6 Gardening Tips for Beginners

July is a great time of year to plant carrots, spinach, beetroot, lettuce, cauliflower, peas, radishes, onions and broad beans. If you’re looking into vegetable gardening for beginners, summer is a perfect time to start. With good weather and long evenings, it’s the best time for practicing some starter vegetable patches.

Gardening is a great source of exercise, a good source of education for children and a surefire way to grow healthy, organic vegetables to enjoy. However, before you set to work, it’s a good idea to swot up on some tips for growing vegetables for beginners.

And because gardening requires a bit of know-how, our resident gardeners at B&M are here to give us some tips to yield the best harvests. 

Age your manure!

Manure provides the soil with a rich source of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus as well as good bacteria. However, there are some rules to using manure. It’s important to age manure, so leave it to sit alone away from human and animal contact. The heat from the sun together with the nitrogen in the manure will toast the manure – this should be done over a period of six months. 

It’s recommended that you sprinkle the soil with well-watered aged manure 90 days before harvest – just as long as it sits on the soil and not on top of the plants. Also – remember to wear gloves and wellies when handling the manure.

Composting

Invest in a few sacks of compost which is vital to the health of plants – it improves the fertility of the soil, increases the water-holding capacity of soil and neutralises soil toxins and metals. Compost can be used at anytime of the year and is great in planters and troughs. Speaking of which…

Practice in a planter

 

Planters and troughs aren’t just for bedding plants. They also make a great starter vegetable patch for beginners. Basil, salad greens, radishes and lettuce all need 4-5 inches of depth to grow, onions, thyme, mint and garlic all require 6-7 inches. This makes these planters from B&M ideal for keeping in the sun and watching the fruits of your labours thrive!

Try a trough

 

When you feel a bit more confident, graduate to this wooden trough which at 42 cm is deep enough for bigger plants including beetroot, broccoli, potatoes, squash, dill, lemongrass and sweetcorn. You’ll be amazed at how much you can grown in these spaces. These beginner vegetable gardens make them perfect for apartments, homes with restricted outdoor space and rented accommodation.

Stop the weeds

If weeds blight your garden, set aside a few hours and pull as many out as possible. Then, lay out this weed control fabric, which lies on the soil, allowing water and nutrients to penetrate the soil but stops nasty weeds coming through and choking the plants that you’ve sown. 

Protect from winter frost

 

Protecting your seedlings and plants throughout winter is vital to their long term health. While some plants are hardy – like potatoes and cabbage, others will need a bit of TLC in the colder months. Which is where our frost fleece roll comes in handy. This roll provides frost protection and give good protection from pests.

So, there’s some pointers for a successful yield, we hope you have lots of fun getting started  - just remember B&M is a one-stop gardening shop stocking items from gardening gloves to gardening tools. Are you green fingered? Show us what you’ve been growing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!