20 Fresh Garden and Landscaping Habits Set to Guide You Through Every Cozy Fall Day in 2026

Curiosities
11/13/2026
20 Fresh Garden and Landscaping Habits Set to Guide You Through Every Cozy Fall Day in 2026

Gardening can really help bring a family together. It and other similar outdoor activities can also help give people a sense of accomplishment and help them explore their creativity. Thanks to this, people also love to share their own personal tips and ways of transforming their yards. People have especially been sharing plans to help people take control over their gardens in this modern era.

  • “Crop rotation is key to good gardening. I let everything seed, but I collect and store the seed and plant in different beds in following years.
    The other thing is green manures, which are another key element of soil gardening IMHO.”
  • “Bought a house with a lovely garden; got a great deal. Last week my realtor called me, ‘You need to tell me right now. Have you touched the garden yet?’ I said yes. ‘Which part?’ I said, ‘Left side, behind the house.’ She said, ‘Stop. Don’t move. You need to call 911 right this second.’
    I laughed, because I thought it was a joke. She didn’t. ‘The old owner’s son just called me,’ she said. ‘There’s a well under there, and he doesn’t think anyone has ever capped it. Please, just call.’
    Two firefighters came with a long metal rod. Under the mint bed they found a square of rotted boards, and one of them dropped a pebble through. We stood there waiting a lot longer than I liked. ‘Another week of watering that spot and you’d have gone right through,’ the younger one said. I’d been kneeling on it for two weeks.
    The son showed up an hour later, out of breath. ‘I found Dad’s notebook,’ he said. ‘He wrote about the well when he got sick, but he never told anyone. He planted mint on top so the grandkids would stay away.’ The crew ripped out the mint and poured the cap the next week.
    The son stood at the fence and watched. ‘My dad had garlic all along that wall,’ he said. ‘He’d hand out bags of it to anybody who walked by.’ In October I bought a bag of cloves and texted him. He came over that Saturday with a pair of gloves, and we put them in along the wall.”
Bright Side
  • “Keep a garden diary. Mine is just a Google document separated into a lot of tabs. I make quick notes on everything from planting dates, fertilization ratios, weather patterns, and garden tasks. It saves so much time and brain processing power.”
  • “I planted garlic in my garden, but something about it looked wrong. I dug up a few bulbs and drove them to a home gardening center to ask an expert for advice. When he examined the garlic, the color drained from his face. Turns out they were the shallots I planted. I neglected to mark my plants properly.
    In addition to being a gardener, I’ve been a cook for years, and even I got confused by my own crops. So label everything you plant, even when you’re sure you’ll remember what went where.”
Bright Side
  • “I keep a photo album, including photos of seed packets and tags from purchased plants. It’s on the computer, so broken down by year, then by which garden. There’s a document in there I can put notes in as well.”
  • “For the most part, yeah, it’s just throwing some dirt in and making sure it’s properly fed and watered. You can find some bulbs online or at places like Lowes or Walmarts if that’s your thing, too.
    Some people plan their bed out more, some people don’t. A lot of wildflower mixes aren’t very good from what I know, though, just a fair warning there. But it doesn’t hurt to try!
    Just be aware of what you’re planting. Some flowers/plants (e.g. mint and morning glory) will take over real quick.”
  • “Go out there every day. You don’t need a plan. You don’t need to ‘decide it’s time to weed.’ Just show up, 15 minutes or 30 minutes or whatever, like it’s your favorite coffee spot.”
  • “Nature does not like empty space. If you have empty space in the garden, nature will fill it with weeds. Plant flowers and things that grow at difference pace and that you don’t pick at the same time.
    I planted kohlrabi between the zuchs plant this year. Kohlrabi grow fast and large but by the time they were ready, the zuchs plant began to fill the space to so even by removing the kohlrabi, there was not much space left betwee the zuchs plants.
    Also, just let the radish flower and do their delicious radish pods. Let some on the plant and you’ll have a radish spot year after year without even planting them.”
  • “Choose a bunch of plants to suit your climate zone and the amount of sun your garden gets. Put the big ones at the back. Think about how the colors of the flowers and leaves will mix.
    Get a variety of forms — eg broad leaves and grasses. Don’t worry about getting it wrong — you can change over time.”
  • “Getting a hori hori garden knife for Christmas a couple years ago. It was a total game changer and wish I had found out about them decades ago. Ended up getting a second one as my husband and I often do weeding together.
    Also, a garden kneeler. Saves my knees sooooo much lol”

What are some tips your family has for gardening and other outdoor activities?

