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Guest Post: How does your garden grow?

May 1, 2011

Bet you’re surprised to be seeing a post here on Sunday. It might, indeed, be a first. But in addition to being a Sunday, it is also May 1 and I happen to have a fantastic guest here today. You might even say he’s a rock star.

Michael Nolan is the co-author of a book called “I Garden: Urban Style” that gives tips and tricks for gardening in an urban setting. He also has a blog called My Earth Garden that is absolutely chock-a-block with great stuff. In April he resolved to try 20 different recipes in 30 days. In May he’s going “Around the blog in 31 days,” meaning that he’ll be guest posting on 31 different blogs all month and he’s starting right here on The Impatient Gardener.

So here’s Michael talking about how to keep your gardening goals realistic:

Patience might be a virtue, but not all of us garden types are all that virtuous.

The most frustrating part of gardening for me is how often I get ahead of myself. As an “impatient gardener” as well, I have to admit that it happens all too often. What I find that helps keep me focused is to have a well-written plan and to set clearly defined goals to remind me when I am being unrealistic. And it happens. A lot.
What’s in a garden plan?
The first step in getting a garden growing is to sit down and make a plan. This applies whether you are working on an existing space or creating a new garden from the ground up and skipping this step can go a long way toward adding to your frustration when things aren’t going so well mid-season. The garden plan should include the nuts and bolts of the garden space; everything from dimensions to soil type, sunlight and shade notes to water availability and drainage. Think of it as the Wikipedia page for your garden and endeavor to make it as detailed as you possibly can.
Mntomatoes
If you’re just growing for yourself or you an another person, you probably don’t need to start 50 tomato plants from seed.
How to set realistic gardening goals
The biggest mistake many new gardeners make is that they take on way too much. They overplant and are wholly unprepared for managing the chaos that ensues when Madam Spring shows up in full force. It’s also a mistake that well-seasoned gardeners make. I’ve been at this for over 30 years and I still do it every year. I know I only need a dozen tomato plants to meet my needs for the year, so why do I always plant 20-plus?
The process of setting goals for gardening is important even if you are only gardening for aesthetics, because regardless of your inspiration, you need to be able to have a point at which you can say that you have accomplished what you set out to do in the first place. Otherwise, you’re going to end up one of those bitter old Ouiser Boudreaux type old ladies who grow tomatoes every year even though they don’t like them “because that’s what old southern women do.”
If you are growing for food, do a little research to find out what the average yield is per plant for the crops you want to grow. That will give you a good idea how much of a particular plant you need to grow to supply your food and you can add that to your gardening plan, setting goals accordingly. Pay attention to the timeframes on seed packaging or look up information on the ‘net to learn how long you can expect to wait for your first veggies and fruits to be ready for the table and your goals will always be in sight.
With a bit of foresight, some planning and a few gardening goals in place, you’ll be ready to get your hands in the dirt in no time.
Michael Nolan, the Garden Rockstar, is an author, blogger and speaker on gardening, sustainability, food ethics and homesteading. He is currently in the process of writing a new guest post on a different site for each day in May. To follow his progress, visit MyEarthGarden.com.
garden guest post
by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
11 Comments

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Comments

  1. * The Design Confidential says: May 1, 2011 at 5:18 pm

    great tips! i never make a plan and ALWAYS overwhelm myself with the upkeep and maintenance and then i tucker out early and let things get away from me 🙁 i really need to do this! fabulous post!

    Reply
  2. Genevieve says: May 1, 2011 at 11:58 pm

    Michael's a rockstar indeed. I wish I could go back in time a few weeks and plant fewer squash plants. They ALL grew and it looks like it's going to be a bumper year for zucchini. Oh dear!!

    Reply
  3. Jenn's Cooking Garden! says: May 2, 2011 at 1:02 am

    Great advice From Michael! I love that he is visiting 31 blogs for the month of May! He is visiting my Blog May 2nd!

    Reply
  4. George Vance says: February 12, 2020 at 6:24 am

    Thanks for the tips Michael. Growing gardening is an interesting task for sure.

    Reply
  5. Elle Meager says: May 15, 2020 at 6:58 pm

    I’m so familiar with “don’t take on too much”! I’m a true over-planter. I don’t grow 10 lettuces, I grow 100. Not 6 basil plants but 50. Then they all ripen at the same time and I’m scrambling to find ways of using them all. In the end though, I suppose it’s a great learning experience and I get to share lots with other people which is fun!

    Reply
  6. Landscaping says: January 31, 2021 at 7:27 pm

    Thank you so much for sharing! This is very useful!

    Reply
  7. MA says: April 4, 2021 at 9:53 pm

    Me too! Keep up the amazing and awesome work!

    Reply
  8. Massachusetts says: August 8, 2021 at 10:15 pm

    This is a very good blog. Thank you for sharing!

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  9. Deck Pros says: September 12, 2021 at 9:49 pm

    You have great ideas. Thank you for sharing!

