Dig into Gardening Jobs this Season!
A checklist of Gardening Jobs is here!
Like to write down your monthly gardening jobs according to plant types? Click and Print the Yearly and Monthly Gardening Jobs Printable Planner Pages for free.
Gardening is a fantastic hobby. It requires mostly time and effort, but little capital compared to some hobbies like mountain biking or scrap booking. There are tons of garden jobs to do all year long, but get started this season!
To keep track of what you are doing in the garden,
you might like to Click and Print
the free Plant Notes Printable Page.
The Basics
The building blocks of gardening are fairly simple: soil, plants and water. These are the basic requirements to have a garden. It does get more complicated once you learn about soil pH, what types of plants to grow and how much water to give but practice makes perfect and a few tips will get you started on the right path.
Start with the Soil
The foundation to your garden is the soil. Start by testing your soil to see if it's alkaline or acid. An affordable soil test kit can be bought from a gardening store or online.
Once you've learned more about your soil-most plants prefer a pH of 7-it's time to get to work on building it up in time for planting your gardens.
There are three components to good soil that you should obtain and either rototill or use regular garden tools to mix into your regular soil:
- Mulch: mulch is made from fallen leaves. Smaller deciduous leaves from trees like beech are especially good. You can buy a lawn mower that will mulch leaves or you can do it by raking and mulching them by hand. Mulch provides a layer of insulation during colder months, as well as nutrition to your garden as the leaves decompose.
- Compost: a good gardener is constantly working on compost. Save your organic food scraps and lawn trimmings and store them in a compost container. Consider a worm composting unit as well. Compost provides great nutrients for your soil. Manure can also be composted and used.
- Fertilizer: this chemical compound provides nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (N-P-K) which are the key ingredients to build healthy, strong and pest-resistant plants. See our "When to Fertilize" page.
Planting
This is arguably the best part of gardening, besides harvesting the actual flower, fruit and vegetables. Do your research, plan and design your gardens, buy the seeds and plants and get to work. Click and Print the Free Garden Design Printable Planner page to get you drawing and planning.
Planting is a very soothing job. Whether you're starting seeds indoors or setting up your landscape it's so satisfying to see newly planted rows and young plants getting settled in.
Weeding
With the fun of planting comes the chore of weeding. Some people love weeding, but face it it's a monotonous job. But, it's very important to tackle those weeds or they'll happily take over your garden.
Weeds steal nutrients, moisture and space from other plants and the best time to get rid of them is in spring. When you're rototilling or digging up your garden pull out all the big weeds by the roots. Try to get weeds when they're still young and easy to pull out, otherwise it really is a chore.
Watering
Watering seems obvious but knowing when to water is important. During the warmer months watering should be done every day. Keep an eye on box planters and hanging baskets as they run dry quicker.
Water in the morning when the water has a chance to soak into the ground. Watering during the heat of day can burn plants and moisture will evaporate and watering at night attracts insects and disesase. Keeping a water barrel that catches rain water is great to have during water restrictions and drought.
Pruning
Pruning and trimming is good during plant growth and helps stimulate healthy growth in plants, trees and shrubs. The best time to prune is during the early spring before budding, for most plants. Visit our pruning page for more information.
Harvesting
Ah, to enjoy your hard work on the dinner plate! Harvesting is done at the end of a plant's growth cycle when the fruit or vegetable is fully ripe. Some things can be plucked right off the branch while some should be trimmed at an angle using sharp scissors or pruning shears.
Some things like tomatoes can be picked early, as they'll finish ripening if you leave them out at room temperature inside your home.
Harvesting plants regularly helps take the load off the plant. If your fruit tree or tomato plant is getting heavy use stakes to help it out and prevent branches from snapping.
There are many gardening jobs to keep you busy throughout the year, from the start to finish of your garden. You can spend tons of time in the garden tending to your plants-rumor has it that plants even like it when you're around-designing new bits of landscaping and harvesting produce for meals and snacks. But don't forget the other tasks that make a great garden!
Like to keep notes on what your plants are doing? Click and Print the free Plant Notes Page.
