Gardening is a hobby that pays off in multiple ways. Starting your planting in the garage can help you jumpstart your new pastime in comfort while providing your seedlings and sprouts with the environment they need to thrive.
How should you arrange your space? Learn about the supplies you need and tips and tricks to improve your chances of a bumper crop.
Table Of Contents
Why Should You Start a Garden in Your Garage?
There are scores of reasons to start a garden in your garage, from improving your health to launching a lucrative side hustle.
1. Improve Your Mental Health
Gardening is one of the best hobbies for improving your mental health. It puts you in touch with the life cycle, gets you outdoors in the sunshine and increases your sense of agency — the deep belief that your actions make a difference.
Many people also find it a soothing, mindful activity that reduces stress and increases inner peace and calm.
2. Get More Activity Each Day
Many Americans don’t get enough movement in their day. Gardening is far more physically active than binge-watching Netflix. Even heading to the garage to tend your seedlings gets you off the couch and inspires blood flow to your brain and other organs.
3. Provide Your Family With Fresh, Organic Food
Anyone who has been grocery shopping lately knows that inflation takes a bite out of your food budget. Starting a garden in your garage provides an alternative source of organic produce, trimming your weekly bill while keeping your family fed on wholesome nutrition.
4. Create a Renewable Food Source
If you’ve got a touch of prepper in you, starting a garden is one of the best things you can do to prepare for emergencies. Getting started is the hardest part — not something you want to do in a tough survival situation. Gardening, along with foraging and hunting, lets you live off-grid and stay healthy — you enjoy better nutrition than many city folks with such a diet.
5. Learn Valuable New Skills
Why do so few people take up gardening and stick with it? Like any skill, practice makes perfect. It takes time to learn how to nurture seeds into seedlings and produce the best crops. It can get expensive — but a garage creates the perfect environment for honing tricks that keep your costs low.
6. Beautify Your Landscape Affordably
Many food crops also add beauty to your landscape — for example, sweet potatoes produce beautiful flowers that resemble morning glories. And who said you had to stick to cucumbers and peppers? You can start a garden of ornamentals in your garage that you use to create a more aesthetically pleasing landscape.
7. Earn a Little Side Cash
Plants can put a little extra green in your pocket once you get good at gardening. Check with area nurseries about selling your excess plants, or consider setting up a stand at your neighborhood farmer’s market.
Creating the Right Space for Your Garage Garden
Why is your garage the right space to start your garden? For one, it keeps young plants safe from insect pests and larger critters away from those that have already started growing. That makes it ideal for starting seedlings.
Furthermore, your garage presents a more consistent indoor temperature if you lack a greenhouse. Upgrading your insulation and selecting a door with a high R-value does double-duty in maintaining your home’s interior temperature and lowering your energy bills. It gives you a place to protect outdoor potted plants from frost over the winter while sprouting seedlings for the coming growing season.
How much space you need depends on the size of the garden you desire. Even a single space provides plenty of room if you park elsewhere, like in your driveway.
Folks with two-car garages may consider dividing off a space along one wall for a few plants or a larger area for more extensive plots. If you’re among the lucky few with a three-car garage, you can devote that extra bay to your garage garden.
Best Garden Garage Supplies You’ll Need
The trip to the garden garage supplies is where the fun begins. You’ll need at least a few basics, although you can opt for more extensive — and expensive — gadgets if you want.
The Basics
- Potting soil: You might already have a stash if you’ve composted for a while. Otherwise, you’ll need good earth. If sprouting seedlings, look for some specially formulated for that purpose. Those who compost can skip this purchase, using the soil they create from their food scraps.
- Various-sized containers: You’ll need plenty of smaller cups or trays for seedlings and larger containers for shrubbery or plants you intend to grow in pots. Ensure that the ones you choose have sufficient drainage holes to avoid root rot from water accumulation.
- Seeds: Select varieties that delight you — if choosing to plant food, opt for veggies and fruits your family loves. You can even experiment with saving seeds from the produce your family already buys, although it works best if you already eat organic. Store-bought vegetables often consist of genetically modified hybrids and such seeds may not produce much.
- Water: You might get by with an old-fashioned watering can if you plan to start a smaller garden in your garage. However, a misting or small drip irrigation system can maintain a consistent moisture level.
Optional Supplies
- Grow lights: Many garages don’t get much natural sunlight. If yours falls into this category, a set of grow lights significantly increases your chances of gardening success, especially with species that enjoy full sun.
- An irrigation system: Drip systems keep the soil moisture constant, while misters can add humidity if starting a garage garden in an arid region.
- Furniture and shelving: Those who only start a small garage garden might place their containers on the floor. However, doing so can make it chilly and require you to bend over to tend to your plants. A long table and various shelves provide container space and easier accessibility.
Tips for Maintaining and Protecting Your Garage Garden
Maintaining the garden garage requires a seasonal approach.
1. Winter
Now’s the time for experimenting with starting various seedlings and discovering what each species needs to sprout. Pay attention to how long each variety takes to go from seed to outdoor planting and get an early start to leave time for correcting mistakes.
2. Spring
Spring is the time to begin your outdoor gardening. However, you may choose to leave many of your plants in containers if you live in a townhome and plan to move your garden from the garage to the patio.
Many species thrive in containers, including:
- Peppers
- Tomatoes
- Sweet potatoes
- Beans
- Begonias
- Fuschia
- Petunias
- Olive trees
- Lemon trees
- Hydrangea
- Laurel
3. Summer
Summer is the season to tend to what you’ve planted. It’s also the best time to start some fall veggies from seed, including:
- Beets
- Broccoli
- Spinach
- Cabbage
- Kale
- Cauliflower
Plants you’ve successfully transplanted or relocated outdoors need protection from pests. Use natural methods, such as ladybugs, diatomaceous earth and Neem oil and spray. You can also spray a mild dish soap solution on outdoor plants to discourage smaller, soft-bodied insects like aphids, mites and whiteflies.
4. Fall
Fall is the harvest season. It’s also when you should begin moving outdoor containers back into your garage to protect them from frost. Clean and rearrange your garage garden space before returning the containers and setting out your supplies for winter seed sprouting.
Starting a Garden in Your Garage:
Starting a garden garage has oodles of benefits, from improving your mental and physical health to making you feel more secure. It’s an easy, mindful hobby that provides joy in every season of the year.
Follow the steps above to start a garden in your garage. Even those who begin small can grow thriving victory gardens with a little help from free parking.
