New Gardener’s Guide with Five Questions to Ask Before Planting

What are your ultimate gardening goals?

This is the best place to start. Meaning why do you want a garden? Do you want to eat your harvest seasonally?

Do you want to create your own grocery store and fill your pantry with rows of canned goods for eating all year round?

Maybe it’s kitchen herbs growing in pots out on your apartment deck or porch steps.

Perhaps a huge space filled to the brim with brightly colored, savory scented cooking and medicinal herbs. Maybe it’s visions of a perennial garden you’re after or huge dreamy bouquets full of cut and come again flowers from your wildflower garden.

Flowers are a perfect part of garden planning if you want instant inspiration for photography or painting or simply to attract the butterflies and bees for pollination and honey production.

Whatever you desire your garden to be, make sure you are crystal clear about your goals before moving forward.

Also note, your garden planning and goals may change year to year. Once you get started, you’ll be inspired to explore other avenues of gardening and preserving!

How much time do you have to devote to your garden goals?

When garden planning, consider this question. It’s important because a garden requires a lot of effort to effectively produce a harvest. There’s financial input as well as significant time spent especially if you are starting a garden from scratch.

Before tears and frustration set in, think about this:

1.) How many hours a week do you work? Are you 9-5 or salaried? Both may require a lot of energy. And salaried workers might be expected to answer emails and phone calls outside the office or work extra hours a week. If that’s the case, you’ll need to keep in mind a work and life balance.

2.) Are you married or have children? When you aren’t working, maybe your family is your focus and you’ll be spending time with your spouse or going to kid’s activities. Perhaps its babies and toddlers that need all your attention when not at work. Or you may have aging parents that you’re caring for.

3.) Do you have other interests that bring you joy? That could be anything from working out, to spending time with friends, reading, cooking and baking, volunteering, etc.

4.) Do your children or spouse help out with everyday household responsibilities? Cooking, dishes, cleaning and laundry still need to be done to keep home life running smoothly. And don’t forget all the errands including grocery shopping. Remember, house tasks never disappear just because it’s garden season!

New Gardener’s Guide | Four Budgeting Tips to Consider

What is your budget?

Wait! I thought growing my own food was supposed to save me money! Why do I need a budget?! When garden planning, this question is critical. Consider the following.

• Area or Space: The space you have may need modifying. That includes building raised beds or buying pots or containers to plant in.

A tiller may be necessary for creating a new patch of dirt for growing or a current garden may need expanding.

As such, you will need to buy potting soil, compost, mulch and organic fertilizers. While some of those items can be made yourself, to get started you may need to purchase them.

• Plant Starts: They’ll need to be purchased at a local greenhouse. At first glance, they might not seem like a lot of money, but they add up. If you want to start your own seedlings, you’ll need equipment and extra electricity for that endeavor.

• Garden Security: Rabbits, deer, raccoons and countless more critters love gardens. There is nothing worse than seeing your hard work eaten up before you get the chance to savor it yourself.

You’ll need a fence of some kind to keep them out. A physical fence might work, but remember that animals can dig under a fence. I plant marigold plants 12 inches apart all along the entire perimeter of my garden.

They’re great for the soil and animals despise the scent. The critters have always stayed out of my garden!

• Food Preservation: Along with the outdoor aspect of a garden budget comes the food preservation plan. Keep reading down below for more on that topic.

How much space do you have for your garden plan?

You may have time and budget nailed down, but your space might be your biggest challenge. You can grow food anywhere, but thinking back to your ultimate garden goal, do you have the space you need?

If you live in town, is your back yard big enough for a garden patch? Do you even want to devote a piece of your beautifully landscaped yard to a garden?

Do you live in an apartment with a balcony? Maybe one day you dream of having a large garden, but on a small balcony, skies the limit on how many herbs you can grow!

Or maybe you have the opposite challenge of a high-rise balcony and it’s a large field area staring back at you. Is time and budget something that can support that big space?

Another key factor when thinking about garden space…what is the soil quality? Is that something that can be improved or do circumstances say you need to go all in on raised beds?

I had a co-worker recently tell me that their neighbor in town has a black walnut tree that falls into their backyard and they are poisonous to the soil so raised beds are their only option.

New Gardener’s Guide for Food Preserving & Storage

What is your food preservation plan?

When garden planning, a food preservation plan is really important. It’s a complex topic especially if planting a year’s worth of food. Consider the following:

• Canning: Does your budget allow for canning equipment? You’ll need jars, lids, rings, a water bath canner and pressure canner. I have an All-American pressure canner and highly recommend it. It’s well worth the investment.

Do you have the shelf space to store all your canned goods?

And while canning is the most shelf-stable and off-grid option for storing, you’ll lose nutrients compared to fermenting options.

• Fermenting: Fermenting is a quicker and more nutrient dense way of preserving food compared to canning. However, do you have the cold space for long term storage such as an extra refrigerator or walk-in cooler? You’ll also need to purchase the fermenting lids to prevent molding. Check out MasonTops for all your fermenting equipment needs.

• Dried Herbs: Do you have the space to dry and store them? How will you use them? As tea or spices or maybe as tinctures or infusions for homemade skincare products?

While some things can be dried on your lowest oven setting, I don’t recommend it for many herbs since you lose their medicinal and nutrient benefits and it also gives herbs a roasted flavor. Desirable for some herbs, but not all. Perhaps you may want a dehydrator.

Also, all these herbs need to be stored away out of sunlight. Do you have the cupboard space and containers for storing them? Glass apothecary jars work great so canning jars can solely be for canning.

• Freezer Space: If you choose freezing your harvest over canning, do you have enough freezer space?

Keep in mind, purchasing another freezer costs money as well as the electricity to run it. And it’s another item in your home to maintain and clean. Sometimes though freezing is the quickest way to prevent spoilage of your harvest.

I use a combination of all four methods.

My goal here with my new gardener’s guide is to encourage, not discourage you from beginning your gardening journey.

In my few short years as a gardener, I’ve learned so many things and my hope is to help you save time and money and love the sense of accomplishment with your harvest without the overwhelm.

If the reality of your answers to these questions disappoints you, chin up my friend!! We all have to start somewhere with goals and the journey is part of the fun and mystery of the future.

The possibilities are endless!

Happy Planning!

Becky