Home March 27, 2019
Thomas’ Beginning Gardening Guide
I’m a little obsessed with gardening at the moment. I love every part of it–researching and learning a new craft, caring for and tending to living things, spending more time outside, and reaping either the visual or edible rewards from what I’m growing. While I’m learning more and more every day, I still consider myself a novice gardener. Maybe once I’ve made it through a growing season without prematurely killing all of my new plants, or maybe once I can make a salad with 100% self-grown ingredients, I’ll have earned the title of Advanced Beginner. I’m writing today’s post from one novice gardener to another, with the hopes of encouraging you to try at least one gardening project this spring and summer that you wouldn’t normally have taken on. While I’ve personally invested plenty of money into this hobby, the great thing about gardening is that it can be done on pretty much any budget, and it can even be done inside.
Start small. If this is your first growing season or the first year you’ve decided to garden with intent, that’s great. My suggestion for you is to start small. Pick one project that you can see through the whole year. When you focus on one thing, you learn more and you have the time to notice the little signs that the plant will give you. If you start too big or with too many garden projects, your hobby might move from a fun weekend activity you can do once a month to a chore that sucks up every free moment, potentially stealing the joy from it.
Below is a list of a few smaller projects that you may want to consider starting with.
Suggested first-time gardening projects
- Houseplants are a wonderful place to start small, especially if you live somewhere that doesn’t have any outdoor space. The Sill, a houseplant e-tailer that I’ve spent hours perusing, even has a category specifically for beginner gardeners.
- Create a welcoming front door container design. This is a high-value project and can be as simple or elaborate as you’d like. For a low-maintenance option, try using boxwoods or flowers that you swap out every month or so. Containers are especially great if you’re renting; no sense in investing in something you can’t take with you when you move.
- Grow something from seeds. Herbs are super easy to grow from seeds and they transplant well into the garden.
- Grow 1-3 vegetables or herbs. You can even grow some vegetables in containers and mix in herbs around them.
Grow things you love and start with a very clear purpose The only exception to the “start small” recommendation is if you are extremely determined to make one particular thing happen. From my experience, that determination may arise out of a love for a particular plant. For instance, a vegetable garden is one of those things that could be done by a determined beginner gardener. It’s also a project with a very clear end goal to it: create vegetables that you can harvest, then eat. This obvious goal will help create that extra motivation necessary to accelerate knowledge and increase dedication.
Gardening Gloves
I have enough dirt still in my nails from gardening last weekend that I know I should be wearing gloves when I garden. Surprisingly, decent-looking nitrile gloves are tough to find, but Julia liked these.
Raffia Sun Hat
Cute gardening hats are surprisingly hard to come by. This one has Julia’s stamp of approval.
Garden Clogs
These are both mine and Julia’s favorite shoes for when we’re outside at home. They’re great for gardening, but also ideal when you need to just slip something on and off throughout the day.
Understand what works in your growing region. When Julia announced that I would be doing this post, most of the questions we received were great, but very specific to individual situations and growing regions. While I can’t answer all of those questions, the answers to every one I received is a few Google searches or YouTube videos away. Make sure to use these important resources during your gardening journey.
Pay attention to soil, sunlight, and water. At its core, gardening is all about these three things. When you buy a plant, nearly every single one comes with instructions for soil, sunlight, temperatures/growing region, and watering. Make sure to use these instructions–I actually save all of the little tags from previous plantings. Most of the time, just remembering the name of the plant can be hard, but once you have the name, it’s easy to conduct further research for its specific needs.
Soil -To the beginning gardener, soil can be a confusing topic. I understand why–on a recent trip to Lowe’s, I think I counted over 30 types of soil, compost, mulch, rocks, and sand. That’s a lot of choices. To simplify, soil is all about nutrients, drainage, and moisture retention. If you are planting in containers, like pots, look for potting or container mixture. This mix is meant to hold in moisture without getting too waterlogged, and it has enough nutrients for that specific set-up.
Chippendale Planter Box
Unless you have the most specific taste, ordering pots, planters, and other containers online does not make much sense, since shipping prices can be way off compared to the value of the item. I did find this with free shipping, but you are often better off going to your local plant nursery to see what pots and planters they have.
Affordable Raised Bed
Raised beds are great systems for gardening because you can customize the soil that you want, rather than relying on the soil you have in your yard.
Elevated Garden Bed
I love my raised beds but at times, I wish they were elevated so that I didn’t have to work on my hands and knees. This is a great option with free shipping.
Oya Clay Watering
These clay water reservoirs are dug into the ground near your plants and allows you to water them from within the soil. The plants wick exactly the amount of water they need from the pot.
Sunlight – Maybe the most common sense of gardening basics, it’s important that you don’t try to fight the lighting scenario that you have. While I would have preferred to plant my vegetable garden in the backyard, we have tall trees back there that create too much shade for the full sunlight required to properly grow most vegetables. If you have a spot in mind, study the sunlight over the course of a sunny day, and then do some research on what will work in that spot. On the flip side, you can also start with a plant in mind and then determine where in your space it would be most likely to thrive.
