Gardening for gains began with my first attempt at a garden. It wasn’t all that bad in the beginning of the season; harvested 10 pounds of spinach, had a few strawberries, yukon gold potatoes, way too many chili peppers and a head of broccoli. The name Gardening for Gains came from my brother when we were in the garden after a lifting session and it just stuck from that point on. I may not be quite as hell-bent on bodybuilding as my “little” brother, but I’m still dedicated to lifting & healthy-ish diet, I love gardening, and so the name fit on that level as well as a philosophical one.

Like bodybuilding, gardening has no instant gratification – what you put in is what you get out. It takes patience, perseverance, and passion to endure the slow-moving process of cultivating gains. It takes a lot of research mixed with educated guesses and experimentation once you get a feel for what you’re doing.

The first year I started gardening, which was last year, I planted a few things in the ground but planted a lot of things in Root Pouches. A Root Pouch is a fabric pot made from recycled water bottles that are then spun into fibers and manufactured into a nursery container. The main benefit to the plant is that it air-prunes the roots, creating a dense fibrous root ball. Not sure if it was the best choice for spinach (although it grew amazingly) but the tomatoes looked great – grew really tall – but I did not fertilize enough & it rained all summer long which caused a lot of disease and fungus since the garden area was slightly sunken since it was our old swing set area.

This year I brought in topsoil in the fall and then covered that with leaves from my Grandpa’s woods – about 4 pick-up truckloads for my 28’x30′ plot. I brought more dirt in the spring, tilled it into my clay-packed soil & then come home one day to my Grandpa in my garden, “You wanted manure, I got you some manure buddy!”. So I tilled it in twice around and came out with a healthy soil mixture. It only took about 6-8 truckloads of soil and a truck of manure haha!

But the whole point is that even though the first garden was not as big a success as the current one is, I learned more and wanted to learn more so that I could be as successful as possible – but it isn’t even in the sense of success that I thrive, but in the sense of the passion. I imagine that my passion for gardening is similar to my brother’s passion for bodybuilding – and I do have that passion, but not to the degree that he does. It is something that pulls you from within your soul towards it and the point is that you are meant for it and it for you because it is a symbiotic relationship where both enhance each other.

So I garden for gains; it is a passion of mine & it enhances my life physically, psychologically & spiritually. It’s a little bit of science and a lot of faith; a lot of hard work and the curiosity to think what-if and to Google every single aspect of planning, planting, pruning, fertilizing, pest management & everything in-between. I planned my garden out in excruciating  detail, but not everything survived that I originally planned for and the spacing didn’t completely translate from paper to reality.

Here’s how it looks right now:

I really did pack as much into this space as I could. Really felt like I could’ve done better last year, so this year I made sure to!

A lot of my garden was planned around the concept of companion planting, though it didn’t always work out. I had to have both tomatoes and potatoes but they aren’t necessarily good to plant next to each other due to the fact that they can share the same blight. The rest of the garden is planned more appropriately.

• Sunflowers & Cucumbers – they are great companions, the theory is that the cucumbers provide shade to the roots of the sunflowers which reduces weeds & helps retain moisture, while the sunflowers provide a natural trellis to the cucumbers.
• Corn – excellent companions with cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, & beans (which I have sprinkled in next to the corn, but didn’t list on the plan due to space). Also, placed the tomatoes far away from corn because they share the same pests/worms.
• Carrots & Onions – also good companions, and root crops so that’s why I put them in the raised bed and they get along with all surrounding plants.
• Pumpkins & Watermelon – from the same family and good companions with corn.
• Tomatoes, Peppers & Onions – all good buddies in the garden and once I harvest them and throw them together in a nice spicy salsa!

So this is my passion and I will be writing more about Gardening for Gains tips on companion planting, fertilization, irrigation, pest management, & anything else that can help you make gains in the garden! Follow me on Instagram @gardeningforgains to see more of the current garden and the new plot coming in August!

And in case you’re wondering what’s in the garden plan above: carrots & green onions in one box, strawberries & broccoli in the other, and then left to right: sunflowers, cucumbers, pumpkins, Silver Queen sweet corn, garden beans (not pictured), pumpkins & watermelon, red, blue & purple potatoes, Big Boy, Roma, Purple Cherokee & some rogue Cherry tomatoes, jalapeños are the dark green chilis, bright green are Thai chilis, red chili peppers, orange are habaneros, the white radish is garlic, bell peppers, cilantro at the top, dill at the top right, and the flowers by the carrots are Columbus hops.

-Danny