If you love spending time in the garden, you might want to set some new gardening goals this year.
How to Set Goals?
Set Realistic Goals
It’s good to let your imagination run wild and your expectations soar high. But, dreaming big can have an unexpected caveat. As soon as you are faced with a challenge or an obstacle, it leads to frustration, disappointment and dissatisfaction. This is why when setting goals in the garden, you should dream only of achieving realistic goals.
Although gardening can be very therapeutic, it is an outdoor activity that requires a lot of hard work. With gardening, you will have to use every major muscle in your body. While it might take five or ten minutes to complete basics like watering, other gardening tasks like planting, weeding, cleaning or pest control would take more time.
If you want to maintain a garden, you should be competitive, willing to take on risks and willing to work more hours. Therefore, don’t expect perfection and make a long list of wishes, but try to set achievable goals that you can accomplish.
Observe and Decide
It’s time to be curious and play “detective.”
Plants have specific needs to survive and reproduce. While some plants can thrive in just about any indoor space, others require a large outdoor space because they can grow quite tall.
Your goal, for example, cannot include growing the carabao mango tree (a large mango tree that can grow up to 15 meters) if you don’t have a garden large enough to accommodate the tree.
So, take a chair and sit in your garden or walk around and observe your garden carefully. How big is it? Which spots in your garden receive more sunlight? What kind of insects roam around your garden? How many plants are there? How many more plants can be added?
Write Down Your Wishes
Once you’ve decided on what you want, write down your ideas or wishes. Taking the goals out of your mind and writing them down will make them feel visible and real. Writing down your goals and wishes doesn’t just help you remember what you want, it also makes you focus on what is truly important. It forces you to select something specific and direct your time, concentration and energy toward it.
Goals You Can Set:
Learn a New Gardening Skill
A gardener must have some basic skills in order to maintain a garden. However, with time, you can learn new gardening skills. When you are testing soil, digging and growing your own food, you are learning the importance of being responsible and organized. These are valuable life skills you’ll develop when gardening.
Taking a new step and learning how to make quality compost, how to save seeds or how to start a worm farm can prove to be very beneficial. Instead of depending on store-bought items, trying DIY solutions can increase your self-confidence in gardening.
Clean That Forgotten Corner of the Garden
In every garden, there is a forgotten corner. Maybe it’s just a shady area with a few gloomy shrubs sitting out there. Or, maybe you’ve turned that corner into a dumping ground?
Your eyes might have glided over it for months or years, but now is the time to turn that little place of nothing into a delightful and useful part of the garden.
The first step includes cleaning and clearing that untidy and tatty area. Clear out any debris or take away all those large compost bags you’ve put out there. Then, sweep up all the dead leaves and twigs. Once you are done with the cleaning, think about what you can do with that corner.
Here are some ideas to help you:
- Plant a tree
- Add a sculpture (it could be the focal point of your garden)
- Put a garden shed
- Put up a pergola
- Include a small seating area
- Add a fireplace