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The Impatient Gardener

Do you love gardening? Me too! I'm Erin and I garden in Southeastern Wisconsin, zone 5. The Impatient Gardener is all about real-life gardening: the good parts, the bad bits and even the funny stuff. It's part information, part inspiration and a little bit commiseration. Thanks for visiting.

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Erin Schanen 🌿 The Impatient Gardener
I fell in love with gardening through container de I fell in love with gardening through container design and it’s probably still my favorite type of gardening. My trip to Philadelphia area gardens was full of so many excellent ideas. For several years I’ve been enamored with clustered pots, but in my opinion they work best when they are able to stand alone in a space. And you probably know me well enough by now to know that as far as I’m concerned, the bigger the pot, the better. Feast your eyes on these beauties and use your zooming fingers to really get into those nooks and crannies. 

Don’t forget to save your favorites because you know you’re going to be looking for them come next spring. 😀

Photos 1 & 2: Amazing container cluster at @longwoodgardens  that works particularly well because of the restraint used in the design. Also how many different ways is the universe going to tell me I need to grow agave before I actually listen?

Photo 3: This was probably favorite display I saw the whole time and of course it’s from the masters at @chanticleergarden This is a master class in texture. It’s also probably not attainable for the average home gardener because it relies heavily on tropicals that need proper overwintering in order to reach a good size. But there’s no reason why I (or you) couldn’t use this as inspiration to create a similar feel with other plants. 

Photo 4: Strappy foliage, bright orange and colorful pots create such a good doorway collection at @chanticleergarden 

Photo 5, 6 & 7: Similar colors were used at a patio doorway at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm home garden. A pot is perfectly framed by an arbor off a side patio. The front entrance has a pink theme (and an amazing feature pot that I couldn’t show here because all my shots are vertical). 

Photo 8: Back to @chanticleergarden where I could have studied this container planting for an hour just to soak up all the detail. 

Photo 9: And while I love a pot with a lot going on, never underestimate the power of a simply planted, gorgeous pot, like this one at @abunting64 garden Belvidere. 

#gbfling2023
I think every garden probably needs a little bit o I think every garden probably needs a little bit of water, even if it’s just a bird bath. All of the fabulous gardens I saw recently in the Philadelphia area incorporated water into them. Here are just a few examples of how lovely these water features were. 

@paxsonhillfarm @northviewgarden @brandywinecottage @longwoodgardens #gbfling2023
Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the vi Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the view even though we all know that most of us rarely take the opportunity to use them. The seating I saw in gardens in the Philadelphia area reflected their gardens and all were special. 

Make sure to share your favorite!

Photo 1:  I adored these perfectly lichen-covered chairs at @brandywinecottage

Photo 2: Great lichen game on this bench at Wayne Guymon’s mind-blowing garden WynEden. 

Photo 3: Perhaps my favorite seating moment of the whole trip was this chair in @jennyrosecarey @northviewgarden . Not only was it perfectly lichen covered (are you sensing a theme here?) but a volunteer cleome was growing right up through the middle of it. Unfortunately this photo of it isn’t grata because by this point in the trip my phone (I didn’t want to use my DSLR in the middle of the tropical storm so I switched to my phone) was getting very grumpy about the rain. 

Photo 4: I’d be happy to hang out on these chairs in @abunting64 ‘s gorgeous garden Belvidere. I loved this space. 

Photo 5: Color was the name of the game on this patio at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm. 

Photo 6: The most original table and benches I saw were at @abunting64 garden. This was a portion of the garden that was actually on the neighbors’ property adjacent to Andrew’s. It had been a vegetable garden but is getting a bit too shady so it will soon have a new life. 

Photo 7: We visited Barbara Tiffany’s Mill Fleurs in a deluge, which is a shame, and dotted throughout the property are examples of her husband Tiff’s amazing furniture. This was, called the Centipede was upholstered and quite different from the others. All were amazing works of art. 

Photos 8 and 9: The @scott_arboretum at @swarthmorecollege had some excellent seating, from brand new @deebenarc chairs to more lichen-covered charmers.

#gbfling2023
*** I can already see that some people do not unde *** I can already see that some people do not understand humor so let me just say this: 1. I was fully aware of the escaped convict situation (I’m an avid follower of the news, which is common for us journalists). 2. It’s ok to laugh about the fact that I’ve missed the Longwood meadow twice through weird circumstances while being a rational adult and realizing that I’m not making light of the situation that led to the meadow being mown. ***

I missed seeing @longwoodgardens beautiful meadow the first time I visited so I was excited to see it the second time. Not so fast! Turns out it had to be mown down during the search for an escaped convict who was hiding out there (at least that’s what I was told was the reason for the mowing). He’ll never see goldenrod the same way again! 😀

That whole situation was really unfortunate for @longwoodgardens (not to mention everyone who lives in the area), which had to be closed for about a week while the hunt was on!
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