Water – From succulents, to hydrangeas, to trees, all plants need a certain amount of water. Make sure to read the watering instructions for every plant you have. As temperatures increase, their water needs will also increase, so adjust accordingly for each season. If you can, automate your watering. It’s far easier to set up a watering system and then adjust the amount of water using a timer than it is to make sure each plant gets hand-watered. This tip applies especially if you have too many plants to water on your own every day. For houseplants, automation is a little trickier. Determine a watering schedule and take 10-15 minutes to water your houseplants consistently. For smaller plants, you can bring them to the sink, water them, let them sit and drain for a bit and then put them back in place. It’s important that most plants don’t sit in a puddle of water and they have the proper drainage.
Drip Water System
This is the same system I used to set up the watering on my vegetable garden. The drip system is adjustable so each plant can get the right amount of water.
Automatic Watering Timer
This device connects to your nearest outdoor water faucet and then connects to a hose or dripper system to automatically water your plants.
Keep learning. Maybe it’s just my personality, but one of the things I love about hobbies is that they offer nonstop opportunities for learning. With that added knowledge and skill come greater rewards. Here are some of the resources I use for continuing my gardening education.
Books – I leave gardening books scattered around the house. When I have a question, I go right to the appropriate one to see if I can find an answer. My favorite books so far have been Rodale’s Basic Organic Gardening and Square Foot Garden.
On Garden Style
We bought this coffee table book for our apartment in NYC and it’s so full of inspiration that I’ve contemplated buying a second copy for Charleston. Thanks to Olivia Brock for recommending this book.
Rodale’s Organic Gardening Book
This has been a great resource as I try to be as organic as possible when growing my vegetables.
Square Foot Gardening Book
This book has been tremendously helpful as I’ve built out my vegetable garden.
Houseplant Book
I’m a lot better at taking care of outdoor plants than I am houseplants so this book is incredibly relevant to me. If you live somewhere where houseplants are your only options, this is probably a good resource for you.
Gardening websites – An excellent source of gardening gear and information is Gardeners.com.
YouTube – Gardeners are passionate people and they love to talk gardening and share their knowledge. Luckily, YouTube is a great source for both short and long-form video about gardening.
Monty Don’s Big Dreams, Small Spaces – Available on Netflix, this is our favorite gardening show–in each episode, British gardening expert Monty Don helps normal people work on gardening projects that take them an entire year to complete. Along the way of helping them achieve their garden dreams (often on tiny budgets), he does an excellent job teaching about how to analyze what makes a garden great.
Experts at your local nursery- I’m the first person to prefer to read books and website before asking a real-life human in person for help, but any good local plant nursery will have someone on hand that can share a wealth of knowledge. One of the best parts about them is they can give you advice catered to your local growing region.
He looks super stylish for his garden work!
xx from Bavaria/Germany, Rena
http://www.dressedwithsoul.com
Gardening is definitely a form of relaxation and enjoyment … love ♥️the helpful points!
🌸🍃ROSES FOR FRIDAYS 🌸🍃| by mia | A Creative Lifestyle Blog
This was so informative! I’m really eager to start a garden of my own once my partner and I move into our home, so this has given me so much inspiration! Thanks for sharing Julia and Tom!
I hope you have a great Wednesday,
Michael
https://www.mileinmyglasses.com
So cool!
Mireia from TGL
https://thegoldlipstick.com/
Thank you for sharing, Thomas! This came at the perfect time when I am starting to grow my first vegetables raised bed. I am curious where you purchased your raised bed instead of the one that you recommended. I’ve been looking for something similar as yours and would appreciate if you could share the raised bed size, cost and where to get it. Thanks and enjoy your new gardening hobby!
I can’t belyyou didn’t include a single Monty Don book. I would have thought you’d have them all by now!
hahaha more outfit (and gardening tips) posts from Thomas please! I LOVE that you all are growing your own vegetables! x
chevrons & éclairs
In the past couple of years, my husband has been on a gardening kick! Definitely will be showing him this post!
http://www.rdsobsessions.com
Gardening sounds very rewarding. I’d love to have a garden one day.
Kathrin | Polar Bear Style
Yeah!!!! Thank you for this post!
This is such a great post!
I’m the worst with plants but I never stop try to have my little garden.
xo, Kari
https://www.styleandcafe.com/
I love this post. Thomas is so passionate about his gardening and it shows. Please share this quote from Audrey Hepburn with him “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” Cheers to an amazing garden for you both!
This was very helpful. Sadly I live in a condo, but I do have a screened in porch. The porch does have a large shade tree in front of it. So I will definitely need shade tolerant plants. I am really interested to see how your plants, particularly the fiddle leaf fig, on your screened in porch survive the season. Thanks for the info.
This was incredibly informative and inspiring as I am seeking to start my very first garden and know absolutely nothing! Thank you, Thomas, for such a great post that I have saved and will be referring to and sharing often. I appreciate the book, tool, bed/planter recommendations, as well. Happy gardening!
