50 Random Beginner Garden tips I learnt along the way

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It’s 2025 and food seems to be getting more expensive. As we speak there is a shortage on eggs due to some disease outbreak and a gallon of milk is over $5 bucks. Girl (and boy lol)we need to start a veggie garden, here’s some tips to get you started.

1. Egg cartons make great seed trays. It’s free, they can break down easily in the soil and no plastic(win-win)
2. Some Libraries have free seeds.Just ask and you might receive.
3. You can often re-grow food from what you bought at the store like lettuce, herbs,peppers, tomatoes etc.
4. “Waste” wooden logs can be repurposed into mini raised beds
5. Left over dog food bags can be used as grow bags for plants like potatoes (after you put drainage holes in them)
6. A milk jug that’s cut in half can work as a pot
7. If you have gallon buckets you can drill holes into them and they also work as pots
8. Call your city and see if you can get soil/compost for free or cheap
9. If you buy a raised bed you don’t have to fill it with soil only. You can use the hugelkulter method which basically uses material that you have around you to fill 2/3’s (two-thirds) of the bed and then you use your expensive soil.
10. Buy heirloom seeds instead of hybrid so you can save seeds.
11. You can use old milk cartons and jugs as a watering system for plants in the ground. Put holes in the carton and jugs and put them in the ground beside the plant. Bury the carton or jug and fill it water and boom you got in ground watering.
12. If you have a slug issue use sawdust around your plants to protect them
13. Woodash makes for a great source of calcium for plants, tomatoes love it especially.
14. You can make instant liquid fertilizer by adding some starch source like boiled potatoes to weeds/leaves in de-chlorinated water for about 2 weeks and put them on your plants and they go nuts for it
15. Don’t worry too much about companion planting and what plant hates what, test and see for YOURSELF.You will often be surprised
16. Using Sulpur as a natural fungicide has literally worked the best for me especially for early and late blight on my potatoes and tomatoes and any other plant.
17. Worms love leaves so always mulch with leaves to protect the soil and give them a snack.
18. Herbs like Thyme,mint,rosemary HATE too much water. Honestly the only time I saw my rosemary thrive is when I planted a basil beside it. I live in a rainy area and my basil sucked up all the water the rosemary didn’t want.
19. No matter how perfect you make a system in the garden it could fail, don’t be too hard on yourself, this is suppose to be fun.
20. If you have rats in your compost it’s not necessarily because you put bread or cooked food in it like the experts say. Maybe the rats adapted and liked the scraps you have.(I saw rats in my compost eating fruit lol)
21. Sometimes you plant seeds and they don’t germinate and that’s okay. It could be the seeds were old, deformed,stressed or maybe it wasn’t the right temperature or environment in the soil.
22. Only plant what you actually like to eat or what you would like to try. Do not plant turnips if you HATE turnips.
23. On that same note don’t plant too much of a plant just because you love it. Some plants you don’t need too much of ,dependent on your household. For example if there are 2 or 3 persons in your home get 1 or 2 zuchinni plants(and be prepared to giveaway some)
24. Try to look at your garden at least twice a week to identify watering needs, pest issues or even fungal issues.
25. Watering can me be minimized if you mulch thickly with what you have maybe it’s straw, leaves,seaweed, sheep skin or even decomposed wood chips.Just use what you have!
26. If the soil is poor start planting peas and beans to intrduce nitrgen in the soil. It’s the first building block that soils need.
27. If you have a fence you can use it to trellis certain plants like grapes,melons, beans and even cucumbers
28. You can reuse bagged potting soil by mixing it with fresh compost and other ammendments like blood meal,bone meal or even chicken pellets.(And also synthetic ammendments like 5-5-5 or 10-10-10)
29. This should have been said in the begininning but if you see a bag in the garden center with 3 numbers that represents the N-P-K ratio. For example 5-5-5 means that 5% volume of the entire bag is Nitrogen, 5% volume is Phosphurus and 5% volume is potassium.
30. If possible use rainwater instead of tap water to water your plants. Tap water has more chemicals in it like Chlorine that will kill beneficial bacteria in your soil.
31. I noticed planting flowers attracted more insects to do my cucumber pollination for me.
32. On that same note some plants have seperate male and female sides to produce fruit(like cucumbers) and some plants have the male and female parts in the same place like tomatoes
33. Sometimes it’s too hot for a plant’s blossom to stay on the plant even if it’s considered a summer crop. When that happens the blossom drops off and you get no fruit(example :tomatoes)
34. Some plants need light to germinate like Chamomile so just sprinkle the seeds on damp soil press with fingers and let them do their thing(with sun of course)
35. When a plant is done or maybe you’re tired of eating the fruit or veggie ,you don’t have to remove the entire plant from the soil. You can simply cut the plant from the base and leave the roots in the soil to decompose and feed the next plant.
36. If you find weeds you can pull them up and put them in your compost pile or you can cut them where you found them to feed the soil, this is called the chop and drop method(do this as long as the weed isn’t invasive)
37. I think it’s cool that most plants have bush type and vining type meaning there are plants that grow in one space and there are plants that grow all over the place if you let them for example beans. You have bush beans and vining beans.
38. Best use of annoying weeds such as binding weed is to put them into your compost pile and let the high temperatures kill them to feed your soil ,or you can put all of them in a bucket with rain water and let it sit for 2 weeks and make your own nitrogen fertilizer.
39. Rats love sunflower seeds, peas and certain beans, so plant them in a space like a greenhouse away from them and then transfer them into the ground
40. If possible collect rainwater for your garden (under rain gutters for instance)
41. You can still grow food in shaded areas. As long as it get 2 to 4 hours of sun you can grow lettuce, arrugula, potatoes. They grow SLOW but they do grow.
42. Beer traps are great for killing slugs. They just love going in them for some reason.
43. You can often make new plants from mature plants. The examples are marigold,basil,thyme,rosemary, tomato and so much more.
44. Always check the underside of leaves, that’s where some pests hide.
45. If you’ve watered a plant and it still looks sad, don’t water it yet. Put your finger in the soil and see how far the water goes. If it’s only the surface that needs water,do so and then mulch.If it’s dry deeper than the surface, water deeply for about a minute.
46. Rabbit manure and cow manure are the easiest and quickest to use in the garden. Chicken manure takes a little time.
47. Trellis’ can be used from pvc pipes, bamboo canes just use what you have
48. You can use sand,coconut coir or even perlite to loosen the soil.
49. Certain plants hate the heat and can be planted behind others for example plant lettuce behind tomatoes or lettuce behind peppers
50. A good compost contains a variety of green material (example grass or leftover crops) and browns(leaves and branches). Plus it’s ok if it doesn’t heat up.