Best Garden Tips

Contrary to popular belief, you don't need a green thumb to grow a successful garden. The best garden tips are simple to follow and don't leave your wallet empty. Growing your own vegetables or flowers can be rewarding and provide great exercise. Whether you want to try your hand at tomatoes or spruce up your yard with roses, some simple tips will help you grow a successful garden.

Start Small
Expert gardeners all say the same thing: start small. Many new gardeners make the mistake of digging numerous garden beds, buying a wide variety of flowers and seeds and investing in the latest garden tools. While this type of enthusiasm is commendable, it is also difficult to maintain over a long growing season. Instead of tackling your entire back yard in one summer, pick one area and stick to it. Select a few types of flowers or vegetables and find an area that receives the amount of sun needed for these plants. A smaller garden means less time weeding and more time enjoying you new hobby.

Easy Does It
Many experienced gardeners suggest starting off with some easy-to-grow plants and vegetables. Vegetables such as zucchini squash, beets, onions and green beans are great for beginners. These veggies grow in almost all climates and are quite hardy. Day lilies, marigolds and butterfly flowers take little effort and produce beautiful flowers. It's best to avoid vegetables such as eggplant, celery and cauliflower in your first few years of gardening. While they are tasty, these veggies are also temperamental and require specific soils, climates and sun exposure which can be difficult for a newbie gardener to master.


Use Super Seeds

No matter how diligent and careful a gardener you are, using sub-par seeds only leads to disappointment. Experts suggest asking your local garden supply store for recommendations. As with most things in life, you get what you pay for. A good thing to look for and follow is the growing instructions and sun requirements on each seed package. No matter how high-quality the seeds are, some varieties of flowers and veggies simply can't grow in certain climates.

Mulch It Up

One of the best gardening tips available is to use mulch. Mulch comes in a variety of ingredients and is used to retain soil moisture, suppress weeds and fertilize flower and vegetable beds. Popular forms of mulch include manure, composted leaves and grass clippings and shredded newspaper. You can make your own mulch for free by starting a compost pile. Common household ingredients such as coffee grounds, egg shells and fruit and vegetable peelings are great for compost piles. The Internet offers a wide variety of websites devoted to the construction and maintenance of household compost piles.

Source: http://www.ehow.com/info_8117072_garden-tips.html

New Garden Tips

Looking at a neighbor's thriving garden can be intimidating for new gardeners who may think no matter how hard they work, they'll never have the green thumb needed to produce gorgeous fruits, veggies and flowers. Don't let intimidation stand in the way though, as a few tips and tricks can help aspiring gardeners get off to a good start and create a beautiful, healthy harvest of their own.

Plants often need an extra dose of nutrients in the form of fertilizer, but few gardeners want to spray down their crops with chemicals. Used coffee grounds can make an excellent, natural substitute for commercially produced fertilizers and are often available for free. High in nitrogen, coffee grounds can be worked into the soil or packed around the base of plants like roses and tomatoes to give them nutrients while also attracting helpful earthworms to the soil and repelling pests like slugs.

Consider the Past

When planting a new variety of vegetable, fruit or flowers, consider anything that grew in the ground before. Some plants can leave a legacy in the soil that can sicken and kill new crops, so do a little research to make sure the ground is ideal before planting seeds. For instance, Garden Action states that you should not grow strawberries in soil that once contained potatoes, peppers, eggplant or tomatoes because these plants can leave behind verticillium wilt, which can kill tender young berries.

Try Companion Planting

While it can seem logical to grow flowers in one place and vegetables in another, a little mixing and matching can have benefits. For instance, beans deposit nitrogen into the soil in which they grow, making it ideal for vegetables such as beets, cucumbers and celery, which require the nutrient to thrive. Clover can be planted around apple trees and cabbage to repel aphids according to Golden Harvest Organics, and mint will also do the same.

Compost

Many things that end up in the garbage can, from eggshells to banana peels, can take on a new life in the garden via composting. Gardeners can compost their own organic matter instead of throwing it away, creating a natural fertilizer high in elements such as carbon and nitrogen. This matter can be tilled into the soil, making it rich and fertile for plants without the need for chemical additives.

Source: http://www.ehow.com/info_8001847_new-garden-tips.html