Making a New Year’s resolution for your garden is a great way to start the year with purpose and creativity. Whether you’re growing vegetables, creating a pollinator-friendly space, or reducing water usage, these resolutions will help you stay motivated and enjoy a beautiful garden throughout the year!
1. Start a Compost Bin
Reduce kitchen and garden waste by composting. Add garden items like grass clippings, dry leaves, and twigs to a compost pile instead of throwing them away. When your compost is finished, it can be used in your garden to enrich and improve soil, reduce pollution by minimizing landfill trash, and save money on fertilizer.
2. Choose Companion Plants
Pair plants that benefit from growing together, especially for vegetable planting. For example, basil repels pests when planted with tomatoes, and sunny marigold flowers deter nematodes and other harmful bugs when planted with potatoes. For more plant pairing information, check out Almanac’s handy guide.
3. Go Native
Incorporate more native plants that thrive in your local climate and support pollinators. Native plants are well-adapted to your local environment, which plays a crucial role in supporting ecosystems. They also provide food and shelter for local wildlife, including birds, butterflies, bees, and other pollinators. Native plants also require less maintenance, which means less water and fertilizer. Our friends at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center provide a detailed guide on native plants.
4. Set Up a Rainwater Harvesting System
Install a rain barrel to conserve water, lower irrigation costs, and save money on your water bill. By harvesting and storing water from your roof, rain barrels reduce your reliance on municipal water supplies for tasks like landscape watering and help lower your water bill. Learn how you can construct a rain barrel with this step-by-step video.
5. Attract Pollinators
Add bee hotels and butterfly-friendly plants, like snapdragons, sunflowers, and lantana to your garden. Shallow dishes with water and stones create a hydration station and encourage pollinators to visit your garden. Pollinators are essential for a healthy environment, so do your part to help their populations increase.
6. Add Eggshells and Coffee Grounds
Don’t throw out your breakfast waste! Add it to your garden instead. Coffee grounds add nitrogen to the soil, while crushed eggshells provide calcium. These are excellent for not only vegetable gardens but rose bushes as well.
7. Incorporate Vertical Gardening
If you don’t have a large yard, consider vertical gardening. This is perfect for small gardens or patios. Use trellises, pallets, wall planters, and hanging baskets to maximize space, grow more plants, and create a stunning visual display.
8. Encourage Wildlife
Install birdhouses, bat boxes, or small water features to invite birds and bats, which help control the pest population and offer safe nesting and roosting spots. Bats are voracious insect eaters, consuming thousands of pests in a single night! Learn to build a bat box here.
9. Create a Garden Journal
A garden journal is a valuable tool for any garden because it helps track and improve your gardening efforts over time. Track planting dates, weather, and progress, helping you refine your gardening techniques year after year. If a plant didn’t thrive, you can look back at your notes to identify possible issues, like pests, soil quality, or watering habits.
10. Cultivate your Health
Caring for a garden does wonders for your well-being. Thirty minutes of moderate-level physical activity a few days a week can prevent and control high blood pressure, and soaking up the sun while tending to your plants prompts your body to make vitamin D. Gardening is also positively linked to a reduction in stress and anxiety.
Whether you make resolutions or not, we hope these ideas for the coming year inspire you. Find even more helpful ideas in our Guide to Yard Care. Happy gardening!
