Are You Making These 6 Rookie Gardening Mistakes?

We’ve all been there.  Those first few months that you are working on learning a new hobby, everything seems to go wrong.  Everything is SUCH a CHORE to get done.  When you finally make a breakthrough in one area, then another problem area seems to crop up (pun SO intended!).  Gardening is the same way!  Without someone to walk alongside you and point out the pitfalls into which you might fall, you end up in a big hot mess.

Those first few years when everything about gardening is new, it’s SO HARD to get things to go right for you!  When you finally overcome the bugs, then you’re dealing with squirrels who want to steal your food and then throw it partially eaten onto the ground for you to see – and if feels like this because they have no other mission in life, but to make you mad.  But you are determined to persevere and overcome!  So, today’s article is all about how to avoid some of those rookie mistakes that many people deal with in their first few years of gardening.

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Pitfall #1 Growing What Everyone Grows

If you are just starting out doing a garden for the first or second year, don’t just hop into tomatoes and peppers because everyone grows tomatoes and peppers.  Instead, you should be looking over your list.  What items that your family enjoys eating fall into the #1-5 slots?  If your family loves corn, peas, lettuce, radishes, and pickles, don’t start your garden by growing tomatoes and peppers!  What do you enjoy eating the most – what do you already eat the most of?  Grow these things!  Take some time and learn about specifically growing those vegetables and/or fruits.

Pitfall #2 Taking on too much

Oh, I know it’s so tempting!  While some things seem to be improving; some of the world still seems to be going crazy!  Thinking “I need to grow a huge garden THIS YEAR so that I can provide for my family” isn’t the answer.  Oh, isn’t the thought of a large garden just tantalizing.  The feeling that you’re going to provide your family with so much of what they need to eat so you can go A Year Without the Grocery Store may drive you to start with a big garden this year.  But there are some problems with this such as –

Overwhelm

Feeling like you have to grow much, most, or all of your family’s food needs starting this year – when you’ve never done it before is problematic.  It will most definitely lead to you feeling overwhelmed.  And feeling overwhelmed will lead to you want to quit this year’s garden altogether.

Let go of feeling like you have to do it all.  Start small.

Pitfall #3 Being afraid of Mistakes

Believe it or not, the opposite of feeling like you need to do it all is not  – doing nothing.  The opposite of feeling like you need to do it all is being paralyzed by the fear that you’re going to make big mistakes and ruin your garden completely.

It was funny, as I was writing this article, I got a broadcast e-mail from Melissa K. Norris which said something along the lines of – ‘some people don’t start a garden because they are afraid that they will make mistakes.  Let me lay that fear to rest right now.  You WILL make mistakes.’  And to that, I give her a hearty high five!  You’re going to screw up – probably not just one thing, but multiple things this year.  AND IT’S OKAY!  Seriously, it’s okay.

Great Example – Year One

Our first year with our raised beds, we used organic gardening soil in the beds.  We purchased it from a local company, but it came with clods of dirt all stuck together.  It held too much water, and it didn’t drain well – at all!  We did get a few items from our 100sq/ft garden, but our tomatoes got blossom end rot.  We got only one or two peppers.  The carrots didn’t grow at all.  The peas and cucumbers were eaten by something, and we still don’t know what ate them.  Overall, if you only look at yield, it was an abysmal gardening year.  If, however, you look at it from the perspective of what we learned, we learned a TON.

Year Two

The second year, we decided to add organic compost to the raised beds.  This meant that the dirt in the beds was less compact.  It did drain a smidge better – though not a ton.  But we also fed our plants better because of the organic compost.  That year, we probably tripled our garden output.  Granted 3 times more than two peppers isn’t a TON, but if we look at it in terms of percentage of improvement over the previous year – a 300% more yield is a win in my book.

Year Three

As we pulled all of the dead plants out of the garden at the end of last year’s growing season, we decided to go ahead and purchase vermiculite to add to our garden.  Vermiculite aids in allowing the soil to drain more easily – while at the same time retaining the necessary moisture for plants to thrive.  This was a game changer for us.

