It’s not the big things that add up in the end; it’s the hundreds, thousands, or millions of little things that separate the ordinary from the extraordinary.
Darren Hardy
A handful of very simple things
Part of my gardening philosophy is that only a handful of very simple things, when done consistently, lead to the greatest amount of success in the garden.
Only a handful of tools.
Only a handful of amendments.
I remember when I started gardening eons ago and walked away from a class with a page-long list of things that I “needed” to add to my garden in order for it to thrive. It was overwhelming and confusing and, needless to say, expensive.
(Side note: I recently ran across an old article written by a well-known garden expert in a well-known newspaper that instructed readers to add eight different amendments to their gardens in order to prevent early blight. There is no science to support the use of any product in that list, nor do they prevent blight. Good grief!)
Nowadays, I grow more than I possibly could have imagined 19 years ago and use the same few products and do the same few things over and over again.
Just 10 minutes
After feeding and walking the puppy this morning, I took advantage of the rain-soaked soil to do some weeding and mulching. I go section by section in my garden pulling out weeds and then covering the area with more mulch. It’s very satisfying.
This is something I do on a weekly basis, for maybe just a half-hour or so. Or perhaps long enough to listen to a podcast episode.
It can feel like a drop in the bucket, but doing even just a small amount of this work on a consistent basis adds up to big results over time:
My flowers bloom longer because they aren’t competing with weeds for light, nutrients and water.
My vegetables produce more because the mulch keeps my soil evenly moist and, over time, breaks down into a nutrient-rich humus.
Even just 10 minutes of weekly weeding and mulching can mean the difference between a ho-hum garden and a “Holy Cow!” garden.
5 things I commit to doing every week
- Pulling weeds
No one wants to do this. But weeding is like flossing. It’s annoying and time-consuming, but if we don’t do it regularly, there will be consequences.
- Mulching to maintain a depth of three inches at all times
Mulch offers the biggest return on investment of any single garden supply. There’s no reason not to use it. I could probably get close to the same results I get now with just mulch and compost alone.
- Fertilizing
You can buy the world’s most expensivefertilizer , but if you don’t apply it consistently, it’s worthless.
- Deadheading
It’s just like mulch: totally unsexy, but wildly effective. It’s why my display beds are still blooming in this heat.
- Seeding (in a perfect world)
If I were competing for a spot in the Gardening Olympics, I’d be sowing seeds every week of the year, indoors or outdoors. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said to myself, “Dang, I wish I had planted that sooner,” or, “I wish I had planted more of that.” ABSS. (Always be starting seeds.)
This gardening skill changed my life
Speaking of weekly sowing, we’re getting close to that time of year when we need to be starting our cold hardy annual flowers indoors for fall transplant.
This technique single-handedly transformed my relationship with
Do not miss out on next week’s class, Blossom Brilliance: Cool Season Flowers for Cottage Gardens. I provide detailed instructions for how to grow foxglove, poppies, sweet peas, hollyhocks, and many more cottage garden flowers that most people assume we can’t grow here.
You’ll learn:
- The exact recommended planting schedule for North Texas
- How to start these flowers by seed indoors
- How to get them safely through winter
- The best varieties and where to buy them
- And more…
Blossom Brilliance: Cool Season Flowers for Cottage Gardens
$29, Live Online, Saturday, August 10 at 10am-12pm
Class is recorded and replay (instructor help included) available to registered students.
Results you can expect from this class:
- It’s time to order garlic - August 20, 2024
- My top 5 tips for direct-sowing success - August 11, 2024
- 5 Little Things That Get Massive Results in My Garden - August 4, 2024
