March 16, 2016 by Cherry Lane
Spring is just around the corner and gardening enthusiasts will be outside this month getting their patch ready for the summer. For those who haven’t had much experience gardening we’ve compiled a handy guide to what you need to have at the ready to get out there and start growing and gardening this year.
Your First Steps
First of all it’s important to know what sort of area and space you have to work with. If you’re sitting and looking out onto an untidy garden and you’re dreaming of something smarter, more colourful and vibrant you might also want to read our guide on choosing a colour scheme for your garden.
It’s a good idea to plan what sort of furniture and plants you want in your garden and to work out what will fit where and how it might look. The last thing you want to do is grab a spade to start digging up an area to plant and realising it won’t work with the furniture you want to put into your garden.
Top Tip: Draw a plan of your garden with measurements and make sure everything fits perfectly.
Once you have an idea of how you want things to look and you know everything is going to look as you want it, it’s time to go out and get what you need.
Buying the right equipment
For any gardener, there’s a range of equipment which are absolute necessities. Here are a list of tools you shouldn’t be without if you want to start gardening:
- Gardening Gloves
- Spade
- Fork
- Secateurs
- Hoe
- Wheelbarrow
- Garden Rake
- Watering Can
- Gardening Knife
Once you have your tools it’s time to get the seeding trays, pots and seeds that you need, all of which you can find in our gardening department. If you’re out growing for the first time, it might be wise to choose seeds that need to be planted and harvested around the same time so you don’t have to worry too much about logging when each pot was sown.
Top Tip: You can sow your seeds indoors in preparation for the spring, they can then be planted outside a couple of weeks after the last spring frost.
Choosing What To Grow
Again when choosing which seeds to plant, it’s important to choose those which will grow in our UK climate. Tomatoes are one of the most popular things to grow in the UK and amongst that the best fruit and vegetables to grow in the UK are:
- Lettuce
- Potatoes
- Strawberries
- French Beans
- Courgettes
- Onions
- Beetroot
Fighting Off The Enemy
When you’re out in the garden and growing to eat, slugs and snails will quickly become your biggest enemy. One of the ways to reduce the number of them in your patch is to keep your plot neat and tidy and not giving them somewhere nice to hide.
Alongside the molluscs, you will have a war on weeds. The ideal scenario is to keep your plot organic and pesticide free but it could be advised to have one on hand to reduce the number of weeds and make sure your first year of growing is as successful as possible.
Your Checklists To Success
It’s good to keep track of what you have planted and their harvest date. When you’re into your second year it’s also wise to look at what worked well and what didn’t the year previous so you can avoid any potential disappointments.
Yield Tracker
Weekly Job Checklist
It’s also a good idea to start a weekly checklist of the jobs you know you have to do so you can tally of what you’ve done and make sure you don’t forget anything!
The more information you record in the first couple of years that you start growing, the better informed you will be each year round and the more success you’ll have.
Don’t Forget To Enjoy It
Although gardening is a lot of hard work and graft, it’s also an incredibly rewarding hobby and for many people there’s nothing better than seeing the yield from their tough efforts and being able to eat produce that they’ve grown.
Lots of people like to take pictures and keep a visual diary of what they’ve grown, it’s also a good idea to scrapbook and make notes as something to look back on!
Any Other Questions?
When it comes to gardening there’s always another method, another trick in the book and it’ll take you years to find your own way of doing things. But if you have any questions on choosing the right equipment or picking the right seeds to grow, you can get in touch with one of our team who can give you the advice you need to get started.
