Gardening advice for Beginners - Part 2

At this time of year a lot of people will be making "resolutions" or plans for the New Year. One of these might perhaps be to take up gardening.

Now, some people think of gardening as being easy: just pop a few seeds in the ground, wait a while, and then pick bountiful crops of healthy veg and colourful flowers. Actually, it's not quite like that. Having been a gardener for more than 30 years, I can tell you that gardening as a hobby is absorbing and rewarding, but also sometimes frustrating and always uncertain! The biggest problem with which gardeners in the UK have to contend is our unpredictable climate. In other parts of the world weather conditions may not be quite so variable, but here you never know what is going to happen. In our Summer months (June, July and August) it might be bright sunny and blazing hot ("blazing hot" to us is anything above 30 C), but equally it might be cold, wet and windy - or more probably just dull and grey!

Today I am offering a few tips that could be of assistance to a novice setting out on the gardening "journey" for the first time. All that follows is just my opinion you understand...

#1. Don't start at this time of year!  Seriously, it would be better to wait until at least March, by which time the weather will hopefully have improved a bit and the days will certainly have got longer. If you sow seeds in January they will almost inevitably go leggy (tall, thin and spindly), for lack of light. Seed merchants often claim that their seeds will perform well on a sunny windowsill - but where do you find a sunny windowsill in the UK in January??? If you are determined to sow seeds early in the year, you will need to keep them indoors, so you will probably need one of these:

It is a set of Growlights, aka a Growlight House. It provides artificial daylight (and a small amount of warmth) ideal for growing seedlings. The height of the lamp part is adjustable so that you can keep the distance between the plants and the light just right. If you want to grow chillis (which are currently the IN thing), then one of these contraptions is probably necessary, since chillis have a long growing season and you do need to start early if you plan on having ripe chillis before the weather turns cold again. My one is a "Garland Grow Light Garden", priced at approx £60.

#2. Get a greenhouse. This could be a "proper" greenhouse (i.e. with glass), but it doesn't have to be. I don't have a proper greenhouse, but I now have four of these:

These little Mini Greenhouses come in various sizes. Mine are all the two-tier ones, because I found the taller ones to be too unstable (they are very lightweight and can easily get blown away unless weighted-down with bricks or some such). Of course they are supplied in kit form, but they are very easy to assemble (and disassemble when required, to save space). Unlike a permanent greenhouse these little ones can be moved around the garden very easily. I use them a lot, mainly for protecting young seedlings in the Spring time. Price: about £12 or £15. Good value for money!

#3. Get some cloches. The word "cloche" is used generically for a transparent item used for protecting plants from the weather (and from animals in my case). They are available in countless permutations: round "Bell-cloches"; artistic hexagonal shapes; basic v-shapes made with just two sheets of glass; or long ones like these:



The ones in the photo above are "Longrow Super Cloches" made by Parasene, but widely available. The concept is good, though I have been disappointed by the flimsy nature of these particular items, especially since they cost about £35 each. To be honest, you could easily make something like this yourself. The benefit of the cloche is that with its protection plants can be sown / planted earlier in the Spring, and kept going later into the Autumn.

#4. Plan your growing-area. All the kit described above is desirable, but strictly speaking not necessary. But what you do need is somewhere to grow your plants. It doesn't have to be a big space. You can grow some pretty decent plants in pots and containers of various sorts on a little patio or balcony, but I have to warn you that gardening is addictive. However much space you have, you will probably want twice as much!

My preferred way to grow vegetables is to use raised beds like these:

Raised beds are very controversial. Some people think they are a waste of time (and materials), but I am strongly in favour. For me the advantages are these: they allow you to concentrate your efforts and your fertilisers / composts / mulches etc) on only the parts of your garden that need them; they allow you to provide a greater depth of soil; raised beds warm up quicker in the Spring than soil at natural ground level; and (being a bit of an OCD person myself) they keep the garden looking neater and more under control!

#5. Team-up with an experienced buddy. Gardening is a complex thing, and knowledge of it grows with experience. Talk to / consult / work with someone who has more experience than you, and pick their brains. How else will you know how well you are doing, or what is normal, or when something needs watering, or when something is ready for harvesting...? If your Dad (or Grandad) is a keen gardener (and you get on OK with him), maybe he could be your mentor. It certainly worked for me. Both our daughters have grown up to be keen gardeners, and I undoubtedly also inherited the love of this hobby from my Dad. Another option would be to join a forum of some sort. I'm a member of UK Veg Gardeners, a good source of ideas, inspiration and advice. I'll demonstrate the concept here with one of my favourite photos ever - our first granddaughter Lara taking a close interest in my garden from a very early age:

I could go on for ever about this sort of thing, but I think I'll stop ("Phew", I hear you say...). I'll end with one final piece of advice:

#6. If you plan to grow vegetables, grow something that your family will enjoy eating. Don't waste your time growing something that no-one likes. Maybe also explore the concept of Value for Space Rating (VSR) before you begin, and don't grow something that is really cheap and readily available.

Happy gardening, folks!