Lockdown Gardening: 6 Top Tips for New Gardeners.
With many countries around the world still on a lockdown and food prices already on the rise, now’s a great time to start growing some of your own food.
Besides the obvious benefit of helping to save money, gardening has always been a great way to secure instant access to fresh produce — an asset that has become even more coveted in recent times thanks to local market closures and sparse store shelves.
Also, according to this study, this one and countless other studies, gardening has great mental and physical health benefits. So it’s worth trying out to relieve stress, bond with family, and get some workout in while you’re stuck at home.
If you’ve been toying with the idea of starting your own garden, perhaps this is the motivation you need to get started. With the insight you’ll gain from this post, you’ll feel even more prepared to dig in, no pun intended.
So first things first, when starting a home garden, you want to decide what crop(s) to grow in it. A useful rule of thumb is to select crops that are easy to grow, require minimal maintenance, are highly productive in limited space and take a short time to mature.
Crops that check these boxes are vegetative crops such as lettuce and spinach, and fruit crops like tomatoes and cucumber to name a few.
Of course, the specific crop you choose to grow would depend on what you love to eat as well as the type of soil you have at home. A simple soil test will help you determine this. If getting your hands on a test kit proves to be a hassle (as getting a lot of things are in these COVID-19 times), Youtube offers great DIY videos on soil tests hacks that you can try out from the comfort of your home.
Now that you’ve decided the crop you’re going to grow, you’re ready for the interesting part -the actual gardening.
For this part, I consulted five experts; Wonder, Tracy, Kelvin, Roland, and Mohammed, all highly skilled farm managers on the Complete Farmer team. Here is their expert advice on how to go about the gardening process including tips on keeping your soil healthy, best practices in gardening and secrets for optimum growth and healthy yields.
- Should an absolute beginner be thinking of starting a home garden?
Most definitely. Every professional was once an absolute beginner. It’s important however to get some basic knowledge about gardening before you delve into it.
2. What would you need to get started?
Apart from determination, one would need a piece of land or growing space followed by a source of water. You don’t need a big piece of land though. You can build a wooden pallet staircase for your plants if you are land constrained, managing water or you don’t have fertile land.
Other items needed include fertilizer (preferably organic), measuring tape, rope and most importantly the seeds (or planting materials).
You also need to know the type of crop you want to grow and a basic knowledge of how to grow it. Youtube and Google have great resources on the latter.
3. What are some of the best practices I need to adhere to in Gardening?
Some of the best practices to adhere to are;
a. Timely planting to coincide with the rainy season.
b. Shade seedlings when they are young especially when sunshine is high.
c. Space crops very well for good plant growth but don’t leave very large gaps between crops.
d. Remove weak or diseased plants.
e. Regularly remove weeds.
F. Guard your crops against pests.
Timely execution of activities is necessary as each activity has an overall effect on the total productivity of the farm so you want to make sure activities on your garden are carried out at the appropriate times.
4. What are some key tips on keeping the plants healthy and supporting optimum growth?
First, you need to start right by picking/buying healthy plants or seeds to plant. The quality of seeds/planting materials should not be compromised for cheaper cost. This could severely diminish expected yields. Same goes for fertilizer.
When planting, observe the proper intervals for that particular crop. Make sure tools and equipment are cleaned regularly and that the garden is kept neat at all times to prevent disease infestation. Scout for pests and symptoms of any disease since early identification will lead to taking the appropriate remedy at the right time.
Last but not least, cut excess branches of plants if they are overcrowded.
5. What are some ways to save money if I’m starting my garden on a lean budget?
Find out alternative ways of doing things when they seem so expensive. For example, you can make your home garden from cheap materials such as used plastic bottles, disposable cups, and rubber bands.
Plantings in pots or containers is an effective way to cut down your cost of irrigation. Very little water is lost to evaporation, about 90% of the water is retained for the plant.
5L gallons are a cheap substitute for pots, and it’s good for shallow to moderately deep roots crops like cabbage.
6. What are the best crops to plant this time of the year?
It rains quite often in April which makes it very humid. So it is important to plant crops that do well in such conditions. Tomatoes for instance wouldn’t thrive in such a condition but crops like okra, pepper, and cucumber would thrive.
Lettuce is a good start for beginner gardeners, it’s fast-growing (takes about 1.5 months), grows well without the use of fertilizers, and has a high resistance to pests. If you constantly water it in the mornings and evenings in little amounts it’ll grow well and you’ll save a lot of water compared to if you plant them in the ground.
Kontomire (cocoyam leaves) is also an ideal home gardening plant, you can harvest the leaves almost every week for stew, and it’s highly resistant to pests, saving you money and time.
It’s also worth mentioning that they are all effective immune system boosters.
If you’ve already started gardening since the outbreak, we’d love to hear about your experience so far. If this post was just the motivation you needed to get started, let us know as well!
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