Six Mistakes Garden Novices Should Avoid

There’s nothing more satisfying than growing your own food in the garden. Looking after a garden and seeing your plants grow and thrive is very rewarding, and can even help improve your mental health. 

However, gardening can also be a challenging task, especially if you’re a beginner. If you’re a novice gardener, here are the six mistakes you should never make.

Six Mistakes Garden Novices Should Avoid

1. Overwatering

Plants need water to grow, but overwatering can damage the plant’s roots and causes the plant to starve to death slowly.

Many beginner gardeners — in their excitement — tend to overwater their plants. Watering them every day will only encourage your plants to set very shallow roots.

In addition, overwatering will not make the plants healthier and or make them grow faster. The ideal amount to water your garden is 1-3 times a week, and it’s best to do it in the morning as it allows the water to run down into the soil, reaching the roots without too much excess water lost to evaporation.

2. Plant Spacing

When planting vegetables, novice gardeners often overlook the importance of spacing. All plants need space to grow and planting them on top of each other will not help anything.

As they all need sunlight, water and food, planting more flowers or veggies on top of each other can reduce the amount of each source they’ll get as well as increasing the survival of the fittest mentality.

You can use this Plant Spacing Guide, courtesy of Gardening Know How.

3. Where to Plant

Although you might decide you want a particular plant in a particular place in your garden, it’s essential to consider the conditions the plant type needs to survive. 

For instance, some varieties, such as Primroses’ will thrive in shaded areas while others like Marigold’s live best in the sun.

When picking the ideal location, here are the things you need to keep in mind:

• Plant in a sunny location – most vegetables need at least 6 hours of direct sunlight a day. The more sunlight your veggies receive, the better they taste!
• Plant in a stable environment – avoid planting them in places that are prone to flood or dry places.

4. Soil

Soil can sometimes vary even within a garden, so it’s important to find out which nutrients are missing, and try and replace them as much as possible. Make sure the soil is right for the plants and that it’s been well fertilised to help them grow better.

Tip: Consider doing a soil test to help you identify what exactly you can do to improve it for the benefit of the plants. Soil test kits are available at most garden centres or hardware stores.

5. Weeding – or Not

One of the mistakes beginner gardeners often make is differentiating what does and what doesn’t constitute a weed. Pretty flowers, such as forget-me-nots, may actually be weeds, and could soon take over your garden.

You must first be able to identify whether or not a plant is a garden weed. Here’s the best way to identify them, courtesy of Love The Garden. Read here.

6. Weather

Lastly, be mindful that the weather has as much an effect on your garden as you do. 

If it’s been raining all week, you won’t need to water your plants as much, whereas if there’s been some strong sun and heat, you should be giving them more water.

Before you leap into anything, you must make sure you do your research and prepare your garden. Otherwise, you’ll likely fall at the first hurdle. 

Deciding on colour schemes and how you eventually want your outdoor space to look will help make all the time spent preparing worthwhile. We hope our ‘Six Mistakes Garden Novices Should Avoid’ guide will help you to start-off your gardening journey fruitfully!