Major Gardening Mistakes for Beginners

Gardening is a great hobby and a great stress-reliever and an anti-depressant! Many of them take up this hobby with full interest, but very few continue with it. One of the many reasons people discontinue gardening is the lack of success in their gardening journey because of lack of patience and certain silly mistakes they do when it comes to gardening.

We will quickly discuss the Top Gardening Mistakes both major and minor and quickly learn how to tackle them one by one. Remember this point, people with great gardens are those who have made many mistakes in the past and learnt from their mistakes over a course of time. So lets begin!

Emotional Breakdown

Sometimes, we get attached to our plants emotionally. You might be overjoyed when your plant blooms and similarly you might be in tears or feel sad when the seeds do not germinate or your plant is wilting and things like that. Whatever it is, you must be practical and always hope for the best and be positive in your approach with full confidence

Improperly Sowing seeds

Especially sowing them at a wrong depth. Now the question is how deep should the seeds be sown and how far apart.

The general rule of thumb is, the seeds should be sown twice as deep as they are thick. For example, if the seeds are 5mm thick, sow them 10mm deep. If the seeds are too tiny like less than 1 mm, just simply sprinkle them on the top of soil.

Not Aware about Hardening-Off Process

Hardening up seedlings to the sun, wind, and temperature before planting them completely outside will help them thrive.

You gradually expose your seedlings to the outside world mainly the sunlight and get them acclimatized. Once you get your first leaves on your seedlings, you introduce them to sunlight in an incremental or step by step exposure like for example,1 hour for the first day, 2 hours for the next 2 days and so on.

Killing beneficial insects

Like the helpful pollinators like honey bees and butterflies. And also the pest eating insects like ladybugs, beetles and many more.

You can find a useful video on identifying these insects on the internet.

Overcrowding

Your plants or Planting them too close to each other, specially if you are growing in raised beds or ground soil. This actually happens when newbie gardeners start growing plants from seeds and sow the seeds too close to one another.

Allowing Weeds to grow

This is an act of laziness rather than mistake. But sometimes newbie gardeners are actually thrilled to see some new plants growing and get overjoyed. They are unaware that this will suck out the nutrients from the soil and cause deficiency issues in your main plant. This also includes not Mulching when you have a chance to do it.

Pest Control

Pests need to be identified and eliminated carefully. Failure to control the pests like aphids, whiteflies, mealy bugs and others can cause heavy damage to your plants.

Planting out-of-season plants or wrong plants for your climate and then expecting flowers or fruits, this will often result in disappointment

When you want to grow something, first gain some basic knowledge about that plant or crop by googling about it and finding the right time to plant depending on your climatic zone.

Container Gardening

Choosing the Wrong container including the size of the container and the type of container like whether its clay or cement or plastic container. Each of these types have their own benefits and drawbacks and the best for a beginner in gardening is to use a clay pot for best results.

Not Performing Pruning

Hesitating to prune at the right time to promote the best new growth.

Planting invasive plants close to other plants which cause deficiencies in the weaker plants closer to the stronger invasive ones.

Over or Under Fertilizing

Many beginners assume that plants only need water to grow and bloom. That is not true. Plants do need water, but they also need about 16 different nutrient elements in the soil. At the same time, there is a problem of Overfertilizing or over feeding them which can result in damage to your plants. For beginners best solution to this is to use organic fertilizers like compost, cowdung and similar stuff and stay away from chemical fertilizers until you get a hold of this.

It is often a good idea to apply less than what the fertilizer package recommends.

Over Watering & Underwatering

The rule of thumb on watering is: to water deeply but infrequently. Newbie Gardeners tend to be better at the first part of this rule but not the second part. Its always better to dip your finger to about an inch into the soil to check for moisture before watering.

Some plants need very less watering like may be once a week for example succulents. So it’s a good idea to google some basics about your plant.

Poor SunLight

Sunlight is very important for photosysthesis thats plant food preparation, Improperly placing your plants or improperly choosing your garden location can affect your plants,

As a general rule most flowering and fruiting plants needs to receive the maximum amount of sunlight possible, at least six to eight hours of direct sunlight a day.

Poor Soil Selection

Attempting to grow high quality plants from a low quality soil. You cannot expect to have an amazing yield without an amazing soil. Plants may grow in a poor soil, but might look overall unhealthy and the yield might reduce. Especially in vegetable Gardening, Preparing a healthy soil is very important.