Home Gardening

Do you dream of having a beautiful, healthy, and productive home garden? Grow the garden you always wanted with Penn State Extension’s home garden resources. Explore the best ways to plant and grow flowers, fruits, and vegetables; and manage garden pests, plant diseases, and weeds. Learn about gardening for pollinators, how to attract wildlife to your backyard, garden soil amendments, and more.

Gardening for Beginners: How to Start a Garden

There’s a great deal of pleasure to be had from a garden. Not only should it be good to look at, but it should be productive too. Planting and growing a home garden is not an exact science. However, there are things you can do to increase your chance of success.

The quality of the soil and garden weed management are all key to your success. Knowing what to do about pests in your garden is also vital, as they can be a gardener’s worst nightmare. A number of solutions are available for specific garden pest problems, yet prevention is often better than a cure. One option is to use raised beds.

People choose to garden for a variety of reasons. A beautiful garden can boost your home’s curb appeal, plus it can lead to a healthier lifestyle. Whatever the reason for starting a garden, it requires patience, basic knowledge about plant types and garden terminology, and the proper way to tend the soil. When talking to other gardeners, you might also encounter some popular garden myths. Penn State Extension uncovers the real truth behind many misguided garden beliefs.

A garden isn’t a garden without plants. If you want to create and maintain a healthy landscape, it’s vital you choose plants that are well-suited to the conditions in your yard. It might be tempting to start by buying clearance plants, particularly if you’re working on a budget, but there are steps you need to follow.

If you want to save money, propagation is an option. The best time of the year to start planting annual, perennial, and vegetable seeds, is in the spring. Propagation is not just about planting seeds – you can also start plants through cuttings, layering, and division.

Gardening is a year-round activity. There’s always something going on and things to be done, whatever the season. The winter is a time to reflect on the successes and disappointments of last year’s garden. Spring is the time for getting a head start by preparing your garden for the summer bounty. While fall is the time to start clearing up and preparing the garden for winter.

What you decide to grow in your garden has a lot to do with your gardening style. Do you want shrubs that give your garden a Mediterranean feel? Would you like to include ornamentals that give your garden a more Japanese feel? Other garden styles include a container gardening, a Colonial style of gardening that includes classic functional herb and vegetable gardening, and home fruit gardening.

Home Gardening Tips and Advice

You’re never on your own when you first start gardening. There’s a wealth of useful information available online, including Master Gardeners willing to share their extensive knowledge in written guides and at home gardener conferences.

Whether you want to try fruit production with a home orchard of apple and pear trees, grow and harvest delicious vegetables, or start your ornamentals and floriculture business, Penn State Extension has a comprehensive selection of resources, covering everything from the basics in vegetable gardening and beekeeping, through to herbs for the home gardener, home composting, and what native plants you can grow all year.

Pests are a problem for all gardeners, and while you may be able to tolerate a little damage, sometimes pest control measures have to be taken. Pests come in all shapes and sizes, some of which are considered invasive species. The Spotted Lanternfly is one example. But not all insects are pests. Flies in the family Syrphidae are very helpful allies in the garden and just one of many beneficial insects.

Master Gardener Training and Resources

When you become a Master Gardener, you also become part of a much wider community. Gardening is all about sharing gardening experience and gardening information and encouraging young people to learn about planting via various growing gardeners webinars.

If you want to help others with their gardening journey, you might have what it takes to be a Master Gardener. The Master Gardener program began in 1972, and in 1982, Penn State University adopted the program.

A wide range of gardening practices are covered in Master Gardener classes, but it starts with Master Gardener Basic Training. Other topics covered include:

• Preparing for the growing season with the Garden Sense Symposium workshop and a Spring Gardening Seminar
• Discover the latest in horticulture with the Garden and Landscape Symposium
• Learn how to grow and maintain a backyard garden with the Victory Garden Workshop Series and now, the Victory Garden Reinvented! Webinar Series
• Explore the topics of wildlife, wildflowers, and how to deal with weeds at the Annual Shirley R. Wagner Garden Symposium
• Determine which herbs are good companions at the Master Gardener Amateur Herbalist workshop