Gardening is an amazing hobby that is both healthy and profitable if it is done right. These gardening tips for new gardeners can save you a significant amount of money and provide you with healthy organic food at the same time.
A common complaint that I have heard from many people is that gardens require a lot of maintenance, which takes up a lot of time.
But if you know what you are doing, you can actually manage a very profitable and healthy garden while spending very little time and effort on its maintenance.
So, to teach you some amazing gardening skills and promote you to the expert level, here I have put together a list of some tips that will really help you in managing your garden while saving money and time!
1. Start With a Small Garden
A major mistake that is made by many new and inexperienced gardeners is that they plant a garden that is too big for them to maintain properly.
And when they are not able to maintain and organize the garden properly, they don’t get a good yield from it. It means that they end up wasting the money they spent on the garden and a lot of their time as well.
So, the best way to make sure that you are able to maintain your garden is always to start small and experiment a little bit with a small garden before you expand your garden and take it to the next level.
This will allow you to understand the methods and secrets of gardening in a low-pressure situation. And you will also save money, save time and get more products from the garden in the long run.
RELATED: How we grew 1,500 pounds of food without weeding or watering!
2. Get Your Soil Tested For Nutrients
Before you plant a garden, you should always try to understand your soil. Understanding the soil will allow you to plant items that the soil is suitable for. The best way to acquire a detailed understanding of your soil is to get its nutrient and mineral levels tested in a lab.
Editor's Note: Often times, you can have your local extension office test the soil for you!
These tests will also tell you what kind of nutrients are present in the soil and what kind of minerals it lacks so that you can focus on using compost or fertilizer that is suitable for the soil.
Getting the soil tested will save you a lot of experimentation time, and it will also save you some money on the fertilizers.
3. Create Your Own Compost
If you want to save some money while keeping your garden purely organic at the same time, you should create your own compost.
Compost is very easy to make at home. It can be made by putting together kitchen waste such as fruit and vegetable peels, egg shells, coffee grounds, used tea, and you can also add some old leaves to the compost.
Just make a pile of the compost materials in the soil a week or so before you start planting the garden and you won’t need any fertilizers in the soil, and the products of the garden will be completely organic.
RELATED: How to Make Your Own (mock) Mushroom Compost
4. Use Smart Maintenance Techniques to Save Time
The most time consuming and expensive part of managing a garden is maintenance, but it is one of the most important parts as well.
If you use the right tools and techniques, the maintenance can be made easier, and your time requirements (and expenses) can be cut in half.
For example, you can make an effective and inexpensive automatic watering system using used old plastic soda bottles with holes in them to save time and money!
We also like the Back to Eden garden method that allows you to grow food with little to no water, and requires very little (if any) weeding once set up properly!
You should also buy some simple maintenance tools like a garden shredder and a cordless trimmer to save maintenance time. Hop over to Product Spyto check out some reviews about the best garden shredders and other gardening equipment available in the UK.
If you're in the USA this list of the best gardening tools by The Survival Gardener is a great place to start!
5. Let the Sunshine In
The proper amount of sunlight is essential for a productive garden. Make sure that your garden gets at least six hours of sunlight on a daily basis. Plants need sunlight for photosynthesis, so light is very important.
Vegetables especially need full sunlight to grow well and provide a full nutrient profile in the finished produce!
If you have areas of your yard that get less than 6 hours of full sunlight, consider planting herbs instead, such as mint, chives, lavender, or basil. They thrive in shady areas and still provide benefits for your family!
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I hope the simple and budget-friendly tips mentioned above help you out in maintaining a beautiful garden and keeping it evergreen. Let us know!
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Leandra says
Hi Victoria, I’m one of you’re posts you mentioned a seed company to buy bulk seeds from. I’m interested in buying from them but I can’t find the exact website and I can’t find it again on your site. It’s something like Happyharvest or healthyharvest if I remember right. I’m hoping to start a garden for the first time ever this spring and I really want to do the Back to Eden garden method. Just trying to find the right compost in my area. I love your blog! Thank you!
Victoria says
Hi Leandra! Thank you, I’m glad you found the post! I do recommend buying seeds from White Harvest Seeds if you are able – while the bulk seeds are cheap, their germination rate was terrible. With White Harvest, we’ve had an almost 100% germination rate!
I need to update that post, as I wrote it almost 3 years ago (the bulk seeds post).
Here’s the link for White Harvest if you want to check them out!
Good luck finding compost, that can be tricky, but once you do the garden will be amazing because of it! <3
Leandra says
Actually, I just found your post about it by searching “bulk seeds”