What's It Like Having a Garden Coach?

Caring for a garden can bring immense joy! There are so many aspects to think about when starting to grow your own food. It can be overwhelming! New gardeners can feel alone in their journey and don’t have any experienced gardener to be mentored by. 

Gather Gardeners is bridging the gap by providing new gardeners with 1:1 support with a Master Gardener, who can teach new gardeners how to garden and answer their gardening questions. Just as someone may train with a life or business coach for mentorship and expertise, we provide the support to care for edible plants. 

“As someone who is new to vegetable gardening, I was looking for some professional guidance since mistakes can often cost you an entire growing season. Jessica was the exact person I was looking for.”

~Brendan

We often have new gardeners ask:

“Do I need to test my soil?”, “how do I know what nutrients to add and when?”, “how do I prune my tomato plants?”, “why do my plants have lots of leaves, but no fruit?”, “how do I get rid of these pests?”, and so many more! Our goal is not to design or maintain a garden, but to give new gardeners the tools, resources and guidance to gain the confidence to care for a garden themselves.

We are there for the highs and the lows of the gardening journey. We want new gardeners to have that sense of accomplishment when taking a step back to look at the garden and reflect on the progress as a gardener.

What does it look like to have a garden coach?

Brendan came to us with 1 year of gardening experience and a curiosity to learn why some plants were not thriving as well as he had hoped.

We started with an in-person, on-site garden consultation to evaluate the space. We reviewed his set-up and provided advice such as: how to improve the quality of the soil in his raised garden beds, what nutrients to apply to yellowing plants, as well as step-by-step instructions on how to “harden-off” plants.

“Gather Gardeners has been providing invaluable instruction on how to navigate the intricacies of growing food with site visits and ongoing consultation. As more and more people see the benefits of growing food at home, leaning into experts like Jessica can really help in that process."

~Brendan

Brendan was gearing up to move to a new property with a front and backyard space. We conducted a site-visit and we walked through the property to evaluate the environmental conditions. We recommended which locations were best for leafy greens, fruiting crops, and even mushrooms.

We also focused on demonstrations using plants right in Brendan’s garden! We reviewed how to improve plant spacing and the benefits of ensuring your soil is covered as much as possible. I provided tomato pruning demonstrations and how to harvest zucchinis. We finished the consultation by transplanting strawberries into his tower garden together.

“For me, the most value is having someone as a resource whom I can text or call with questions.”

~ Brendan

Brendan has participated in a gardener-on-speed-dial service for several months, where he had access to asking a master gardener questions the moment he had them directly from his own garden!

This was a chance for Brendan to send photos to celebrate his successes as well as to diagnose unhealthy plants and understand not only what was wrong, but was given detailed instructions on how to solve and prevent it from happening again in the future.

Here at Gather Gardeners, we do not believe in a design and dash model of garden consultations. We are here to dive into those concerns right alongside you and answer those questions.

Get in touch to gain confidence in the garden with our attentive & supportive garden coach.

Happy gardening!

Jess