When a garden is set-up correctly, it becomes a food-producing MACHINE… pumping out a variety of healthy fruits and veg throughout the season with minimal effort and input.
Key words here: “set-up correctly”!!!
I have met with many a novice gardener desperate to understand why their efforts are not paying off! And commonly, there is a set-up issue at play.
Read on for 3 of the most common garden set-up mistakes I see as a garden consultant and a quick tip for each to remediate them.
Getting the foundation and set up in the garden right ends up saving you a ton of time, effort, frustration and even money in the long run!!
If you’re looking to create a food machine in your backyard, check out our Sustainable Gardener course to walk you through the key elements that will springboard you straight to success.
3 Common Garden Set-Up Mistakes
Common Garden Mistake #1: POOR SOIL
- Don’t skimp on the soil! No matter how big or beautiful your garden space is, if the soil is lacking nutrient or has a poor water holding capacity, your plants will surely suffer!
- Adding an array of compost and amendments like bone meal and worm castings regularly will increase the biology in your soil as well as improve the structure, nutrient diversity, and water holding capacity.
- Healthy soil = healthy plants. Without healthy soil, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to grow healthy and productive plants.
Tip to resolve: Gain a general understanding of how soil interacts and supports plants to skyrocket your success as a gardener.
Read more about soil in my blog entry: Amending Your Soil.
Common Garden Mistake #2: INCONSISTENT WATERING
- PLANTS NEED CONSISTENT WATER TO THRIVE!!!! A bit of water here and there makes it extremely difficult for plants to grow healthy roots. Watering plants on a consistent basis (like daily or every other day) helps them to develop a strong root system which translates into healthy and productive plants.
- A basic garden irrigation system is 100% worth the effort and will save you an incredible amount of time whilst supporting your plants all season long with efficient and consistent watering.
Tip to resolve: Set up a basic drip irrigation system. (You can thank me later).
Common Garden Mistake #3: POOR GARDEN PLACEMENT
- Fruiting plants need a MINIMUM of 6 hours of direct sunlight to thrive and produce abundantly.
- Placing a garden too far away from your house, in the shade, or in an inconvenient location = poor production and more effort to visit and maintain the garden.
Tip to resolve: Place your garden in an area with FULL SUN and close proximity to your home entry points, or near a frequently visited place in your landscape.
Where are YOU in your growing journey?
Are you ready to create that abundant food garden you’ve been dreaming about for so long?! There is never a better time to start planning, building, or amending a garden than RIGHT NOW!I’ve created the Sustainable Gardener course to take you straight to success so you can enjoy the health, vitality, and satisfaction of growing a healthy backyard food garden without the frustration or wasted time from trial and error.
The best thing that you can do to grow an abundance of healthy food in your garden with ease is to learn the foundational knowledge of what creates a healthy garden ecosystem.
My flagship course, The Sustainable Gardener takes you through a complete and proven A to Z framework to help you understand soil, irrigation, planting, timing, garden layout and so much more and guides you to apply it to YOUR garden space so you can save time, effort and money from trial and error and get straight to the good stuff!
The course is a game-changer so get ready to Grow!
Thanks for reading this blog entry, I hope you found it helpful!
Hope to see you soon.
In Growing,
Andrea Vanderbilt
Founder, Teach Me To Grow
This blog was… how do you say it? Relevant!! Finally I’ve found
something which helped me. Appreciate it!