The point is that if I were afraid of mistakes, I never would have learned the lessons that I learned from those mistakes.  I guarantee you that since we will grow garden larger than 100 sq/ft. on our farm this year, that we will make tons of new mistakes, but we’ll learn from them so that each year’s garden is better than the one before it.

#4 Pitfall – Using the Wrong Seeds 

When we’re talking about long-term food storage including a garden, we need to discuss seeds. There are two main types of seeds: hybridized seeds and heirloom seeds.

Heirloom Seeds

Heirloom seeds are seeds that have been saved and passed down for generations. A pea seed will produce peas.  You can then save several of those pods of peas and plant the peas next year in your garden.  When you do so using heirloom seeds, you’ll get more peas.  You can continue to do this for many generations, which is how we get heirloom seeds.  These seeds are usually saved because of specific characteristics – amazing taste, gorgeous colors, pest resistance, or vigorous growth in your climate.

Hybridized Seeds

If, however, you go to your local hardware store, Walmart, or Walgreens, you’ll see inexpensive packages of seeds.  These seeds are either hybridized or genetically modified.  According to SeedSavers.org, “Hybridization is a controlled method of pollination in which the pollen of two different species or varieties is crossed by human intervention.”   The upside to this is that the first generation of those seeds will produce much higher yields.  The downside to this is that, when your peas are ready for harvest, you can’t save any of those peas to plant the next year.  If you did decide to give it a go and plant them anyway, more than likely you won’t get a pea plant from the seed!  If you do get a pea plant, it won’t grow well or produce much at all.  They want you to need to buy seeds from them every year.

When it’s time to go shopping for seeds, Make sure that you are looking at heirloom seeds from places like Seeds for Generations, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and Victory Seeds.  And there are two books that I highly recommend when it comes to properly harvesting and saving seeds, and propagating plants.  These are:  Seed to Seed and Propogating Plants.

#5 Pitfall – Not Planning Your Garden

More than likely your garden space is going to be limited – let’s make sure that you’re using your space for what your family enjoys the most.  I spent a whole article discussing this topic.  You need to plan out what you’re going to put into your garden this year.  Learn about each plant you are going to enjoy.

Then each year as you expand your garden little by little, then you can add 3-5 more foods that your family loves.  Take the time each year to learn about those few plants and pour yourselves into them learn to grow them well.  Eventually, you’ll get to ones that you enjoy a bit, but maybe not as much as many others.

At this point, I’d like to suggest that the worksheets in A Year Without the Grocery Store’s Companion Workbook would be incredibly helpful.  You’ll find many different gardening worksheets including what to plant, garden plot worksheets, and garden recap worksheets in the first section of the workbook.

6.)  Not Doing a Garden Recap 

Each year, I highly suggest that you do a garden recap.  What is that?  It includes several parts.

• A diagram of your garden – where everything was planted.
• A list of which plants you planted
• How many of each plant you planted
• How much yield you got out of your garden for each plant
• What mistakes you found and how you overcame them.
• What methods you used to preserve each plant.
• How many jars/cans/quart size freezer bags you got of each food
• Over the course of the year, how many jars were leftover or what day of the year did you finish off the food that you had.

Once you have that down, you’ve already answered many of the questions that you need to ask for the next year.  When it comes time to plan the following year at your fingertips, you already have what vegetable and fruit varieties that you’ve already attempted to plant.  You know how many of each you did plant and if your family had too much or too little of any given plant.  You have a record of your problems and – if you overcame them – how you overcame them.

A garden recap does all this FOR YOU!  Don’t make the newbie mistake of forgetting to do this singularly important task.

What About You?

What newbie gardening mistakes have you made?  How did you overcome them?  What mistakes have you seen others make?  Share with us in the comments below so that we can all be better prepared!

And when you’re working to avoid these rookie mistakes, remember,

You’ve got this, Mama!