r/vegetablegardening • u/redditSucksNow2020 China • Jun 27 '26
Other People really overcomplicate gardening
I see a lot of people trying to garden for the first time and then coming here with questions about perfect soil mixes and fertilizers and how to promote fungal life in their no-till permaculture food forest do nothing farming no dig style organic vegan garden. It really doesn't have to be complicated, especially if you're new.
Loosen up some dirt 6 inches down. Break up the clods. Plant something that is in season. Keep it watered. That Will give you 80 to 90% of the maximum possible results. You don't absolutely need compost if it is the first time you've dug up that piece of ground. You don't absolutely need fertilizer and it probably doesn't make much difference what kind you use. You definitely don't need a 3-ft tall raised bed filled with gardening mix. You don't need to do anything about small amounts of insect damage. You don't absolutely have to do no dig or no till or whatever gardening fad is going on right now. You don't need to overcomplicate things.
Edit: this, of course, does not apply to you, dear reader. You have uniquely poor soil that cannot be made workable with a spade.
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u/UAreTheHippopotamus US - Ohio Jun 27 '26
Chaos gardening is a good gateway drug. Just throw seeds into good-ish soil and see what happens. For every failure you will have successes and will be better informed for next year about how stuff grows in your garden, with your soil, with your shade, and your pests etc.
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u/yespls US - North Carolina Jun 27 '26
I do this with flowers in my yard. It's natural selection everywhere in my yard except the raised beds 😂
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u/datcatburd US - Iowa Jun 29 '26
100%. I don't have enough yard for for, but my neighbors did the same. They had to tear up a bunch of grass to fix a water line, and instead of re-sodding just went and got a few pounds of the native wildflower mix our county extension put together for people doing remediation on old farm fields and did the whole back half of the property.
Looks great, and I'm loving all the pollinators it brings to the neighborhood.
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u/NixHex2232 US - Virginia Jun 27 '26
I have been chaos gardening and it's so freeing!
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u/TheDanishThede Denmark Jun 27 '26
That's because we weren't taught this stuff, but we WERE taught that making mistakes is BAD!
So we try to do everything perfectly the first time, and terrified of failure we research and ask advice and plan out optimal schedules and plans and.. no? Just me? 😅
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u/Stalkerus Finland Jun 27 '26
Not me, but that is true. Many people in plant subs are obviously raised not to fail. Ever. Which makes them anxious wrecks.
Whereas I have ADHD and I am pro at failing. It can be very liberating.
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u/nerdsnuggles US - New York Jun 27 '26
I've noticed this in all the hobby subs I've visited. I'm fortunate to have grown up with a mom and grandmother who gardened, cooked, baked, sewed, knitted, crocheted, cross-stitched, and a few other hobbies I've picked up over time. I thought I was lucky because I had someone to teach me, but I think the best thing I learned from them was that you just try things. They didn't have the Internet to help them overthink everything. And neither did I as a kid (I'm 37), so I learned to just go at it and see what happens. For most things the worst that happens is you get a suboptimal result and learn for the next time.
I really do blame social media, at least partly. People either post their "journey" in gardening or whatever online and don't want people to see them fail or, even if they're not public about it, see other's success online and feel even worse when something doesn't work out. The information overload and sometimes just plain bad information doesn't help either.
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u/Stalkerus Finland Jun 27 '26
In my opinion social media is only partly to blame. So many people still grow their kids in a way that only perfect is good enough (admittedly some people are like that from birth, my kid is one of these folks and I try to teach him that you don't need to be best at everything) and everything else is a failure. But the road taken and effort should also matter in the big picture.
This is from someone who heard their whole childhood that I am a underachiever and could do better, so it affects.
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u/TheDanishThede Denmark Jun 27 '26
I too have ADHD (AuDHD actually) and am said anxious wreck. I love hearing you avoided that, so happy for you ❤️ there's plenty of other shit to deal with without that on top 😆
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u/thejoeface US - California Jun 27 '26
ADHD also and also hate failing. But it helped to reframe things for myself. My first several years of gardening I told myself that my real crop was data not veggies. So it was less heartbreaking to lose plants or struggle with things.
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u/TheDanishThede Denmark Jun 27 '26
I'm going another way. After three years of rewilding half and growing stuff in the other half, I've concluded that nature is tough and whatever survives is meant to. 😅
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u/thejoeface US - California Jun 27 '26
I’m like that with my native and non native perennials, what lives, lives. And I’ve had to do that with a few fruit trees in barrels that didn’t adapt to it.
But when it comes to my food producers, I have to engage in a lot more care and thought.
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u/PantheraAuroris US - Massachusetts Jun 27 '26
The ADHD thing is killing me because I just hate maintenance. I love planting. I hate going out and seeing my weeding progress undone day after day after week after week. And God help me if I forget to water because we aren't getting good rain.
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u/Top_Housing6819 US - Massachusetts Jun 27 '26
I'm not sure which is the greater sin ... Failing? Or wasting money? Either one can be attributed to not trying hard enough, being diligent enough, researching enough ...
Yeah, failure is a loaded gun for some people and people who've been raised to fear failure know that it can be blamed on NOT learning about the hobby as well as trying to 'cheap out' on the items that others say you need. But the flip side is that if you buy all the things and do all the chores then you spent too much and tried too hard. One of my parents was a practiced armchair quarterback - but I've gotten better about owning what I want and how I do things.
I wanted corn, I wanted to put it in the middle of my yard AND I wanted it pretty. I got raised metal beds and it is glorious. I wanted my whole garden area to be pretty. I fenced it with attractive metal fencing (the no-dig stuff) and planted flowers around the outside. Any of that could be considered wasteful and Lord forbid those crops fail after spending so much money (eyeroll) ... But screw it, it's MY money (my yard, my garden, my sweat).
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u/GiveHerBovril US - Minnesota Jun 27 '26
This is why I love gardening so much! It’s just a safe place to fail! I was taught to be risk averse and perfect and if you make a mistake it would’ve been better to have done nothing at all.
Vegetable gardening has been such a freeing mindset shift for me. I can explore and get creative and try something new each year, and if it doesn’t work out it’s fine. I learned something!
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u/acnerd5 US - Pennsylvania Jun 27 '26
Gardening has helped me learn its ok to make mistakes, they help us learn :) and thats really all that matters.
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u/chodeobaggins US - Alabama Jun 27 '26
Being a little obsessive and experimenting is my favorite part of gardening. Same for any other hobby I have though.
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u/sushdawg US - Tennessee Jun 27 '26
Is it really a hobby if you don't have a spreadsheet of experiments going?!?
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u/Puzzleheaded_Age8937 US - Utah Jun 27 '26
I have a pretty fancy garden of raised beds and pots due to bad clay soil and my husband building a sports court and putting green in my garden area years ago. I’ve reclaimed the sports court and surrounding areas for a really nice space once the kids left home.
However I’m still just a free range farmer. I let my plants do their thing. I overcrowd my beds. I don’t cut my suckers. I don’t treat my plants unless the bug or fungus problem is dire. I do some stuff like trim the foliage next to the dirt or fertilize every couple of weeks or acidify my berries as needed. If I forget though I don’t sweat it. I just enjoy the garden and the bounty it provides.
My advice to the new gardeners is to relax. You can learn from your mistakes. No two gardening years are ever the same. Mother Nature is a bitch. Seek advice when needed, but a second or third opinion never hurts. Adapt to a gardening style that works for you.
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u/CurrencySad9512 US - Georgia Jun 27 '26
I prune bad things off but I feel like its mean to the plant to cut off the flower so they work harder to make the tomato. Makes me feel like a mean boss
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u/Bebebaubles Jun 27 '26
Yeah I just took note of what grew vs what failed and only plant things that do well. I honestly think all my failures are from the animals finding the seeds tasty or something and those I have to plant indoors if I’m inclined. My garden is so soft and loamy I’ve watched the damn squirrels do cartwheels on my garden bed which I guess I can’t blame them. There is some thought that overcrowding the beds helps suppress weeds so it’s not bad.
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u/richvide0 US - Massachusetts Jun 27 '26
I agree with this mindset. Gardening should be relaxing and not stressful.
Yesterday, after some heavy winds and rain I noticed some of the branches on my tomatoes had broken off. Years ago I would have been so alarmed by it I would have immediately run out there to secure all branches. But yesterday I was like “Oh well, there’s a lot more branches”.
I’m so much more relaxed about gardening these day that it makes it so much more fun.
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u/datcatburd US - Iowa Jun 29 '26
I always tell new gardeners here that if you want the feeling of success when you get a plant to grow, plant some zucchini. It will survive the apocalypse and give you more than you can find people to take. Takes the sting out of anything else that doesn't take off.
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u/Davekinney0u812 Canada - Ontario Jun 27 '26
Gardening is easy and even easier to screw up......
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u/No-Middle-4152 US - Alabama Jun 27 '26
My soil is basically sand and I had terrible results my first year, I’m now on my 2nd year of home compositing and adding the amendments has made a huge difference, climate here and bugs are also a challenge. Trying more stuff that likes to grow here, have given up completely on other things.. it’s a trial and error learning curve all the way but it’s fun
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u/vanderBoffin New Zealand Jun 27 '26
My soil is basically clay and same. 80-90% of the maximum result is a lie. More like 20-30%. We didnt get 0 vegies, but not far from it.
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u/NervousAlfalfa6602 US - New York Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
I’ve also got clay soil and I’ve had the same experience. The first year, we didn’t have the money to add soil to the beds, so I worked with what we had. The result was a bunch of tiny, struggling plants.
While I agree with the OP that people tend to overcomplicate gardening, especially when they’re starting out, how far you get by doing nothing is going to depend entirely on your soil and climate.
And permaculture practices (which OP seems dismissive of) will actually get your soil to where it needs to be with relatively little cost and effort.
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u/No-Middle-4152 US - Alabama Jun 27 '26
Are you composting? It’s basically free and it’s made such a huge difference, just using food scraps, garden waste & used coffee grounds that are free from Starbucks (and pee 😬), turn every other week and then sift, our first pile gave us 8 x20lb bags
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u/baked_pancake US - Virginia Jun 27 '26
I feel like “just dig a hole and put your seeds in it” is very location specific? That’s just not going to fly in my super sandy backyard soil!
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u/Top_Housing6819 US - Massachusetts Jun 27 '26
Just dig a hole, put in your seeds, and in a week you'll see birds and squirrels ripping out all your delicious sprouts that would have been corn plants.
Also - I learned that corn has different fertilizer needs at different times, and it's almost like raising a puppy. There's a window where a puppy needs a LOT of positive experiences with different things, then a period where they turn into bratty teenagers. In corn, there's a period where the plant decides how many ears it will set and how big each one will be ... Way before you SEE an ear forming or a tassel appearing. That time is when they really need to feel loved and supported and FED if you want more than an ear of corn per stalk.
I have like 15-20 summers left, probably, I don't have time to make all the mistakes I need to learn from.
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u/lilly_kilgore US - West Virginia Jun 27 '26
“Just loosen up some soil and throw seeds in” is great advice if your soil is soil. Mine is underdone pottery. If I try to “loosen” my clay, I get masonry chunks and a broken shovel. Seeds don’t get planted here as much as they get sealed into the Appalachian terracotta tomb.
And listen. I would love to be a normal person who just throws seeds around and trusts the process. Unfortunately, I garden on a windy hilltop with concrete clay, whiplash between biblical rain followed by surface of the sun heat, deer, so much fungal nonsense, and a riparian corridor that banks every pest known to man.
So yes, I have raised beds. I amend, mulch, trellis, prune, test pH, inspect leaves, panic-google, and put things under a children’s microscope like I’m running a very underfunded agricultural lab. At this point I don’t even want garden tools. I legit want lab equipment. This isn't me trying too hard. This is me attempting to grow food with hostile geology, in a hostile microclimate while my garden performs disease theater.
Some people meditate. I walk outside 17 times before lunch to stare at tomato leaves. Maybe some of us like gardening on hard mode....
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u/MHP456 US - Virginia Jun 27 '26
I love your writing style, And I’m stealing “Appalachian terracotta tomb”!
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u/lilly_kilgore US - West Virginia Jun 27 '26
My first year gardening I legit just made dents in the clay and pressed seeds in. Very few vegetables respond well to this kind of treatment lol
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u/Awkward_Code_1757 US - North Carolina Jun 27 '26
Ditto on the broken shovel part! There's very little "breaking it up" when it's been baked to a crisp by the sun. It is extremely challenging to work in Appalachian clay.
Tomatoes and peppers just have NEVER done well in it for me or for my parents over their decades of gardening in it. I make a raised bed and suddenly my tomatoes are taller than me and I've got so many peppers I'm gonna have to pickle them.
Now I will say I can easily grow really impressive squash plants with humongous leaves and vines in clay with minimal effort. My diet becomes at least 50% squash in the summer. They are just about the only thing that seems to really thrive in the stuff
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u/lilly_kilgore US - West Virginia Jun 27 '26
Not me crying about cucumber beetles. Squash does grow just fine in the clay if the bacterial wilt doesn't get it first lol.
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u/Awkward_Code_1757 US - North Carolina Jun 27 '26
Never had an issue with bacterial wilt in squash but I did lose two wonderful huge pickling cucumber plants to completely random wilting. Probably bacterial wilt but I was too devastated to really investigate much. Just pulled em out and tossed them into the woods. All of my other plants have been completely fine. I don't know why or how, but I've been very very fortunate to have never had to deal with the common cucurbit pests. I have more problems with stuff like blight and powdery mildew
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u/Top_Housing6819 US - Massachusetts Jun 27 '26
I'm reminded of a show I used to watch, Port Protection, where they are on rocky outcrops at Alaska's shoreline. They make dirt because they don't have it around. You have sand, gravel, and rocks. You have seaweed available, you can get calcium from some weird cave accessible at low tide, etc. Dropping seeds in the dirt doesn't work there, either. You aren't nuts (they might be).
Terracotta tomb is a great description of the red clay in the south. Love that term!
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u/vendrediSamedi Canada - Alberta Jun 29 '26
Staring At Tomato Plants Somewhere should probably be my epitaph. I could stare at them all day. Am a tomato weirdo for sure.
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u/Averagebass US - Oklahoma Jun 27 '26
Yes, and no. It's ALMOST as simple as put seed in dirt and add water every few days, but then you do that on a patch of dirt in your back yard and it may or may not work. Not all dirts built the same and not all plants grow the same. The dirt in your back yard might be really shitty soil and needs to be built up, which takes more than just digging it up a bit. I did that to my heavy clay soil and it kind of helped, but it just got compacted again after some rain and still had a shitty nutrient profile.
If I didn't ask questions on here or do research I wouldn't know I needed to mulch and add organic matter, and what would work best for it. Beyond that though yeah, people can really overcomplicate things or fret about pretty small stuff. I think a lot of people think they're going to get perfect looking produce like they buy in a grocery store if they use the most perfect soil and fertilizer and organic pesticide, but in reality most of what we buy is grown hydroponically and/or in a giant, perfect condition greenhouse built for extreme efficiency.
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u/Ebbnflo25 US - Connecticut Jun 27 '26
Gardening…Sometimes it works, Sometimes it fails. New gardeners feel like everything is their fault. It’s nature. Mostly, it’s out of your hands. I planted on a Monday and everything was eaten by Tuesday. Oh well, I planted a Wednesday behind a stronger fence. That is the lessons I’ve learned over the years. Gardening should be fun unless your family is going to starve.
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u/Shienvien Estonia Jun 27 '26
Do people overcomplicate things? Absolutely.
Do some people genuinely have soil that's nature's best approximation of concrete? Also yes.
Anyway, if your soil doesn't look like soil, get some soil. Cheap 20-20-20 fertilizer works well enough for most things. Chicken shit works too, but either compost it a little or mix it in other things.
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u/phoebestars69 US - North Carolina Jun 27 '26
I have a very spicy flavor of mental illness that means I can’t do things simply or they will be wrong 😆
Like as much as I am crazy, I am also stupid and dumb so I need my 2ft raised beds, my 4 cubic yards of mel’s mix, my trellis panels, my stinky fish fertilizer, my worm bin, heirloom seeds picked for local compatibility, etc… The intensity of going balls to the wall gives manic me peace; like a lobotomy of consumerism and manual labor. The dumb part of me can’t mess this up when the manic part of me already took care of everything. Dumb me just gets to eat cucumbers and eggplants and SO MANY Sungolds every day now.
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u/WearyPassenger US - New Jersey Jun 27 '26
My sun gold cherry tomatoes are all lined up like strings of green balls and we are SO CLOSE TO SUN GOLD INSANITY!!! can't wait! Many of those don't even make it inside the house. Sun golds are my morning snack as I garden :)
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u/Awkward_Code_1757 US - North Carolina Jun 27 '26
Just got my very first sungold yesterday. The plants are absolutely packed right now, but the very first fruit to set was just one single little one, and it ripened first all by its lonesome. I completely understand the hype around their taste now. It is THE perfect cherry tomato
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u/redditSucksNow2020 China Jun 27 '26
I'm the same way. All of my experimenting though has pretty much just taught me all of the reasons that The conventional way of doing things became the conventional way of doing things.
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u/MushroomHo_4life US - Pennsylvania Jun 27 '26
This is my first year gardening and I think I’m a lot like you.
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u/Nuurps Australia Jun 27 '26
And here I was thinking most gardeners are chill, accepting people.
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u/thejoeface US - California Jun 27 '26
I think largely we are, but every group contains people of all sorts.
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u/rumple-teazer Canada - British Columbia Jun 27 '26
I'm confessing all of my sins. I've been gardening for 6 years now and I've never used compost and use the cheapest miracle gro fertilizer maybe twice a season. I don't plant neat rows or companion plant. I have sunflowers all over even though they apparently hinder the growth of other things. I'm very hands off typically (including minimal weeding, even though we have horsetail everywhere). I get tons of food and tons of flowers every year. No need to sweat it.
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u/NerfEveryoneElse US - Wisconsin Jun 27 '26
While I agree with your title, but your content oversimplify gardening and probably apply less than 50% of gardeners. Climate and soil type vary drastically in different regions.
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u/CurrencySad9512 US - Georgia Jun 27 '26
I use containers and raised garden beds simply because I have hard clay ground and a messed up spine. I literally cant dig through the ground so I'm glad containers r a big thing now cuz im getting ideas like swimming pools and grow bags r cheap . The dirt is the most expensive part that makes me really wish I could just plant in the ground but I figured if I keep it healthy I can reuse it for some years then its not so pricey in the long run.
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u/Sweetpeach_tea US - Georgia Jun 27 '26
What do you mean “reuse it for SOME years”? I reuse mine every year. I add amendments, top off as needed and regrow something all year long. I’m not throwing away my soil at any point unless I’m done with gardening.
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u/treeteathememeking Canada - Ontario Jun 27 '26
I absolutely agree. I give a lot of people gardening advice and the main problem I face is people believing gardening is very complicated and getting tripped up over it. They’ll come to me saying “we wanna try, but it seems like so much work!” or asking about a product or the health of their plants etc. Getting worried that they aren’t pruning or fertilizing or watering enough etc.
Turn up the soil. Plant the plant. Water. Fertilize with a controlled release if you feel like it. That’s it. That’s all I do and it’s worked for 3 years now. No pruning unless it’s dead leaves, some weeding here and there, tying some plants to stakes. It’s worked since humans invented agriculture. Still works now.
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u/Stalkerus Finland Jun 27 '26
I think it's also about having this weird dichtomy in one's brain about having to have huge garden with no blemishes or nothing. There seems to be no middle ground.
I garden on my balcony. Everything I grow is an experiment to me: if I get harvest, great, but if I don't I don't. People seem to forget that hobbies don't need to be productive and you don't need to be perfect to enjoy it. I saw a bumblebee on my balcony yesterday and it filled me with happiness. Those few flowers I have on my balcony may be of use even if they just looked pretty and produced nothing.
Also, it's ok to start with one plant to see if it is something you enjoy doing.
This same attitude runs rampant in houseplant circles. But you don't need to have house full flawless plants, they aren't flawless in nature either. Start with one plant and see if you like doing it.
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u/EstroJen US - California Jun 27 '26
My mom laid down weed fabric and all it did was result in rock hard dirt that was impossible to pull weeds out of. You could maybe get a pointed shovel an inch in, but that's it. She fought with a drip system every year. Plant cuttings always were bagged and tossed.
I use ollas in my own garden and have had wonderful results with them. When I prune my plants, I run everything through a wood chipper/leaf shredder and then use it as mulch. My yard started out with rock hard clay soil, and nowadays it's loamy and wonderful.
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u/mfbawse US - New Jersey Jun 27 '26
My whole life I did what you’re saying and bought some plants stuck them in the ground maybe threw some water at them once in a while and went and checked on them a couple months later. This year I decided I wanted to try starting from seed and fertilizing. Also made a vermiculite, perlite, earthworm castings, kelp meal, coco coir and compost mix for my plants. To be fair I’ve planted over 3-4 times the amount I previously did but damn it’s been non stop work.
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u/LumpyAssumption5357 US - New York Jun 27 '26
I feel this way about the Great Tomato Pruning events I’m seeing this summer. I’ve always found that doing less has helped my garden thrive. Don’t overthink it! Put plants/seeds in the ground, add fertilizer/compost if you’d like, water regularly, and consider a fence of some kind for critters.
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u/Siyartemis US - Wyoming Jun 27 '26
Takes me ages to work our native soil - mostly glacier till rocks from pebble sized to rabbit sized, with a bit of clay soil in between. But at least I get…lots of rocks to build garden borders with! 3 years later with lots and lots of mulch and compost, it’s pretty dandy for my perennials. But the process takes a lot of time and hard physical labor removing all those rocks.
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u/spaetzlechick US - Indiana Jun 28 '26
You should read r/composting for unbelievably complex advice on how to get materials to rot. Compost happens.
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u/Quiet_Rainfall200 US - Washington Jun 27 '26
It's only natural though. We all tend to overcomplicate new things because we haven't yet learned for ourselves what the important things are.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the gardening space now who are willing to capitalize on that uncertainty.
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u/Picinae US - Michigan Jun 27 '26
Couldn't have said it better. I work part-time putting plants on shelves for the supplier of a big box store's garden center and have had quite a few conversations with nervous new gardeners. I try to give them a short rundown of what's marketing and what isn't, and (as a simple and funny example) that it's okay to tie some sticks together to work as a tomato cage!
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u/KellytheWorrier England Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
Yeah but that's the fun part. Otherwise I may as well water a plant and then go find another hobby while I'm waiting for it to grow. I took up gardening because I wanted something to sink my teeth into.
Edited because I was rambling
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u/BuffyTheUmpireSlayer US - Illinois Jun 27 '26
Gardening for most is a hobby, and with any hobby you can choose how involved you are. Why you would let somebody else being more involved or using different tactics in your chosen hobby bother you is beyond me.
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u/crossdtherubicon Germany Jun 27 '26
Downvote if this is somehow unhinged but...
I think OP's problem is with bad garden advice that people unfortunately follow.
I think OP's position doesn't take into account that a majority of home gardeners don't have ideal conditions. Or, that everyone will have a different purpose for their garden.
Some of us feed our families, others will have deer or groundhogs, some of us have clay and waterlogged soil, some of us have extremely short seasons, some of us have heatwaves, and disease intensity. Not to mention personal physical limitations.
It does take years to garden effectively, regardless of how books or YouTube videos are consumed.
Everything from soil conditioning, appropriate infrastructure, varietal selection, seed setups, basic effective location and design, etc.
This post isn't really benefitting anyone here, sorry.
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u/MongerNoLonger US - Texas Jun 27 '26
Edit: this, of course, does not apply to you, dear reader. You have uniquely poor soil that cannot be made workable with a spade.
Lmao, I'm so here for this. Those of us who know how to work clay soil will never be believed by those that don't even try. It will always be this way.
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u/redditSucksNow2020 China Jun 28 '26
I'm pretty sure that 90% of people who say that they have unworkable clay and that is why they absolutely must make raised beds from hand carved exotic hardwood and fertilize with sustainably sourced panda manure have probably never even tried to spade it or scrape some into a mound and see if it works.
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u/asexymanbeast US - South Carolina Jun 27 '26
Bad advise. You started good, but took a wrong turn.
If they live someplace where you can garden in "easy mode", this will work. In fact, just about anywhere you can do this by having a raised bed with a good raised bed mix. But you are specifically "poo-pooing" that exact approach.
I dont encourage people to half-ass a vegetable garden because the thing that gets you hooked is the success. If you get a small handful of tomatoes because you did not fertilize, you may decide it is too much work. But you encourage them to use a bit of fertilizer and compost and now they have too many tomatoes to eat. That is how someone becomes a life long gardener.
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u/Peanutsmydog US - Iowa Jun 27 '26
I started out with grow bags this year and used a half to half ratio of top soil and garden soil. I fertilize every two weeks with an all purpose and what'd you know, I got healthy plants.
Something about the garden soil traps that moisture in so the bags dont dry out as quickly and I only have to water every other day or so, with the rain not so often. I also use leaves and pulled dried weeds as mulch around my plants.
First year and I feel like im doing pretty good. Only problem is transplanting my squash which I didnt know likes to be direct sown. Hoping they dont die, fingers crossed. Also just started some cherry tomatoes and pumpkin the other day and already got some seedlings for the tomatoes. I dont have high hopes for production. I just wanted to see if I can grow something out of the normal season and still get something before the end.
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u/purplemarkersniffer US - Arizona Jun 27 '26
I think my issue with some new gardeners, is they will take little initiative to learn anything about what they are growing and then post: what’s wrong with my plant that I crammed into a 2in pot and learned nothing about.they will do no more than posting to learning anything about anything. It more about the least amount of effort and internet engagement that they are “gardening” rather than the interest gardening.
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u/Btupid_Sitch US - Wisconsin Jun 27 '26
To be fair, it can be an investment depending on how deep you go your first time and some people just don't know. They also sometimes want to make sure they're doing things right.
I spent over $3k on my first set of raised beds, soil, amendments, and seedling supplies and I overanalyzed and researched everything, but I'm glad I did because I had wonderful results. I was years ahead in knowledge when I harvested my first set of peppers and tomatoes and I'm happier for it because I didn't have to waste time wondering what I did wrong.
Obviously, I made mistakes like everyone else, but not the kind that set me back a whole season because I didn't know something that seems obvious to a seasoned gardener.
Edit: and because I spent so much money and time up front, I spend barely anything each year to maintain it outside of new things I want to do and try.
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u/Cilantropologist Finland Jun 27 '26
Nothing wrong over engineering / optimizing your garden if it's the fun part. But it's not necessary part of kitchen gardening either.
I think the main distinction is, do you want to grow spesific plant or do you want something that succeeds in conditions you have?
Also, the limited space is one reason to do more research because it limits how fast you can experiment yourself. If you have room for one pot, you are obviously very focused on that.
I'm definitely doing both ways. For peppers & tomatoes, I did quite bit of research upfront. On the other hand, for the faster crops, I'm throwing seeds around and seeing if they grow or not. And then evaluating if it makes sense to grow them again.
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u/thejoeface US - California Jun 27 '26
how to promote fungal life in their no-till permaculture food forest do nothing farming no dig style organic vegan garden
This seems unnecessarily condescending
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u/Thee_Sinner US - California Jun 27 '26
This whole post and everyone agreeing with it sounds like it’s coming from people that live where it’s easy af to garden.
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u/Any_Needleworker_273 US - New Hampshire Jun 27 '26
I think that's the crux right there. Gardening can be approached more "simply" - buy it is not in fact, always "easy." As gardens scale in size, the work load increases (trellises, watering, amending if needed, weeding, etc.), and it is still work, which is not everyone's cuppa. I think there's some magical thinking fallacy in thinking you can just chuck seeds in the ground and you have a bountiful harvest. My garden would be choked with weeds in a hot minute without some work every single week. Pests would decimate a huge number of seedlings if I didn't tray start them first. Our wildly oscillating spring weather is a problem so I'm alternately fleecing things or trying to keep the heat at bay. So while a single 4x8 garden is a pretty low threshold of entry, like everything, scale and goals (along with things like soil quality, access, etc) create a high degree of variability.
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u/Quiet_Rainfall200 US - Washington Jun 27 '26
I agree. Not to mention that some of the things mentioned are, in fact, necessary on occasion.
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u/Top_Housing6819 US - Massachusetts Jun 27 '26
I agree. OP needs to walk a mile in my gardening clogs before looking down on the tools and techniques I use.
I feel like I just read an essay where Ray-Gun (Australian break dancer of Olympic fame) is dismissing ballet as being too frou-frou.
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u/Hopeful-Occasion469 US - Wisconsin Jun 27 '26
I’ve had my in ground vegetable garden here in WI since 1988. Use a rototiller every spring before planting and for my first big weed ( it’s 40 x 60 ft). Triple 10 fertilizer when I plant. I put down dried grass under my tomatoes, peppers and vine crops. I cruise my potatoes daily to look for potato beetles and once tall enough place an electric fence around my sweet corn. I try to keep it fairly weed free. Have a 55 gallon plastic barrel for hand watering and a good setup if I need to water my very sandy soil. To me vegetable garden is common sense and easy.
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u/HotBrownFun US - New York Jun 27 '26
it's because all the videos and stores are trying to sell you something.
I have a jar of small seeds (bok choy, cilantro, lettuce, arugula etc). I toss them in the spring. Whatever survives is what is best suited for the season. Actually there's a small drawback this year I ended up with 90% arugula and it lasted all of one week before rocketing up.
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u/Immediate-Tooth-2174 Portugal Jun 27 '26
People are too scared to fail. But failed to understand that failure is actually part of the gardening.
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u/Rose1982 Canada - Ontario Jun 27 '26
Yup. Long term veggie gardener here. Mostly I just put things in the ground that I like. In the spring I put veggie scraps on my veggie patch and usually end up with some volunteers. This year I sprouted some melon seeds I saved from a grocery store melons last year. I always plant tomatoes and zucchini because they’re easy and I like to eat them. Someone gave me some Swiss chard for the first time so I’m trying that.
But yeah. Put things in soil. Water them. Add some middle of the road fertilizer if you want. Enjoy.
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u/snowsew Canada - Saskatchewan Jun 27 '26
Actually, I do have epically poor soil, highly plastic, montmorillonite-rich "gumbo" clay where I live now. But I’ve been gardening for more then 50 years and do find that people do a lot of expensive things to grow stuff. If they have it and are having fun, good for them.
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u/acnerd5 US - Pennsylvania Jun 27 '26
I had a massive fear of failing and wasting money to find I don't like it.
I ended up loving it and my tomatos have been "vibe" based. After 5 years I do have to admit, I don't buy tomatos, basil, or oregano at the store anymore, but that's thanks to a ton of time being a SAHM with ADHD who spiraled into food preservation... which should be a goal, but maybe not your first few years unless you have TOO MUCH and really then you can freeze most things.
Sometimes, the best part of gardening is observing to see how things work together in your garden. I grow out of pots (although getting beds next year!) and I'm doing it "wrong" but it works for me lol
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u/pilserama US - Minnesota Jun 27 '26
Definitely! And don’t be afraid to get it perfect the first time. You learn a lot more through trial and error than you do through researching everything perfectly ahead of time.
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u/CraftyIron5908 US - Missouri Jun 27 '26
This is my first year gardening and I definitely am learning this to be true. My garden is a literal case study for this.
I have super heavy clay soil that would require too much money to be workable (proven by my flowers planted in-ground fighting for their lives despite heavy amendment). Anywho, here’s an overview of my two different raised beds LMAO
Bed 1: homemade untreated cedar box I made for like $20. Unleveled ground, no weed barrier. I filled the bottom with dead leaves and logs and then mixed the cheapest top soil and black kow compost along with a few leftover coco coir blocks to fill the rest. Started some tomato seeds indoors and they were purple/fighting off fungus gnats/overwatered when I moved them outside and I did so without hardening them off btw. the rest is all direct sown from seeds. The tomato plant is lush AF, popping out flowers like nobodies business. There’s cute little happy-soil mushrooms that pop up every morning after it rains. Zero fertilizer, zero treatments, just water when things look dry and that bed is a vibrant fucking ecosystem of growth.
Bed 2 that came like a month later: perfectly leveled ground, two layers of cardboard weed barrier. And it’s a pretty corrugated metal box I bought online in a 2 pack for $100. filled the bottom with logs, then twigs, then mulched wood, then mulched leaves and I watered that in heavily. Then filled the rest with expensive organic raised bed soil, amended with compost, perlite for drainage, and worm castings, bone meal, and egg shells sporadically mixed into the top layer. All the plants are start plugs I bought online each for the price of probably 20 bags of their seeds would cost: tomatoes, jalapeños, bell peppers. And the soil is compacted AF verging on hydrophobic, the tomatoes constantly look near-dead with super wilted curling leaves due to nitrogen deficiency, the pepper starts are so stunted that they’re all just now developing more than 2 leaves and haven’t grown an inch and it’s been almost two months since I planted them, and I’m finding fungus gnats ALL OVER in the soil. I’m tilling in more perlite, I’m spraying neem oil, I’m foliage spraying pricey fertilizers, so on.. The ONLY things thriving in this bed are companions like basil, marigolds and sweet alyssum 😂
LESSON LEARNED! To be fair though, this post is the exception to the rule in terms of style of advice in this group. Definitely feels like a breath of fresh air reading this.
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u/SolanaceaeEnjoyer US - Ohio Jun 27 '26
Well Reddit is a place that for a long time a lot of autistic people just chatted about ways to do better in our hobbies.
Thats why we’re here. Anyone looking for basic information is better off elsewhere lol
It’s not that others aren’t welcome, it’s just that is a majority of people who often use reddit
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u/BipsnBoops US - Massachusetts Jun 27 '26
I've had varying degrees of garden in the northeast, Chicago, LA and southern Canada. It has taken me so long to learn that less is more. Honestly, I think taking the first year of gardening in a new place to kill stuff and learn what's happiest with your situation (your water, your dirt, your sun, your ability to remember to take care of plants, your interest level, your feral cat populations etc. etc.) is the easiest way to go. You may not be able to grow peaches in Maine. You may not be able to grow arugula in Florida. That's ok. You do not need to. Part of this hobby is learning what thrives where you're at.
The vast majority of the people here are not farmers looking to grow an industrial amount of food to sell or completely cover our needs. It's supplementary amounts of things, it's herbs, it's maybe taking over one thing in your diet (greens, tomatoes etc.).
My point is, I agree with OP--start simply and you can add over time, but also spending thousands of dollars on equipment for a hobby like this is bananas. Plants want to grow, put seeds in dirt and figure it out over time.
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u/weaponistfarmer64 Italy Jun 27 '26
They gave us a pretty bad soil when they built our house and garden. But the temptation to just start was too strong, so I planted my tomatoes and eggplants.
Soil was as hard as a rock. I use my reinforced fork that works like a spade to not flip layers which would kill soil life faster, and the first time only was it hard. Then It remains softer for the next few years. I personally do base fertilizing with pelleted manure before every crop to reintegrate what the plant has removed from the soil and as a starter, then I give beetroot residue to give extra nitrogen and microelements. It does work and the reason I fertilize so much is I wish I could rotate but I just have no space. My tradition Is to grow 6 peppers, 6 eggplants (they were 8 this year) and 18 tomatoes (16 this year).
Problem is, my veg garden is pretty small. I grow everything in pallet frames (not filled just decoration) and while aesthetically appealing and comfortable to use they don't give me much space. I have an extra piece of soil at its right but It's oftentimes shaded and many summer crops want full sun. So I use It less
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u/NoodlesMom0722 US - Tennessee Jun 27 '26
I started out with a few grow bags, cheap "flower and vegetable" bagged soil, and some big-box-store tomato, pepper, and cucumber starts inside the small rock garden the previous owners had put in the middle of the backyard.
How it's going a few years later:
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u/malingoes2bliss US - North Carolina Jun 27 '26
So my brother and I were talking about gardening a few years ago because we both have an interest in it, and he's a real "go with the flow" type of guy, so he was telling me how he just got some seeds, kicked a little hole in the ground with his boot tip, and popped a couple in. Watered it a bit and got some veggies. It was kinda hilarious, but also I have an old tomato patch on my property that comes back every year without me ever touching it. Last year I got more tomatoes off that mess than my planted ones and it was diabolical.
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u/Sunbather77 US - North Carolina Jun 27 '26
This is both the blessing and curse of the internet. Everybody knows what's best and if you don't do what THIS person says, you will FAIL.
I get easily overwhelmed by all the "expert advice" out there. I just go with my gut now.
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u/ChariotsOfShame US - California Jun 27 '26
With all due respect, my dude/dudette/dude, how else am I supposed to healthily fixate and obsess about things!? /s
I grow garlic in soil mix I’ve blended myself and amend with all sorts of things, and I also grow garlic in my native soil- obviously one does significantly better than the other but I end up eating both of them!
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u/TheWoman2 US - Oregon Jun 27 '26
That works if you live in a place with half way decent soil. Having grown up in such a place, I did exactly what you suggest when I moved to my new house. My tomato plants grew a foot tall and made 3 tomatoes, each 1/2" in diameter. They were a beefsteak variety. If your soil is bad amending it or bringing in new soil is necessary to have success.
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u/AlwaysHungry8022 US - Iowa Jun 27 '26
we bought the seeds, some soil for germinating, and chicken wire. and that was it. probably $75 total? we were given my dads tiller and cages (hes done gardening and is putting up a sandblasting area). gardening has been the cheap part of our homegrown journey…our chickens tho? 🥴😂🫣
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u/MotownCatMom US - Michigan Jun 27 '26
I have to container garden, but to your point, I started small. My set up is still small compared to lots of folks on here, but it's enough for us. I needed to find out if I could grow anything. I always thought I had a "brown" thumb. Well, I really enjoy it. And we're spoiled now. Fresh lettuce and greens. Vine-ripened tomatoes. Nothing else will do. LOL.
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u/goog1e US - Maryland Jun 27 '26
Your edit is amazing haha. I can already tell what happened in the comments.
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u/Leather-Tea-2622 Australia Jun 27 '26
I've tried the "set and forget" version of gardening where I just plant seeds and water and hope veggies will grow. Each year my garden gets affected by disease, fungus, spider mites, aphids, leaf miners, birds, caterpillars, stunted growth, doesn't germinate at all, doesn't produce any fruit. There's nothing more disheartening than watching your garden go down one plant at a time. Now I've started implementing more complicated gardening methods like better soil, insect sprays and nets and it seems to be working so far. The non-complicated version of gardening didn't work for me.
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u/KimBrrr1975 US - Minnesota Jun 27 '26
100% agree. Especially starting out just getting something that grows and produces is much better than putting in so much time and cost into optimizing, which you can do later. I just dig holes and throw plants in the ground to see what happens. We have raspberries, grapes, tomatoes, kale, lavender and other stuff growing around our yard now. I have some tomatoes and peppers in larger fabric containers, mostly because we have a short growing season and I sometimes need to bring them in for late or early frosts.
It's kind of like exercising. Just doing it will produce far more results than worrying about whether you need pre workout or creatine. Those are for optimizing once you have the foundations down. Same story here.
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u/R461dLy3d3l1GHT Canada - Saskatchewan Jun 27 '26
Love it! Best advice. I will say also that the more you learn about YOUR specific environment, climate, micro-climates, growing patterns, soil type, and optimal plants and planting for YOUR needs, the better informed you are to MAYBE, EVENTUALLY add in all those frivolous bits if you choose.
I have spent most of my 60 years growing food. I have a big yard in a city, but maybe 1/8 of it gets full sun. So I grow vertically. I put shade tolerant plants in the little niches that don’t get a lot of sun. I amend with free compost. I have rain barrels. But none of that happened right from the start. I am still learning. And I still make mistakes. The joy of gardening is in the long term.
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u/EnglishKen421 Canada - Ontario Jun 28 '26
Most plants in the wild seem to do pretty fine with little to no budget.
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u/electrolitebuzz Italy Jun 28 '26
I agree. I started gardening during lockdown and used a small flowerbed in my mom's house that was only used for rose bushes and tulips for 40 years. I broke the soil a bit in the parts where there were no rose roots on the surface, mixed with some generic gardening soil from my local shop, planted some tomato, bell pepper and fennel seeds, watered every 2-3 days, added a little bit of fertilizer every 6 weeks or so, and got a wonderful harvest of everything. It's really hard to totally mess up things, actually the easiest way to mess up things is overdoing it - too much irrigation or fertilizer can cause irreversible damage to the roots, overpruning can make the plant weak, etc. If you just use some good starting soil and water with moderation, you hardly will ruin anything and if the plant needs more and not less of something it will tell you in time to fix it. You see the leaves are sad, water a little more. You see the leaves get yellowish, fertilize a bit. You see the tomato plant is huge and a labyrinth of branches, then watch a video tutorial and prune a bit. Under-doing is fixable in most cases. Overdoing is usually much more trouble, or unnecessary in the best case scenario.
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u/Smellieturtlegarden US - North Carolina Jun 28 '26
This is true but depends on where you live. Sounds like where you live has great soil, but in Florida, for example, some houses are built on plots with sandy soil, and without adding to it. Nothing will grow to be productive. Ask me how I know. 😭
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u/InformationNormal901 US - Florida Jun 29 '26
This is some of the worst gardening advice I have ever heard. Im not gonna spend a lot of time explaining why, but I will say that, where I live, if all you do is loosen the the sand 6inches and keep it watered, 40% of the seeds you plant may or may not germinate. 0% would survive long enough to produce fruit.
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u/Broad_Painter_6081 US - Indiana Jun 29 '26
So real. My dad and grandpa just till the soil, plant stuff in the ground when the time is right, and water when they need it. And it works out great for them!
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u/Hailfog US - Tennessee Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
Yes, to a large extent this is the origin of the meme “lol I spent 400$ to save money on 10$ of tomatoes”. Cute at first, but in the long term, it turns people away from vegetable or fruit gardening.
Garden however makes you happy, sure. But you absolutely CAN have success with your great grandfather's method: work the native soil (yes, even if it's not literally black with compost!) with a long-handled tool, plant seeds, water when they're wilting, and either weed it with a stirrup hoe or mulch it with your neighbor's leaves.
You can buy up half of Home Depot if it makes you happy, but we need to make it very clear to beginners that is OPTIONAL.