  • “Rain barrels. Brought down my watering costs by a LOT.
    When it comes time to weed, I limit myself to a section or time limit each day so I don’t get overwhelmed. It’s made things so much more doable.”
  • “Enjoying the time in the sun.
    Found myself worrying too much about every little thing this year up until the end of the season. Could’ve just been the weather turning better or summer kicking in. But taking a step back and just enjoying the time in my zen space put everything in perspective. Idk feeling sentimental.”
  • “Just watch it. My husband & boys call it my ‘rock time’. When I come home from work, I go sit on a rock in my yard, dogs sprawled beside me and I just look.
    I watch it all. For half an hour. I usually ring my mum, sister or a friend, but I don’t stare at my phone, I look around, wander around and just look closely.
    I know every inch of that garden, every plant and patch of soil...like I know the faces of my loved ones. I love my garden and I know it, so know how to care for it.”
  • “I keep a garden journal with a garden ’future log.’ It’s something I picked up from journaling and migrated to my garden journal. At the end of each season, I make a yearly overview of next year and break it down by month. I list out all the things I need to do for the garden that month.
    For EX: February I start my cold weather crops inside for a mid March planting. So I break it down into tasks. Then each month gets broken down into weekly lists of things ill need to do.
    It helps me stay organized. It’s a lot of work up front but it’s so helpful when you’re in the middle of a heavy season and have a lot to manage.
    Plus the garden journal itself is so helpful for tracking when things were planted and fertilized, etc.”
  • “Companion planting is 100% worth learning! I grew up in a farming community and at first I thought I had to plant everything in perfect and evenly spaced rows but weeds and pests were overwhelming to deal with.
    Learning what plants do well when planted close to each other is a game changer. I hardly had to spend any time weeding because more of the soil was covered up with crops I actually planted.”
  • “I try to keep up with the necessary things (watering, tying to trellises, etc) daily and then let the plants tell me what else they need and the weather (and mosquito population) dictates how much time I want to spend out there.
    Next year I am hoping to put irrigation in so I can focus more on things like weeding. I have ADHD so I can really go down the side quest black hole, but I try to keep all my tools (and extra gloves) in one place so it’s harder to get completely sidetracked. And that place is right next to my vegetable garden, which is where I prefer to put in the most time.
    My front shade beds are on their own other than a good weeding once a month or so.”
  • “One fall I placed a metric ton of leaves and grass clippings on the garden in the fall and left it over winter. In the spring, I tilled it all in. I had the best garden I have ever had.
    This year I used fewer leaves and grass and included a year’s worth of chicken bedding. Hoping next year will be the best yet.”
  • “I inherited a large garden a few years ago! I try to leave a garden-specific master to-do list in my notes app so that whenever I get a burst of motivation, I can just look and choose whatever task feels the most rewarding with the time and energy I have to give.
    I knocked out my biggest project yesterday and I feel SO accomplished today. I will feel behind tomorrow though.”
  • “Late last summer our housing company (like an HOA but not a bad one) suddenly decided we needed to renovate all the plinths on the houses. I didn’t even know what a plinth was before then.
    Well, I have a garden bed in the backyard that I use for beans because I train them up the trellis that leans on the house, and the beans and the trellis block about 2 meters of plinth.
    I live in a cold climate and have been trying to get more than 3 runner beans for YEARS, and we finally had a hot, moist summer and my precious runner beans were looking great. I was thinking, this is the year for runner beans!
    And then the plinth guys came and needed access to the wall and it was carnage. Plaster everywhere, and we even had to call them back because they painted it blue at first and it was terrible.
    I tried to temporarily transplant the beans’ roots into plastic bags and hung them higher on the trellis out of the way, but it just looked like I had decorated my trellis with dead vines and dog poop bags.
    Most plants were gone immediately but a few did survive and even kept growing after I replanted them.... and then we got an early hard frost, just one. Maybe this year I’ll have runner beans.”
  • “Years ago we had a couple small vegetable gardens in our backyard. Year 1 was pretty good, some things got eaten by animals but plenty of tomatoes, beans, kale, etc. Year two, maybe we weren’t as diligent about things and stuff didn’t sprout like normal, but eventually plants started growing.
    I made sure to weed around this one specific row of ‘stuff’ that kept growing, I don’t even remember what I thought it was. Well eventually I realized this was not the vegetable I thought, looked 10 feet away and saw the exact same plants I had been tending to for weeks/months were just random weeds that were also growing in my neighbor’s yard.
    That day I learned to understand what your plants actually look like.”

Ultimately, these outdoor activities, with the right planning and a sense of creativity, can work wonders. Please share any gardening tips of your own with us in the comments.

Preview photo credit Bright Side

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