Get your garden started | part 8: common mistakes

Have you screwed up, or have you discovered an ~ opportunity for growth ~ ?

This garden guide is the eighth and final guide in an 8-part series that I have released over the last month. It covers the essentials of starting a successful garden. The 8 guides are available to all paying subscribers and members of the Wild Garden club, and there are some previews and sneak peeks for free subscribers. Want to access all my garden guides, tours and recipes? Click the button below to upgrade your membership.

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Hello and welcome back to the final instalment of the How to get your garden started series that I have been sharing over the last four weeks. This is a simple, pared-back series that covers the topics that I think are essential when starting a garden. Think of it as a bit of a primer - a guide to the fundamental starting points to get you motivated and started in your garden this autumn.

If you’re just joining us, you can catch up on the series, starting with Part 1: the basics

Get your garden started | Part 1: the basics

If you want to access the full 8 parts in this series, you can upgrade your subscription to paid by clicking the button below.

To everyone who has subscribed and followed along over the last month - it means so much to me to have you here! Thank you for your support, and for loving the plants that share our world with us as much as I do!

Now, onto part eight - a list of the most common mistakes that I see people make time and time again when beginning their garden. These are really simple things to avoid, and doing so will make your life a lot easier and your garden much healthier.

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Get your garden started | part eight

What follows is a big list of common and easy-to-make garden ‘mistakes’. Although I don’t really think there is such thing as a mistake in a garden, because gardening is about so much more than getting something ‘right’.

The internet is awash with opinions on how you should garden, and I must admit I feel funny sometimes adding my thoughts to the mix, because who am I to tell you what to do out there with your time.

Ultimately, I think gardening is best and most worthwhile when it is simple, creative and fun. And so the ‘mistakes’ I’m sharing are really just things that I see limiting people’s ability to have fun in their gardens. Either because they make it harder to grow healthy, tough plants, or because they waste your time and money, or because they fill your head with needless worries.

In my garden and my life, avoiding these mistakes has brought me a lot more satisfaction and happiness - I hope it does for you too!

Treating soil improvement like a 'one and done' task

Soil improvement is a life’s work if you live in a dry, sandy place like my city, Perth. But it’s not just my city, this is the case in most places where you might try to grow a garden. Most soils need work. So don’t make the mistake of thinking that one big push to improve your soil absolves you of ever having to amend it again.

The secret to healthy soil is consistently adding nutrients and organic matter back in.

I find it works best to stick to a seasonal schedule for this - I’ll add manure and mulch to the garden at the start of every season (except winter, when I don’t add mulch). Boosting the soil regularly helps you keep on top of it, stops it drying out and becoming hydrophobic, and encourages your plants to grow big and strong (so they are better able to resist bugs and diseases).

Using low-quality soil amendments

You don’t just need to invest time into your soil, you also need to invest money. This can be a hard truth to swallow at first - it feels weird spending a heap of money on animal manure, and it can be difficult to see where the money is actually going. Dirt looks like dirt looks like dirt. But the fact is, when it comes to your garden there is no greater investment that your soil.

Ultimately, whatever you plant will look more beautiful and will grow more easily if it is growing in good soil. You can have the nicest, fanciest plants in the world, but if you plant them in crappy soil they’ll look spindly, yellow and unhealthy. On the flip side, if you put a large chunk of your garden budget into soil improvement, whatever you decide to grow will look beautiful and will thrive.