I definitely started too many large projects at once but am still enjoying every minute of it! I was really wondering what rose varieties you planted?
Thanks Thomas for sharing your knowledge which is quite interesting and helpful. I love being in the garden.
Hi Thomas, what type of boxwoods did you get at Lowe’s last weekend?
Thanks!
Katee
This is such a great post!
Watching you start from scratch and now harvest your first kale leaves has been so inspirational. I think we have the tendency to believe that if we know nothing about a certain subject, then that subject is unattainable / untouchable. Goes for fashion, gardening, etc… You and Julia have proved that with hard work, constant learning, grit and determination we can all pursue our dreams and aspirations.
Thank you both for this beautiful lesson and precious inspiration.
Best,
Aurelie
Great post and advice, Thomas! Thank you for putting this together and being responsive to DMs on insta with gardening questions. this novice gardener cant wait to transplant everything when the weather is better up in the Midwest! Your point about the soil is spot on- I think that caused some issues with my first batch of seeds as I think it was always too wet or too dry. Started some new ones and I think these will be much better! Thanks again and happy gardening!
Are you going to africa? Who wears that to garden? It’s TOO much. It would be nice to talk about local resources, co-ops, etc instead of expensive gardening supplies that are not necessary. Some cities have free gardening classes or swaps. Most people don’t have money like you all. Please be realistic.
Love following your and Thomas’ garden journey. My husband and I have been working on our garden from scratch for 18 months or so now and it is all finally coming together. We love Monty Don! If you haven’t already discovered BBC’s Gardener’s World, you can watch all 29 episodes of the 2018 season by getting a Brit Box subscription through Amazon Prime Video. Beautiful and relaxing to watch, but also very informative. We’ve learned a lot. Enjoy!
Oh, I love “T’s Columns”. You have so many clever AND stylish ideas. I actually took your advice on the Yeti mug (got the one with the handle as it resembles the normal coffee mug swe use) for our breakfast coffee. We’re a happier family now, thanks to warm and not spilled coffe… thank you!
Wonderful post. Can’t wit to start my own gardening. I do get overwhelmed with irrigation and then we always leave for the summer, and my roses die. Let’s see what the future holds for our little balcony this year.
Cheers!
Please keep us updated with the progress! 🙏👍
Definitely sharing this post with my mom – she’s been so into her garden lately :) <3 Thank you so much for sharing!
XO, Elizabeth T.
http://clothestoyouuu.com
Hi “T”, Why do you have to be so rude? We try and create a positive and kind space here. It’s one thing to encourage supporting free gardening classes or swaps, it’s another to just downright write a rude comment making fun of someone. Ya, his outfit is a little “I’m going on a safari”, but you know what, he’s a guy and he picked it out and he likes it and it’s practical for him and want he wants to wear. Let people be themselves. Why is it too much? Why do people have to judge one another? Who cares if it’s too much? He bought an outdoor gardening shirt that’s breathable and protects him from the sun. The pants are green. This is his favorite old straw hat. We are just sharing our experiences. Obviously everyone has different experiences but it doesn’t diminish someone else. If you don’t find our site helpful for what you’re looking for, I encourage you to maybe find a new one. – Julia
When you started talking about writing this beginner’s guide I was curious to read it. Having worked as a gardener for the last 16 years and am now a flower farmer in Denmark, my interest was mostly to hear Thomas’ point of view and what he has learned so far. I think this was an excellent beginner’s guide and I loved your humble approach to writing it. I especially loved how you touched on the subject of soil, since it’s so important and so confusing even for people with many years of experience in their gardens.
I personally like your outfit and I would wear something similar if I could find it here in Denmark. Nice looking garden clothes are a rare thing to come by but shouldn’t be. Thank you Julia, for responding the way you did to T. ‘s mean comment, you are so right.
I hope Thomas will continue to inspire us with posts in the future.
All the best ❤️
Hi Thomas,
I am a horticulturalist in the Charlotte, NC area. I wanted to let you know you can each out to your local extension office in Charleston. As a tax payer in SC it is a free resource to you. There is a Horticulturalist on staff who can answer questions, id pest and disease issues and can give you free research based information. The office there may also offer horticulture related classes, ie. intro to vegetable gardening, composting, etc.
I believe this is the agent in Charleston: https://www.clemson.edu/cafls/faculty_staff/profiles/ZBSNIPE
ETV also has a great gardening show in SC: https://www.scetv.org/television/programs/making-it-grow
Hi Tom,
This was such a well written post. I really enjoyed it. Please keep sharing your gardening tips and suggestions!
My dad published All New Square Foot Gardening, but passed away unexpectedly 8 years ago. Seeing his book on your post just about made my heart explode. I’m so glad you love it!!
Hi! I live in a similar growing region (mid North Carolina) and have watched a million YouTube videos, but wanted to get your take: do you deadhead your roses? If so, how?
My Julia child and earth angel parfuma roses bloomed beautifully but then nothing… I also have two different climbing Edens and they have continued to send out buds. All my roses get the same sun/water/ fertilizer. Any suggestions?
Thanks!