Do These Things Before You Start Your Garden
When I started my garden I didn’t know much, and these are a a few habits I wish I had started before I entered my first garden season! Whether you want to be super prepared for your first garden or if you are in a season of life where you are not yet able to start that garden you dream of, this a list of a few things you can start doing now to prepare you for all the work of gardening. To those of you who have already started your garden journey, these are things we can all work on to be a better gardener and make the most out of our harvest.
Determine Your Goals & Dreams
First, determine what you want to get out of your garden and what you want it to look like. Do you want to supplement your grocery hauls with a few fresh fruits or vegetables or are you hoping to be as self-sufficient as possible? Are you hoping to grow year round or focus on growing only during spring/summer? Do you want your garden to be completely utilitarian or do you want it to be beautiful? Would you like raised beds or to just grow in the ground? There are all these questions and more that you will have to address in your garden journey. Of course, you answers can change as you go, but it is good to know what you are working and preparing for.
Learn to Maintain Your Current Landscaping
If you have a single family home, most come with some sort of landscaping (even if its not that great). If this is your situation, maybe you don’t have the time or money this season to begin your garden, but it is something you are looking forward to doing next year or even the next. While you wait, you can go ahead and get experience by cleaning up and maintaining your current landscaping. Weeding, mulching, watering, is all a big part of gardening, and it can be a lot of work! Go ahead and get yourself physically and mentally prepared by taking care of the landscaping your home already has.
Start Buying & Cooking With Primarily Whole Foods
When it comes time that you have your garden set up and you are getting harvests, you will have (hopefully) lots of fresh whole foods (fruits, veggies, beans, etc.) on your hands. It is a good idea to start cooking with whole food ingredients now so that you will be prepared and know what to do with these foods when they are piling up your kitchen from your abundant harvest. If you go straight from consuming all processed, pre-prepared foods, or not even cooking at all, to trying to keep up with preparing all the food you will grow, it will be a shock to your schedule. Your time in the kitchen may double, triple, or more, and you do not want to become overwhelmed and give up on all that food you grow. So start changing your cooking and eating habits now, and you won’t have to make a drastic change when you start eating from your garden. You may also want to try to use every bit of that food you grow. Try to learn ways to use food scraps, whether that be through making veggie broth, apple-cider vinegar, or even citrus cleaners.
Learn Several Recipes that Use the Foods You Plan to Grow
This is similar to the last point. Think about the specific foods you would like to grow. Then you will want to come up with multiple recipes to use that food and get really good at making those recipes. For example, if you are planning to grow lots of tomatoes in your garden, you should go ahead and figure out how you are going to use them! My first year gardening, I had an overwhelming amount of cherry and beefsteak tomatoes. It was way too many to simply eat fresh (if are thinking that is an option). That summer, I learned to make sun-dried tomatoes, crushed tomatoes for soups and pastas, and an amazing tomato soup all from the tomatoes I grew. However, since I was not prepared to make all these foods from scratch, and I had never made any of these before, I had lots of tomatoes go to waste. I didn’t always know what to do with them all and they would go bad before I would figure it out. Of course, this goes for all foods, not just tomatoes! You should be ready with lots of recipes for any veggie you are growing.
Learn to Preserve Food & Which Methods You Prefer
Prior to ever growing your garden, you can learn to preserve food. Many people think you can only preserve food you grow, but that is not true at all! You can buy produce from the grocery store or farmers market (Bonus if you buy the food when it is in season and cheaper than the rest of the year!) and learn to can, dehydrate, ferment, or properly freeze your food. You will need to know these things when you can’t eat your harvest as fast as it's coming in. It can be overwhelming to learn all these new skills at the same time you are learning and taking care of a garden so start now!
Read/Study Books
Get some “from scratch” cooking books, garden books, homesteading books, and familiarize yourself with them. You may learn some things you didn’t even know you needed to learn! While they may not have their full effect until you actually are putting their advice into practice in your garden, it will be easier to go back later and look something up once you are already familiar with the book.
Practice Using Fresh Herbs for Teas and Culinary Purposes
If you are planning to grow any plants to make teas, go ahead and start experimenting with creating your own tea blends with whole herbs & flowers. Stop buying pre-made tea bags, and do as much as you can yourself from whole ingedients! Find a mixture you love, and get excited about growing it yourself. It will also be beneficial to go ahead and learn how to use fresh herbs in your cooking. Herbs are so lovely to grow in the garden, but I have personally found, that I do not know how to use herbs to their full potential. So my advice is to start experimenting with all the ways you can use fresh herbs!
