10 Best Gardening Habits What Actually Works

I'm Angela from Growing In The Garden. After 17 years of gardening in the desert, I've learned what actually works. These are the 10 things I always do for a healthy, productive garden. And three, I've learned to stop doing. Let's start with the foundation of it all, your soil. Focus on your soil. Feed the soil, not just the plants. Add compost and worm castings each season. If your level goes down, that's a good thing. It means the organic matter is breaking down and feeding your plants. Fill it back up and replace what was lost. Feed the soil by adding vermicomposting bins right into your beds. It still shocks me every time I harvest buckets of worm castings from those bins. It's proof the process works. Once you have worms, it's free and it's an excellent way to use your Amazon boxes and food scraps. The better you treat your soil, the better it will treat your plants. Get your timing right. Know your planting seasons. Crops have preferred growing temperatures. Prioritize the crops you most want to grow and make sure you're planting them on time so you get to harvest. Sometimes if you have short seasons, that means making tough choices about taking out other plants. Use things like my planting calendars, soil thermometers, and your own experience to learn the best planting windows for your area. Give plants the right amount of sunlight. Add shade in the summer and look for the sunniest areas in winter. Prioritize spots with morning sunlight and natural afternoon shade. That's the best place to have your garden. If you're growing in shadier areas, give plants more room, expect slower growth, and choose crops that are grown for their leaves like herbs or leafy greens. Water deeply and consistently. Water less often but deeply and adjust with the seasons. Don't just leave your watering on a schedule. During the transition times each year as temperatures heat up or cool down, check your soil first. Overwatering not only wastes water but can actually slow plant growth. Too little water or not deep enough creates shallow roots. We want resilient plants with deep roots. Help them out by watering deeply less often. If you're not mulching, you're missing out. I recently filled some beds with new soil before a big rainstorm and because I hadn't mulched yet, the rain pelted the bare soil and formed a thick hard crust on top. Mulch would have prevented that. Soil is expensive and we work hard to build and protect it. Mulch takes the brunt of the elements. It shields the soil surface from rain, sun, and wind. Every time I pull back a layer of bleached dried out mulch and see loose hydrated soil underneath, it reminds me how powerful mulch really is. Mulch keeps roots cool, retains moisture, prevents weeds, and builds healthier soil over time. Thin seedlings early don't wait. Crowding leads to weak growth and smaller harvests. Give each crop enough room as soon as possible. I'm always amazed how much more quickly crops grow when they have their own space. When I came back in and thinned these fox gloves and snapdragons, the ones that were already thinned had grown quite a bit more than the ones that still had two or three seedlings still together. Same thing with carrots. Thinning early gives you big carrots instead of small spindly ones. Plan for support early. It's always easier to add structure before plants need it. I set up trellis netting in my cut flower beds before they need it so the support is ready when that growth takes off. There are plenty of simple ways to provide support. Stakes, cages, trellises, or netting. Find what works best for your garden. I like to plant climbing crops like tomatoes and peas right next to their supports. Adding structure early prevents root damage later and makes tending and harvesting easier. Plant herbs and flowers for pollinators and beneficial insects. Leave a couple of empty spots in your beds and plant herbs and flowers that attract beneficial insects in those spaces. Don't discount the power that comes from retracting a wide variety of insects to your garden. The longer I've gardened, the less I do about pests. It's about playing offense not defense. Here's a list of my favorite warm season companion plants and these are my favorite cool season companion plants. Many grow easily from seed. Harvest at the right time. Whether it's vegetables, herbs, or flowers, keep them harvested. When you grow your own food, you don't have to pick early or let it sit on a truck for days. Harvest and enjoy or preserve right away so you get the most nutrition and flavor from your garden. Keep herbs cut to discourage flowering and encourage fuller, more productive plants. Keep flowers picked and deadheaded to encourage more blooms. Every cut is basically ordering your next bouquet. Spend time in your garden every day. Make it a habit to be in your garden each day. Take a slow walk and enjoy it. Notice the changes in leaves, soil, and growth. Slow down. Be present and appreciate the little miracles happening all around you. If you develop this simple habit, you will catch issues early. See what's ready to harvest and be more aware of the pest and wildlife cycles in your area. Daily time in the garden makes you a better gardener. Now here's three things you shouldn't do. Don't use chemical fertilizers or pesticides. They harm beneficial soil life and insects. Chemical fertilizers can give you a quick burst of growth but they don't have lasting benefits for the soil. Organic amendments like worm castings and compost improve the soil and it gets better over time. Same thing with pesticides. They might take care of the immediate problem but often they create bigger issues, killing beneficial insects, building up resistance, and leaving you on your own for pest control. Don't pull up plants by the roots. Cut them off at soil level and let the roots decompose naturally. Easier for you, better for your soil, and it saves you money too. All that soil stays in your beds and isn't pulled out with the plant roots. Don't plant the same crop in the same spot every season. You might have the perfect spot for tomatoes but if you keep planting them there, pests and diseases will think so too. And don't make it easy on squash bugs by planting squash and cucumbers in the same place year after year. Rotate by plant family each season. It doesn't have to be perfect. Do the best you can with the space you have. Move crops to a different bed, switch a crop to containers for a season, or refresh the soil before replanting. Do the best you can. You've got this. Thank you so much for watching. What a thriving desert garden. Join my monthly online classes, live or on replay, and get instant access to past classes and journals. Bring your questions and let's grow together in Growing in the Garden Academy.