Spring Series: Be Realistic When You Plan Your Garden

With spring rolling steadily in, a person’s thoughts naturally turn to gardening. There are also a flood of magazines and online ads showing you beautiful, perfectly arranged flower beds and fat, juicy vegetables as far as the eye can see. 

There’s nothing wrong with getting excited about planting season, but it helps to keep your expectations realistic. Even if you have the space, you don’t want to plant more garden than you can handle. A simple garden still requires a good bit of work, and that work is a lot more exciting in the cool spring breezes of early May than in the blistering sun of late July.

There is also cost to consider. Gardening is relatively inexpensive compared to many hobbies, but there are costs involved. The bigger and more elaborate the garden, the greater the hit on your pocketbook.

Before you even put spade to dirt, you want to make a realistic assessment of your gardening project. How much do you want to grow? How much time do you have to devote to it? What are you willing to spend to make it happen? Consider the space you have. What do you have to work with and how much effort will it take to make it into the garden of your dreams?

Getting overambitious will only lead to frustration. However, if you plan it right, a garden can be a beautiful patch of earth that’s all yours, and gives back to you year after year.