measuring tape handy when planting.

Not planning ahead.

While you’re not planning to build the next NYC skyscraper, a little bit of preplanning before planting your garden can save you a lot of frustration later in the season.  Planning ahead can ensure that long maturity plants, like leeks, brussel sprouts, pumpkins, winter squashes and some tomatoes, have enough time to mature for harvest before the first frost.  It can also help with continual harvests of some foods like lettuces and spinach.

Planning ahead will help you determine the quantity of food you’re thinking of harvesting as well.  Tomatoes, beans, peas, squash and cucumbers are very prolific, and a few plants will give more than enough for fresh eating throughout the summer.  On the other hand, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower only give one major harvest per plant.  By planning ahead, you can start to think in terms of what you want to get out of your garden over the course of the summer and fall, and know what you may need to plant more of.  To get started, try planning out what you want to grow, and how much.  From there, you can plan out how much you’ll need to grow from there.

garden

Starting too soon {or too late}.

This is especially important when you’re starting plants from seeds because germination rates vary by plant.  I’m always amazed at how fast some plants sprout, and equally amazed how long it takes others.  By planting too early, I run the risk of the transplants getting damaged by frost, stunted by cooler weather, and seeds not germinating.  By starting too late, the plant may bolt because of the heat, or it won’t mature in time to produce fruits and vegetables for you.  To prevent this, always check the back of the seed packets for proper planting times.  Check the maturity date too so you know when to expect the harvest.

Planting everything all at once.

There’s two downsides to this mistake.  Some plants like the cool weather, while others like it warmer.  Starting everything at once means that one will be growing in weather that’s not suited to them.  Plants that need warm weather to grow will be delayed in growth, while cooler weather plants will germinate, and then work on producing seeds rather than giving you food.

The other side to this mistake is that if everything survives and produces, you’ll have a TON of fresh produce all at once.  Sometimes this is what I want, like when I’m canning green beans or making pizza & spaghetti sauce.  Other times it’s not ideal.  I can honestly only go through so much squash and lettuce at once.

Watering too much {or too little}.

Even as a seasoned gardener, this is something I struggle with.  I am known to kill house plants because I don’t water them often enough, and I tend to be lax watering the garden as well.  In my defense, I don’t want my plants to die from too much water.  To determine whether you plants need watering, stick your finger in the soil up to the fingernail.  If the soil is wet, your plants don’t need watered at this time, but if the soil is dry, they could benefit from some water.

I do try to stick to a semi-watering schedule, if you could call it that.  Between summer thunderstorms and our yard being semi-wet until the end of June, it’s pointless to stick to a strict “water every 3 days schedule”.  What I do is look at the forecast, and if there’s a period of time where we go for 4 or more days without rain, I’ll water my garden every other day until we get more rain.

 

Don’t let these 5 mistakes prevent you from growing your own food.  They’re really simple to fix!  If I can go from completely killing plants to growing our own food for preservation in a few years, you can too!  Besides, growing food in your own garden is well worth the rewards you’ll reap.

If you’re an experienced gardener, are there any mistakes you made as a beginner gardener you would add to this list?  Let me know in the comments below!

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This is what school looks like when it's a hybrid This is what school looks like when it's a hybrid model, and your house does not have unlimited space. I was standing in our kitchen when I took this picture, the kids behind me making lunch.
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Our district is carefully monitoring our local infection rates, and we are currently in a hybrid form. That means they divided the district into two groups; half are in school on Monday and Tuesday, the other half on Thursday and Friday. They are offering an all remote option, but Verizon for some reason supplies our house with speeds so slow that it would shock a tortoise. Remote was a no-go.
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Our home is a 1800sqft one-story, open living area, 4 bedroom, 1 bathroom, ranch-style house in a very rural area. It has no home offices. No guest bedrooms. Yes, that is a desk in the corner of our dining room. 🤣
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Each kid gets their own color bin for their school work. This includes school-issued Chromebooks and other standard items they need to get work done - headphones, pencils, and so on. When we are done for the day, we clean up everything, place them neatly in these bins, and place them in cubbies (on my current left) at night while the Chromebooks charge.
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School is in session, the garden is slowing, and I School is in session, the garden is slowing, and I’ve finally realized I haven’t shared our payoff numbers for July or August. Yeah……
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Please keep in mind, we are paid monthly on the 15th, but we don’t go by a “monthly” budget. So I have to go back and look at these numbers based off their due dates in the calendar. Because our pay falls in the middle of the month, I can’t tell you what portion of our income went to debt. It’s going to vary paycheck to paycheck anyways because our priorities vary with each check. Nothing is ever the same month to month, and pay to pay.
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That said, inJuly we paid off $2,694.43.
In August we paid off $1,673.40.
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Of those goals, in August we made progress!
EF Reimbursement: $146 / $1,200
Checking Buffer Reimbursement: $227 / $500
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It’s progress, and that’s what matters!
While I wait for the canner to finish the last rou While I wait for the canner to finish the last round... I rearranged our recipe binder. It's only taken me 8 or so years. 🤣😶😭
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So if you feel overwhelmed with your current phase, remember, this too shall pass. It's okay to rearrange priorities. It's okay to take a breather.
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If you didn't start finding interesting ways to ge If you didn't start finding interesting ways to get rid of the squash, can you say you even planted any?
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Good news, I'm almost caught up! Bad news, the garden has more.
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No matter the win, celebrate it!
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What are some wins you have had lately?
In total we have 15lbs green beans, 10lbs cucumber In total we have 15lbs green beans, 10lbs cucumbers, 5lbs blueberries, and countless zucchini and squash with more on the way! My weekend is spoken for... and this isn't all of it. 😳
Rather than looking back through all our non-month Rather than looking back through all our non-monthly bills for the year and try to remember what I paid and when I paid it, I make a note of how much it was on our bill pay tracker. That way I can easily tally it up at the end of the year, set our sinking funds next year accordingly, and not spend more time than is necessary on this... because kids and all.⁣
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Anyone else do this? Do you have a different method of tracking these expenses?⁣
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It's also part of my budgeting workbook, also in my Etsy shop.⁣
Good news though... there's a very similar free version in my resource library as well. Links are in my profile.⁣
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Probably an unpopular opinion here... but these tw Probably an unpopular opinion here... but these two things are NOT the same to me.⁣
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𝗟𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 paycheck to paycheck means that you're using all of your money for expenses with none left over for savings. This usually happens when you're not aware of where you are spending your money, and how much you are spending. For us, this happened in the form of those tiny expenses that can add up to even larger expenses, and then an unexpected bill comes and you have nothing left to cover it.⁣
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𝗕𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 paycheck to paycheck means that you are giving every single cent you earn a job to do that aligns with your priorities - like in sinking funds, savings, expenses, debt payments, etc - until the next paycheck. You have the money on hand to cover some unexpected expenses, and you are mindful of your spending so that you're not leaking money through small purchases.⁣
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June's paycheck was a doozy! I haven't looked forw June's paycheck was a doozy! I haven't looked forward to a paycheck since we first made the switch to monthly pays. It was so bad we've got a new order to things.⁣
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Good news is that if our state keeps closing things down, we should hammer this out in no time!⁣
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To see the full breakdown of how bad June's paycheck was, check out the June 15th Budget Review on our YouTube channel here https://youtu.be/gXoEo33hIYQ. Link is also in the bio.⁣
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