How to Beat Gardening Overwhelm

As we begin the start of a new gardening season, sowing seeds and dreaming of sunshine. I want to take the time and give you a few tips on how to stop garden overwhelm. It is something I have struggled with for a long time. There’s remembering to succession sow, the constant watering of new emerging seedlings, tackling the weeds. Then comes the glut of harvesting, having to process all of your food. Then in the middle of summer, you have to think ahead for autumn harvests. It can all just become a bit too much. A bit too overwhelming.

Having grown my own food for five years now, I’ve learnt a process that helps me to stay a float. It’s not a special process, it’s simply being organised. A lot of people see a methodical approach to gardening as boring. When I first realised I’d actually have to plan and schedule, I thought it would take all the joy from my favourite hobby. But I learnt to adapt and the pros certainly outweigh the cons. Of course I still keep a bit of space for my spontaneous nature, but becoming organised saved me from a lot of headaches. The best place to start? Seed sowing.

Sowing

When it comes to seed sowing, February is the month a lot of people start. Mainly chillies, peppers and aubergines first. But before I even begin sowing anything, I make a spreadsheet calendar. I set out the months, I make a list of varieties and then mark when the variety should be either sown inside or outside. This way, I don’t have to hunt through all of my seed packs each month. Which brings me to storage, I store all of my seeds by month. I have them in this handy case, which keeps them clean, dry and organised. I then type out a list of the varieties that I want to sow each month, print it and put it on my pinboard. I then highlight the variety when I’ve sown it. I find that this is the best way of remembering what I’ve sown and what I’ve got left to do.

Labelling

Good grief, I know this is a simple one, but it’s so important. I can’t tell you how many times I have forgotten to label, or mixed up or lost my labels. After all this time, I’ve gotten to recognise what a plant is. I know what the seeds look like, I know what the seedlings look like. Alas, when you’re sowing different varieties of the same genus...it can become confusing. I like to know the variety because I make notes of how it grows. If it is prone to pest attacks, if it was slow to germinate, any diseases, if it didn’t taste great or if it didn’t fruit well. Then, that in turn saves me time next year. Because then I know if I need to either move it to a different position or change its environment. It also helps me when I’m re-ordering seeds. As if it was a bad variety, I’ll leave it off my list.

Watering and feeding

Creating a watering and feeding schedule is a great way to stay on top of remembering. I have ‘Feed me up Friday’ as a reminder. It’s also where I utilise my phone’s diary function. I make note of when I last watered and set a reminder for a few days time. There have been many times when I’ve forgotten to water seedlings and they have just dried out and died. More mature plants seem to bounce back ok, but seedlings don’t ever really recover. The rate of transpiration (loss of water through leaves) is much faster in seedlings. So staying on top of this part is vital.

SUCCESSION sowing

Succession sowing is a good way to have a constant crop of food. Staggering planting weekly or fortnightly, so you don’t have an overwhelming amount of crops. Say you have 120 radish seeds, if you split that into batches of 30. Then planted 30 a week, you’d have a constant supply of radish for a month. It’s often done with; lettuce, spinach, radish, carrots, spring onions, beets, peas. Anything that doesn’t take a long time to crop, we also do it with things like cabbages and other brassicas. Cabbages for instance have a spring, summer and autumn crop. Keeping on top of succession sowing will help keep a slow and steady supply of things. Meaning you won’t get a glut and be overwhelmed with what to do with all of your produce. It can be difficult to remember when you’re trying to keep up with everything else. So, setting a weekly/fortnightly reminder will help.

Little and often

When it comes to the garden itself, I find a little and often approach helps me. Weeding can be an overwhelming job and although I actually find it therapeutic, it can be time consuming. So if I’m out planting and see some weeding that needs doing, I’ll do a small area and do more another day. The same with potting on and pricking out, which is another time consuming task. I know that a lot of people find pricking out annoying and tedious, so little and often will help take out the boredom.

Keeping on top of pests

My main advice for staying on top of pests is to have a diverse garden. That way, nature mainly looks after itself. Alas, waking up early and doing a pest walk with my morning tea is one of my favourite things. I absolutely adore a morning walk in the garden. I take the quiet, peaceful time to really look over and check on my plants. I highly suggest you turning it into a morning ritual too.