Gardening is a great hobby. Not only does it provide the tangible, edible benefit of delicious fresh produce right from your backyard, but it’s also a fantastic way to spend some time outdoors getting exercise and relieving stress. If you’d like to start your own garden, read on for some advice.

Put sod down the right way. Before you use sod, you need to prepare the soil. Pull any weeds that you see, and work to break up the soil so that it is a fine tilth. Flatten the soil back into place, gently but firmly. Make sure the soil is moist all the way through. Staggered rows with offset joints is the best way for the sod to be laid out. After the sod has been flattened to an even surface, you can use soil to fill any remaining gaps. The sod requires water on a daily basis for two weeks, then the roots will have taken hold and ready to be walked on.

A great gardening tip is to do all your gardening work minus the watering early in the morning. Sometimes working in the garden can take several hours and it behooves one to not do this at the hottest time of the day. This will help prevent heat related illness like heat stroke.

To save space in your garden, try planting your crops in blocks rather than in the traditional rows. Rows end up leaving too much space between plants for needless pathways. Blocks help keep plants tight together without sacrificing production. Small variety kitchen vegetables do best in blocks that are arranged in a wide bed.

Be realistic about the types of plants you can grow in your garden. If a particular plant has failed you in the past, don’t try it again. You need to right kind of climate, soil, and sun/shade ratio for certain plants. If you don’t have it, no amount of effort will make those plants a success. Choosing realistically will increase your yield while decreasing your effort.

If you like to plant roses, before you buy any variety, ask yourself what characteristics you would like from your roses. Different varieties have different characteristics, such as fragrance, heartiness, and size, to name a few. The traits that you want the most from a rose bush will influence your decision on what variety to plant.

Grow wheat or cat grass around the plants your cat likes nibbling. You can also try to offend the cats sense of smell with orange rinds or mothballs.

To treat damping-off fungus, use chamomile tea. Brew a batch of chamomile tea, let it cool and pour a generous amount around the base of the seedlings. Use a spray bottle for the stems and foliage of the plant and you will keep damping-off fungus from destroying your garden.

To cut down on the time you spend pruning and pulling weeds, make sure that all the tools you use are sharpened and cleaned. A dull or dirty tool will make basic gardening tasks much more challenging, and can significantly increase the work you have to put into your garden. Caring for your tools regularly is more than worth the effort it takes.

Recycle your coffee grounds and use them to acidify the soil for all of your acid loving plants. Plants that like an acidic soil include roses, tomatoes, cyclamen, violets, gardenias, begonias and hibiscus. Apply the grounds approximately one quarter inch thick for the best results. If you don’t care for coffee, leftover tea will produce the same results.

To attract insects that will benefit your garden, plant heather. Bees like it because it gives them nectar in the springtime. Spiders, ground beetles and other insects helpful to your garden tend to live in a heather bed, because heather beds are generally undisturbed. With this knowledge at hand, it is in your best interest to wear gloves when tending the heather.

A good tip to help your plants stay healthy and fight diseases is to use aspirin water. Crush and dissolve one and one-half 325mg tablets in two full gallons of plain water. You can easily spray the plans with this concoction to help them fight of disease. Try to apply the mixture to the plants at least once in each three week period.

While Mother Nature will eventually do the work needed to create compost from a backyard pile, even if it is not actively tended, you can give her a helping hand by adding compost starter to the mix. Compost starters, available from the garden centers, add microorganisms to the soil that help speed up the decay process.

When maintaining an organic garden, be sure to always wind up your hoses. Dragging and storing a hose that is not wound up can take a lot of time away from you. Try using stationary or portable hose reels to wind up your hoses and to save you some time.

A great tip when running your own organic garden is to make sure you immediately fertilize your seedlings when they receive their first true leaves, which will appear as soon as the cotyledon disappears. If your seedlings are not immediately fertilized, they will die unless you are using a mix with no soil that also does not have compost.

The best way to spread mulch on your organic garden is with a flat-headed rake. A flat-headed rake is effectively two tools in one. You can use the tined side to distribute mulch over fresh areas. When you flip the rake over, its flat side makes an efficient tool for smoothing your mulch and making sure it is distributed evenly.

When planting your tomatoes in your organic garden, add compost around the stem and trim the upper leaves. This will assist your tomato plants in growing in the best way that they possibly can. You should aim to do these things as soon as the first fruit begins to ripen.

Now you can clearly see the many varied benefits of growing your own garden; not only can you feed your family, it’s very relaxing. Open up a garden now, and discover the ways that it can assist you.