The gardening and lawn care niche is a multi-billion dollar niche. To tap into this lucrative and hungry market, many companies are selling thousands of products ranging from grow bags to liquid fertilizer to compost thermometers.
Step into a gardening store online or offline and you’ll be overwhelmed by all the products and choices available to you. If you’re new to gardening, it can be overwhelming.
Do you really need them all?
Where do you even start?
What will you get?
All good questions… and to answer the first one, no you definitely don’t need them all.
* Planning
First, you’ll need to decide if you’ll be doing indoor gardening (container gardening) or will you be planting in your garden outside.
Next up, you’ll need to decide if you’ll be growing flowers, herbs, or vegetables. There are countless plants you could grow, but will they suit the soil in your garden or your climate?
Are you looking to grow your own vegetables so that you can enjoy the satisfaction of cooking and eating what you grow with your own hands?
Once you know your gardening goals, it’ll be time to look at the equipment.
* Tools
Initially, there’s really no need to got and buy a spade, shovel, rake, etc. individually. While the good quality equipment is usually sold individually, they tend to cost more.
It’s crucial that you first establish if you even like gardening in the first place. Far too often, the initial burst of excitement that comes with starting new can make people buy items compulsively.
Later on, when the excitement wanes, the equipment is dumped in the shed and long forgotten. This happens with gym memberships that are neglected, treadmills which become clothes hangers and even video game consoles.
So, you want to avoid spending unnecessarily in the beginning. It’s best to start off with a beginner’s gardening toolkit which has most of the basic equipment you’ll need.
It is affordably priced and everything packs neatly and compactly. As far as tools go, this should be all you need for now.
* Pots, seeds, soil, etc.
Beginners would do well to use grow bags rather than plastic pots. The advantages to grow bags far outweigh the cons, and newbies will do much better with a bag rather than a pot. Read full article here.
You’ll need soil to fill that grow bag. While you could fill it up with soil from your garden, you don’t really know if the soil is conducive for plant growth. You’d be better off buying organic soil and growing your seeds in soil that’s fertile.
Of course, you’ll need seeds. You may get an assorted package of Heirloom seeds or if you wish to grow specific vegetables such as salad greens, you can get this packet of seeds.
It goes without saying that you’ll need to water your plants… and while you could just use a cup of water, if it’s a potted plant at home, you can’t do that with a garden.
Most gardens will require a water hose, a watering wand (to attach to the hose) and a watering can. You’ll have to decide which you need based on your needs.
That should be enough to get you started.
* Other equipment
Gardening can be tough on your knees and back. Since you’ll be kneeling often, you’d be wise to get a kneeling mat to cushion your knees.
You may also wish to get a foldable chair, a gardening hat (for men, for women), SPF Rx sunscreen (if you’re out in the sun) and a cold water flask. All of these will be immensely comforting when you’re gardening out in the heat for an hour or two.
The items mentioned in this article are all you really need at the start. There’s no need for composting bins, liquid fertilizer and other items (that you’ve not heard of) which are beyond your expertise anyway.
Start small. Get the essentials. Once you develop the love for gardening, do more research on it and learn whatever you can. Then you’ll discover what the other items in the store are for… and how you can use them to make your plants flourish.
“If you want to be happy for a day, get drunk. If you want to be happy for a year, get married. But if you want to be happy for a lifetime, plant a garden.” – Dutch proverb
