There are three gardening resolutions you can make that are easy to stick to and will completely transform the look of your garden.

Watering

Start with watering – everybody’s favourite gardening job.  It’s not often I say do less of a gardening job but if you lessen the frequency you water your garden but increase the amount of water you give it when you do water you will protect your garden in times of drought.  Long watering sessions teaches the roots of your plants to grow deep in the soil so when it’s a stinking hot summer day they bounce back quicker and experience less stress.  If you can keep your mulch topped up to 75mm at all times your garden will look amazing no matter what mother nature throws at it.

Weeding

Then there’s everybody’s least favourite job – weeding.  This should be done little and often but don’t beat yourself up if you don’t do it.  Being happy with weeding is all about changing your mindset.  I used to get infuriated when I couldn’t finish the weeding, I seemed to be called away with only ten minutes to go, it might have been the kids, Juliet, work the dogs – not finishing it used to really get to me.  Then I realised the weeding would never be finished, even if the garden bed I was working on would be done, sure enough the weeds would come back.  Once I had this minor epiphany I never minded if it was done or not and I really started to enjoy the process and quite time I did get mindlessly pulling weeds out.   It didn’t take long before the stress of weeding was gone, and the garden looked much tidier for it.

Compost

Starting a compost heap is the most important resolution. Keeping food waste out of the bin not only provides excellent material for composting but also significantly benefits the environment. Small changes can make a big difference.  

Compost is the cheapest and most effective way to transform your garden by boosting soil health, helping it to hold onto moisture and nutrients for longer and it doesn’t have to be difficult.  If you are new to composting, I would start with one of the dalek looking compost bins you can buy at bunnings.  If you are worried about vermin, you can easily fit steel mesh to the base, with cable ties, to stop them from digging under the lip and getting in.  Then to make the ongoing work so much easier I would take an old PVC pipe or buy a meter length and drill holes all through it – this sits in the centre and draws air into the heap so you don’t have to turn it by hand.  Then it really is a simple as start filling it up.

Compost is made of green and brown parts, and getting the right mix is imperative to preventing any problems - you need to mix two parts brown to one part green.  The green parts are lawn clippings, weeds, kitchen scraps and coffee grounds, brown parts are the dead elements like leaves, twigs, shredded paper or cardboard anything dry and dead.  99% of problems with a compost heap come down to too much green being added so keep a bag of pine bark mulch nearby and top up when you add your kitchen scraps.  Once your bin is full its time to leave it alone; when the contents turns black, crumbly and is sweet smelling it’s time to get it out and dig it through your garden