Gardening tips and valuable life lessons to learn from gardening and spending time to grow our plants and ourselves.
I find gardening to be very fulfilling as it gives me a chance to spend time in nature. Also, my efforts are generally rewarded as I get to eat garden fresh fruits and vegetables. However, during my first year in Florida I thought gardening would be difficult in the hot humid weather. I thought my cucumbers would wilt and all the vegetable leaves would turn yellow in the scorching sun. So, I started out small with container gardening, raised beds seem to much of an endeavor at the time. Our Valencia orange tree was the only thing I planted in the ground. I was expecting lots of challenges but when putting some basic principles in place, my garden turned out more successful than what I imagined.
The phrase “You reap what you sow” comes from the Bible. Generally interpreted as your hard work pays off in anything you set your mind too. inspired by this verse, I’ve come up with three additional life lessons from gardening that could be used as basic principles in our lives.
Routine Pays off
Every morning after breakfast, I would water the garden. I loved reeling the hose out and watering the plants one by one. Although I must admit there were some days this act felt tedious.
An act so small and simple provided nourishment for my plants to help them grow. Seeing them grow from seeds gave me motivation to continue watering each day. A routine from day to day may seem tedious and mundane but overtime the small consistent steps add up. Growth may be hard to see at first but sticking to a routine can show improvements in the following weeks and months.
Prevention Is Key
I had a pest called a leaf miner on multiple vegetable plants. I eventually had to get a pesticide (Neem Oil) and sticky yellow tape to discourage flies from laying their larva (leaf miners) on the leaves. Utilizing pest control early on helped me get the leaf miners under control otherwise they would have infested my entire garden!
Preventing unfavorable events from happening is sometimes inevitable. But being aware of the situation and doing your best to get it under control might avoid a bigger problem in the future. I believe having mindfulness is helpful to catch a problem early on. As well as asking questions such as what seems off? what can go wrong? and how can I improve this?
Nutrition Matters
Plants need nutrition. Besides water and sun light, plants also need fertilizer or compost to grow well. I haven’t been able to start a reliable compost pile so I used a fertilizer to add nutrients. Since my plants were in containers, I also bought a high quality organic soil. Providing the nutrients to each plant made it healthy, the leaves were darker and the flowers more vibrant.
This is a good reminder that we need to incorporate nutrition too whether it be from food or other areas in our lives.
Let me know what other life lessons you have learned in the garden, or if you find yourself incorporating some of the principles I have listed?