Home Gardening
- Aug 2, 2020
- 3 min read
Photo Credit: Media from Wix
While staying at home, you can take the opportunity to do many types of activities; especially starting a new hobby to pass to time, while also gaining useful skills. For example, you can do some gardening at home. Here are some tips to get you started in your first garden while also saving money.
The first step you should take is to collect gardening knowledge. The reason for this is because, if you are a beginner and decided to immediately take physical action without any acknowledgment of gardening into creating your garden, it might become a mess and you could end up wasting precise time and money. You may search for gardening knowledge that requires you to pay, but if you are looking for a way to save your money. You can actually get free gardening education from viewing various online blogs, videos, or courses that require no cash intended.
The second step to be taken is to form a plan. After having a clear understanding of how to garden, take some time, and formulate an explicit plan. Factors to plan on; such as, what type of plants grow well in your home? Should you plant a garden in the ground, raised beds, or containers? How much amount of sunlight does your garden area or patio have? Do you want to grow flowers, vegetables, or fruits? Planning is an important step to take because it helps you avoid impulsive purchases; so you wouldn’t waste so much money on unnecessary materials and tools.
Next, you should test your soil and if there are any issues with the soil you can try to amend your soil with organic household ingredients. To ensure your plants grow in a healthy condition, you should test its soil. So you’ll know what types of plants will grow best in it or if it requires amendment using nutrients. You can do a free soil test by searching for instructions online and gather the required ingredients which you might already have in your own home. A soil test can tell you how much of your soil is sand, silt, and clay. It is a key factor to know the proportions of these properties because some plants cannot grow in a type of soil base. After testing your soil and if the results are not suitable for your decided type of plant, you can try to amend it by using organic household ingredients such as eggshells, fruit peels, coffee grounds, or Epsom salt; but of course, ensure you are adding these correctly for your plant’s growing conditions.
Lastly, the most important step in gardening is to start slow and be patient. Be careful of using too much money in your plan especially if it results in a lot of wastage but sometimes, it could not be avoided as you try out different types of plants and not knowing enough about gardening. So, when situations like this occur, you should stay calm and take your time with no rush. You may decide that it is more work than what you expected to get in return. So, instead of rushing your work, just start slowly and be patient. You can try out a few different types of plants, test out your skills, and get a sense of how much enjoyment you get from doing the work and the outcome of your hard-earned labor.
Written by:
Sylvia Yap
2nd August 2020
Reference:
Sarah Graves, 2020, How to start a home vegetable garden: Benefits and Tips to save money. Retrieved from https://www.moneycrashers.com/how-to-save-money-with-a-home-garden/
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