Are You Ready For Next Level Gardening

After several years of gardening or mastering growing the basics, has your love for gardening started to diminish?  It may be time to take your gardening skills to the next level.  Anything can lose its luster if we don’t continue to push ourselves to new heights or to learn more.  If you’ve been gardening for several years, well then you know you love it, but it may be time to reconnect to why you originally fell in love.  Stay with me, this is a post on gardening I promise. 

How can we take our gardening skills to the next level?  The first thing would be to recognize that we want to do something more.  As we begin to realize that gardening hasn’t been challenging us like it used to or we aren’t getting as much out it, then it’s time to take action.  Here are some great things to do to enhance your gardening experience:

• Reflect on What You Enjoyed
• Shift Your Approach
• Start that Project You’ve Been Putting Off
• Push your Boundaries
• Learn Something New
• Go Big
• Teach or Connect with Others
• Start a Career in Gardening

Reflect on What You Enjoyed

Taking the time to think about where you’ve come from, can really help to see what you’ve done.  When things start to become routine that’s when the passion tends to diminish.  As you think about the highs, any accomplishments, or things that you’ve enjoyed along the way, it can help you figure out what to do in the future or what is holding you back now. 

Shift Your Approach

As a beginning gardener, the main thing I wanted to do was harvest some vegetables and grow a fruit tree.  My initial intent just consisted on growing a few things with the sole focus being results.  Over the years my outlook on gardening slowly began to change.  In my post, Favorite Things to Do in the Garden, I discuss all the little things that I started to gain from gardening.  Over time, my perspective started to shift from gardening just to reap a harvest to seeing that gardening could help my mental health or noticing the beauty in gardening or how it could help me feel connected to the world around me.  Maybe you’ve focused on gardening serving one major purpose in your life, but now it’s time to look at what else could be there if you take the time to see. 

Start that Project You’ve Been Putting Off

We all have those projects that have been in the back of our mind just waiting for a call to action.  Whether we’ve been too busy, lacked the money, or any other excuse, now could be just the right time to put that project into action.  Maybe you’ve always wanted to start a small greenhouse, or build a water feature, or just do some landscaping, whatever the project may be, taking action can re-ignite your gardening engine.  A lot of times just breaking out of the norm can help us re-energize our creativity. 

Push your Boundaries

Sometimes it’s fun to try to do things that others say can’t be done.  When I tell people I’m growing Mangos or other tropical fruit trees in my backyard here in the desert, they often look at me in disbelief.  Pushing the limits to your growing zone or gardening perspective can be exhilarating.  You may even discover that you can have success doing something that others told you couldn’t be done.  Even if you fail, there is something to be learned, and more to be gained.  You may want to check out my post, Should I Quit Gardening, which goes in-depth on how we can learn from gardening failures. 

Learn Something New

Even if we have mastered a lot of things in the garden, there is always something new to learn.  I’ve currently been intrigued by grafting.  I’m not sure if I’m at a spot yet that I want to dive into it, but it is something that I’d like to try in the near future.  There are so many resources that can help inspire you to learn about new ways to garden or activities that you may want to consider.  For example, trying things like container growing, mastering pruning, grafting, greenhouse gardening, selling your produce, high density planting, understanding your soil, aquaponics, composting, or organic gardening are just a few areas to further explore.  Many communities offer various gardening classes and workshops that can help you gain more education.  Try taking the Master Gardener program online or near you.

Go Big

If you’ve been gardening on a small scale, stepping up to something bigger may just be the thing to do.  As previously mentioned, I started with a couple fruit trees and a small garden, now it’s around 30 various fruit trees, several raised garden beds, flowers, and desert landscape.  It could just be time for more to help raise the bar on your gardening abilities.

Teach or Connect with Others

It has always amazed me how the teacher tends to get more out of the teaching then the student.  As you become knowledgeable or master a skill, it can be rewarding to help others learn how to be successful.  As you teach others, you’ll rediscover everything that you’ve learned along the way, as well as gain new perspectives on how to do things.  It’s also great to see someone else learn from you and put those teachings into action for their own accomplishments.  Gardening can often be viewed as a solitary experience, but connecting with others can really enhance your gardening hobby.  I’ve really enjoyed learning other perspectives on gardening and learning about various cultures.  My post on, Building Relationships through Community Gardening, is a great resource on how we can meet and build friendships through gardening.

Start a Career in Gardening

Many have turned their passions into a career and that could very well be the next step for you with gardening.  There are many opportunities to turn your gardening knowledge into a yearly salary, although some may take furthering your education.  Some possible career paths could be:

• Business owner
• Agricultural Business Scientist
• Conservation Scientist
• Soil and Plant Scientist
• Ranch Manager
• Landscaper
• Environmental Scientist
• Arborist
• Forestry
• Soil Scientists
• Irrigation Engineer
• Plant Geneticist

To sum it up, if you feel like gardening isn’t lighting you up like it used to or that it’s time for a bigger challenge to help you engage, trying one of the suggestions discussed will help you rediscover your love for gardening.    

Please comment below on anything that you’ve enjoyed from this post.