After your garden starts growing, you get into the next level which is garden maintenance to reach its full potential. Here’s what it takes to produce excellent tasting, nutritious vegetables all seasons long.
yes! You did it! Your garden now starts developing… but the task is far from done 🙁 Now it’s time for garden maintenance, the staking, mulching, watering, and basically general garden care. in this post, I have put together pieces of information that will guarantee your garden is a massive success throughout the whole growing period. I have also provided tricks and techniques for increasing your harvest when it gets cold.
so here are 9 tricks for garden maintenance you need to know …
1.Watering
you and I know that plants need water, but watering can be a bit tricky. Regular watering will deliver great results. You also should consider drip irrigation or a soaker tube, essentially if you have a big garden. it saves more than half of the water used by sprinkler systems and will guarantee that your plants are watered without the leaves getting soaked which will help limit disease issues.
You will know if you’ve overwatered if the soil throughout the plant stem is soaked. moss or mold developing on the top of your soil is another dead giveaway as the plant with yellowing, wilting or dead leaf margins.
limited watering has another set of symptoms: wilting of plants, brown or dead leaves, stunted growth.
Besides direct observation, just like all of us, you can also purchase a moisture meter to help measure whether roots are too wet or too dry.
If you’re watering recently planted seeds, be mindful to smoothly sprinkle water on them. Don’t use a torrent from a hose or a bucket that has enough force to falsely wash away seeds or get them to clump together.
2.how to know your soil…
2.Know Your Soil
as you know many soil types have many watering needs. Nevertheless, you don’t need to be a soil specialist to know how to water accurately. The tips below are presented by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service:
get your soil around plants to loosen so it can instantly consume water and nutrients.
you can use up to 2-inches protective layer of mulch on the surface of your soil above the root area. Mulching and Cultivating decrease evaporation and soil erosion.
?Worm Castings are the rich digested soil that red wiggler worms drop behind. Savvy landscapers know them to be chock-packed of organic plant meals, plus useful microbes — as many as 10 thousand different kinds — that support plant growth and assist fight off disease.
for Clay soil: you can simply add organic material such as compost or peat moss. to help loosen the soil you can simply Till or spade. as you know, clay soil absorbs water very slowly, please water only as fast as your soil absorbs the water.
Sandy soil: simply add organic material to supplement sandy soil. Otherwise, the water can run into it so fast that plants won’t be able to consume it.
Loam soil: our favorite kind of soil. It’s a mixture of sand, silt, and clay. Loam consumes water readily and stores it for plants to use.
3.your Mulch is Great for your garden maintenance!
as you know laying down your natural materials provide various purposes such as:
Enhances soil retention of moisture
Monitors soil temperature
Stops soil from eroding
Decreases diseases
Decreases weed growth (must be up to 4-inches thick and reapplied to keep weeds down)
Nearly all organic matter can be utilized as mulch materials for example hay, straw, leaves, sawdust, paper, bark, or grass clippings.
Mulch is suitably used in the spring, but don’t do it too early, or else you’ll delay the soil’s warming. As stated by the University of Georgia, it’s very beneficial to wait until the soil is 65°F at least four inches deep before applying mulch.
a quick note: your unwanted coffee grounds and Pine needles make excellent mulch for acid-loving plants such as azaleas, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons.
4. Garden Maintenance. how to easily Keep Your Garden Healthy
Here are some Garden Maintenance tips for you to keep your garden green, healthy, and growing to its fullest potential:
Feed your soil and the soil feeds the plants. Healthy soil encourages healthy plants that are more capable of resisting insect and disease issues. Feed your soil with lots of compost and well-aged manure.
A SAFE alternative to RoundUp! AllDown Organic Herbicide — a 20% vinegar weed destroyer, plus citric acid, your number one product to go for when you’re tempted to give up or resort to chemicals.
weeds control. Weeds can be a big problem in and of themselves, however, they also harbor insects and disease. If you weed frequently, especially at the start of the growing season, it should be easy for you to keep weeds at bay.
Take out the lifeless. Get rid of your rotting or dead vegetation such as leaves, pulled weeds, and plant stalks. Dying vegetable matter is a haven for pests.
Clean your tools. Keep diseases out of your garden by regularly disinfecting your tools. This is again essential if your tools come in contact with infected plant parts. for more information on disease control Visit the University of Georgia College of Agricultural.
Stay chill When heat strikes, simply provide shade to your plants to keep them from wilting. Cheesecloth makes great shade cover.
Provide help. There are numerous benefits to using plant supports such as trellises, stakes, A-frames, and tepees:
- It expands the range in your garden
- helps plants with more exposure to light.
3. Distributes air.
4. It makes it more comfortable to prune and harvest.
Pick, pick, and pick.
Harvest your veggies as soon as they are ripe and remove harvested plants. If they are infected by diseases, add them to the compost pile, or, if appropriate, re-work into the soil.
stay clean.
Remove the diseased sections of your plants to defend your healthy ones. Locate how much of the plant you need to remove. Sometimes just taking off infected leaves is enough. Depending on the disease, you may need to remove the whole plant.
sometimes it’s not too early to start. After harvesting your plants and separated the debris from the garden, leave the soil exposed for several days and then cultivate it in order to get ready for next season’s garden.
5.Extender your season!!
when employing simple materials like a plastic tarp or elaborate a fully-automated greenhouse, various vegetable gardeners are operating around the weather and getting the maximum out of their crops.
Season extenders, which cover plants from cold, include:
Cold Frames are a different solution. actually, for some more common environments, gardening can be a year-round activity because of them. Most cold frames are nothing more than a painted plywood frame onto which you put old storm windows to serve as the glazing panels.
Row covers:
they only cover plants with insulating material and prevents them from freezing. They can be utilized in the spring to encourage start plants sooner or in the fall, to keep them going.
Row covers can be created from plastic sheeting or what’s known as “floating row” cover material. One issue with plastic is that it is impermeable, moisture stays trapped and so no air can get in.
a simple way to get through this is to create or purchase frames, a simple wire arch so you can cover your plants with the plastic sheeting, with air still circulating
Cloches:
private greenhouses for plants. There are like instant-made choices available and appear in paper or plastic form. You can easily make your own using something as simple as a cut-up milk jug.
Hotbeds:
they are the next step up from cold frames. They’re just cold frames with heating cables to keep your soil warm. (in the past, pre-cable gardeners used fresh manure to heat the hotbed.)
Greenhouses:
they are the original extension devices that you can build or purchase your greenhouse from here.
If you fancy using season extenders, you will have to reconsider your planting and harvest calendars because you will be ready to plant earlier and can harvest later.
For instance, fall crops should be commenced in July. be aware that many leafy crops will grow more slowly when started later in the season since the days are getting shorter and sun exposure is less.
Additionally, reevaluate what you would like to grow for your second season. usually, you want hardier plants for your fall crop.
the ones which can actually endure light frosts and snow, are kale, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage