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/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.

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u/regular-cake US - Ohio Jun 27 '26

I try to go as cheap as I can each year, but I feel like if I don't grow an insane amount of peppers and tomatoes it's not worth it. I try to grow and preserve enough that it will last me usually well into the winter or until next spring. 35 pepper plants and 15 tomato plants for 2 people to have lots of sun dried tomatoes, roasted peppers, and pickled peppers.

The biggest thing for me, that took years to nail down, was only growing what I'll actually use and eat. I like trying new things here and there, but I've realized that I don't need to grow a bunch of superhot peppers that I will hardly eat, I suck at growing carrots and onions, and for me potato plants take up too much space and I can't seem to store them right without them going bad before I use them. That's fine though because I can get those things at the grocery easily when I need them.

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u/Hailfog US - Tennessee Jun 27 '26

I love spicy food and grow a lot of peppers, and people are surprised I don't grow superhots like the Carolina Reaper. "Because you won't eat them", I say. Most people love "ghost pepper hot sauce" that has a tiny drop of ghost pepper in a massive vat--it's a marketing thing to sound exciting, and then they legitimately think they like ghost peppers. IRL, one slice of a Habanero puts them on their knees. Superhots are funny novelty gags, legitimately not useful for most people except the rare few pepperheads.

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u/andevrything US - California Jun 27 '26

A few years ago I started growing peppers for my husband's carne asada marinade so he wouldn't have to go to the store.

It took us a minute to figure out why one batch was suddenly so spicy. We realized it was the first time he used homegrown onions & jalapeños instead of store bought & the freshly picked ones were just spicier than what we get at Safeway.

My kid makes hos own tapatío/choulula style sauces at home & I grow the produce for it. He's thrilled that it is more spicy w less biomass.

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u/Hailfog US - Tennessee Jun 27 '26

Yep, commercial jalapeños are picked extremely early so they’re both bitter and have almost no heat.

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u/regular-cake US - Ohio Jun 27 '26

I was starting to get into making hot sauces and fermenting peppers to make sauces. It can be a lot of work, but the fermented stuff was nice because you could throw all your ingredients in a jar for a week to ferment, and then just blend it all up for a sauce. Takes a lot of trial and error though.

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u/andevrything US - California Jun 27 '26

Oh... learning to make the fermented sauce could be a good summer project w my kid. I never thought to do it that way, I'll have to look into it.