Gardening For Beginners - any tips?

Inspired by @Mag’s thread I thought it might be nice to have a gardening thread for beginners - so if you’ve got any tips, please share! :smiley:

I started off by swiping the seeds from all my fruit and veggies that I bought at the shops. Some of them were sterile and didn’t come to anything, but last year I had tons of stuff like onions, tomatoes, radishes (which I’m not a fan of anyway) and potatoes. Just pop the seeds into some dirt in a pot, water occasionally, and let Mother Nature do the rest. After a while, replant in the garden.

This year I’m concentrating on herbs, specifically because I use so many in cooking and teas.

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Top tip from me would be work out which way your garden faces N S E W? Alos maybe test your soil,

See what your neighbours have if you like them knock on the door ask what they are if not sure.

Sit in your garden and work out when you will use it? when? what for? then go from there. You may need more patio than plants; you may not want grass; you may want raised beds; “you may want” is a main thing in gardening heads.

If you have moved to an established garden my tip would be wait a year see what comes up and tke a photo of the garden every month anything you really do not like put a peg on the plant or some other methods of letting you know you need to remove or rehome it.

If a new build or none established garden, I would again go back to seeing which way the garden faced, visit a garden centre; if lucky enough to have localish “open gardens” under the RHS garden scheme in your location visit those… And try to visit a graden centre and find a plant you like and buy that each month so you have a flower/coour/leaf you like for every season of the year.

@Meg grows micro herbs etc as well so wait for her input eagerly.

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If you’ve got a big garden maybe consider getting one or two neighbours round to help/encourage you. Does everyone locally have their own garden? If not, they might be interested in borrowing a bit of yours. That would be in exchange for a helping hand of course.

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In the garden Glyphosate 360 is your best friend.

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Not something I would recommend, to be honest given its cariogenic properties and several countries trying to ban it.

I wouldn’t eat anything grown in Glyphosate treated soil…

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I feel the same Pixie, I would prefer to avoid toxic chemicals…

Yeah but it would go into the roots, wouldn’t it? So the surrounding soil gets affected? I mean, to be honest I’ve never tried it so I realise you know more than me about it. But it just sounds a bit horrible…I’m sure there are gentler ways to garden…

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Just avoid drinking it.

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It’a not that simple - some of these pesticides/fertilisers etc have now been found all over the world, where they have never beed used, and it is believed that is because waters are get polluted, then it get spread via the weather system.

So nowhere is safe now - the greedy have a lot to answer for, pushing toxic chemicals on people when natural alternatives exist…

If it were not for these pesticides and fertilisers millions of people would have starved we can only feed to number of people on the planet because of them.

I am not convinced by the argument about “natural” alternatives being safer. For example Asbestos is completely natural but is it safe?

I think that’s the kind of propaganda companies like Monsanto want us to believe.

I just decide where the plants are going ant tell the wife where to dig….

The Australian Federal Court has thrown out a case claiming that glyphosate causes cancer saying there was insufficient evidence

the best tip for begginer garders is to see what grows well in your area - by walking around your neighbourhood - and grow that.

My tip going further than that - see what is growing well in otherwise neglected or overrun gardens - then you know that will grow well and be easy and low maitenance.