Planning for Garden Victory

A lot of gardening is physical. Prepping the beds, working amendments into the soil, planting and transplanting. But the key to successful gardening is having the right mentality. If you expect perfection and get discouraged every time a plant dies or a plan doesn’t work, you’ll never make it through. You need to define victory realistically in your garden and celebrate your wins to give you the strength and enthusiasm to keep going. Here are three quick ways to set up your garden for success by planning for garden victory.

How to Define Victory in Your Garden

The first step to a winning mentality in your garden is defining what victory means for you. Figuring out what makes growing your garden important to you helps you decide when you’ve succeeded with what you set out to do each year. Each gardener or gardening family might have different measurements of success. What’s important to you might not be important to someone else. Just like what makes your garden unique and special may not be what you see posted online or in a gardening magazine. Don’t limit yourself to what other people think you’re supposed to do in your garden. Think outside the box and decide what you want to accomplish and where you will declare victory this season.

Production

Reaching a production goal is a classic choice for garden victory. This could be growing a particular crop. Or growing a certain number of pounds, or bushels, or storage containers of produce. You could have a victory that adds up over time, or choose one that you reach in an instant when you bite into the first ripe fruits of your success. Choosing something that you love to eat, or you find beautiful, or brings back good memories can make planning for garden victory even more meaningful.

Production goals can be easy to measure, but hard to obtain. If you run into difficulty from weather, pests, disease, or other challenges, you may never reach your goal. The key is picking something that is attainable but stretches you. You also may need a backup plan if things go wrong. You may need to modify your goal if disaster strikes. Sometimes victory means finding a way to win when everything is stacked against you.

Production goals can also increase over time. Maybe the first year you just want to grow a tomato yourself. Then the next year, it’s 100 lbs of tomatoes. Next you move up to growing enough tomatoes to eat fresh and can or freeze enough to make it to the next growing season. Leveling up to the next goal is exciting and it helps motivate you to see how far you can go. But you don’t have to keep moving up. Consistency is also a worthy goal. Dialing in efficiency or cost savings at the same level of production can increase the challenge without ending up with wasted production.

Quality

Another good choice for planning your garden victory is a quality goal. Maybe this is growing the best tasting food that you can find. Or it could be growing without using conventional chemical fertilizers or pesticides. You could even set quality goals around how you choose to garden. Are you going to go no-till, or try square foot gardening? A quality goal can help you focus on different aspects of your garden plan.

Setting goals about the quality of the food you are growing can be a great option if you have limited space. You may never be able to grow 400 lbs of something in a balcony or container garden. But you could grow the best tasting herbs for your kitchen. Or the freshest salad greens all winter long. Consider if your garden reality leads you towards a high-quality but low volume garden victory.

Another aspect of quality goals is scarcity. You may want to focus on only crops that you can’t reliably get fresh at the store or farmers market. Maybe there’s a variety that commercial farms in your area don’t grow. Something that you may be able to get seeds for, but can’t find plants or produce. Also, things that don’t store or transport well and need to be eaten fresh. Growing your own fresh berries, asparagus, or cherry tomatoes can totally change your relationship with that food. Experiencing the quality of home-grown, garden-fresh food can be a life-changing garden victory.

Health Benefits

The final garden victory we’ll talk about is using your garden to reach health goals. There are a lot of options here, but the most common are reaching a healthy weight, increasing nutrient density, and avoiding chemicals. Gaining control over your food supply can be a hugely motivating factor, especially if you are growing food for your family. Sharing your garden produce with friends and family, and knowing it can improve their health is a huge garden victory.

Access to whole foods like fresh fruits and vegetables can make a big impact on healthy food choices. I’m always amazed to see how kids react to being able to eat food right out of the garden. Especially if they’ve helped to grow it. It can totally change their willingness to try new things and have a positive impact on their relationship with food for the rest of their lives. If you’re someone that wants to get healthy through food, growing your own healthy snacks is a great way to plan for garden victory. Every time you choose a home-grown fruit or veggie over ultra-processed food from the store is another mark in the win column.

Another category of health benefits is growing food with more nutrients or fewer chemicals. In your own garden you can ensure your food grows in high-quality soil and create nutrient dense super-foods. You can also limit your exposure to chemicals by testing the soil for contamination and controling what chemicals you use in your garden. Choosing your fertilizers, what kinds of pest control or disease prevention, and even how you harvest can make a big difference in your food. Family members with sensitivities to certain chemicals may benefit greatly from taking control of what goes into your food supply. Start planning for garden victory today.

Want more ways to benefit from your garden? Check out my blog post on the Top 10 Life Lessons from Your Garden for all the things you can learn and teach through gardening. Enjoy!

Need some help getting your garden started and finding some quick garden victories? Why not try a container garden? Get started today with my Crazy Easy Containers guide.