How To Learn About Gardening

In the garden today as I was watering and checking on all of my plants, I was thinking about how often the act of gardening grows into a connection to community. Quite often, our garden meanderings and maintenance are a solitary journey. In your own garden, you nurture your plants, carefully inspecting each, lifting leaves and finding joy in a newly discovered blossom or a vegetable setting on, or the surprise of a bug you weren’t expecting. At the moment you run into a problem you haven’t experienced before, most of us are then in a spot where we need to ask for advice. So we turn to a gardening community, a local resource, or an experienced friend, and we learn from those who have walked this path longer than we have.

I’ve learned so much of what I know about gardening from my mom, who has been gardening for over 50 years. She’s still teaching me, and a lot of the time she does it without even knowing she’s passing on her knowledge. I love that when we are shopping for plants together, she will talk to anyone about anything related to plants, gardening,soil, and successes, and failures. I asked her about this once, curious to know what prompts her to chat it up with complete strangers. She told me, “Gardeners love to talk about gardening. Anything and everything! It’s how we learn about what works and what doesn’t work, and it’s how we get better at growing. There’s something you can share or learn from everyone.”

Those are some wise words. It’s been interesting to watch the resurgence of interest across the globe in people growing their own food over the past few years. Homesteading groups and garden communities have popped up everywhere, full of great tips, tricks, recipes, how-to videos, and advice – and backyard gardeners across the globe are enthusiastically diving in to learn, get their hands dirty, experiment… and share what they know.

Fortunately for us, the internet provides a vast amount of knowledge available at our fingertips. Unfortunately at the same time, some problems are so specific to the plant, to the growing zone, and to the location, that finding the small nugget of information we need to solve our specific problem can be very time consuming and frustrating.

Start your journey of how to learn about gardening by exploring some of your own local gardening communities, who have have a wealth of knowledge to share. This can include:

Nurseries
Gardening clubs (in person or online)
Farms in your area open to the public
Extension Office (normally part of a university)

I would love to also become part of your gardening community. My goal is to share valuable and helpful information with you that is specific to gardening in our high desert climate, in order to help you learn to provide the best care for the plants that you are growing.

Follow along and we’ll explore a variety of topics specific to gardening in our zone (Eagle, ID is gardening zone 6a or 6b https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/) which will include:

what to’s: what to look for when buying plants, what to know about your growing conditions including your soil, what to remember for each plant’s needs
when to’s: when to fertilize (and when not to), when to know how something is ripe, when to prune
how to’s: how to treat, how to correct, how to prune, how to deal with disease and pests
why’s: why do you need to know your gardening zone, why timing is important
troubleshooting: what is this on my ______? why does my plant look like ___?

My hope is that you’ll have fun along the way, and also share what you have learned with others in your own garden community. I’d love for you to get in touch with me with specific questions, problems, or topics you’d like to see covered to explore how to learn about gardening.

Let’s get growing!