Gather some ideas for planning your garden, whether it will be for home or commercial use. These tips will help you save money on equipment, and select the best methods to use in your garden.
Your plants need to adapt and must be gradually introduced to changes in temperature or condition. Try to place them in the new area for a couple of hours at a time the first day. Throughout the week, you should increase a little at a time how long you have them outside. Hopefully, after about a week or so, your plants should have adjusted to the change. Now you can transplant them without any worries.
Digging in clay soil with a shovel can be very difficult. The clay isn’t easy to work with and will adhere to the shovel, which only makes the problem worse. Coat and buff the digging end of the shovel with automobile wax to make digging easier. The clay will slide off of its surface and it will prevent rust.
Use pots to start your plants, then transfer them to a garden when they become seedlings. This really increases the survival rate of young plants. It also permits you to tighten the time between plantings. Once you remove the most recent mature plants from your garden, the seedlings are immediately ready to be planted.
If you want your garden to sport flowers in the spring as well as summer, plant bulbs. Most bulbs are extremely hearty and grow easily. They also come back year after year. Include a variety of plantings to get a full season of flowers, from early bloomers to late-season varieties.
When autumn has arrived, you must plant everything you want to eat before winter. Rather than using clay pots or planters for your lettuce and kale, plant them in a pumpkin! Once you cut an opening at the top of the pumpkin and scoop out the insides, spray the inside and edges with Wilt-Pruf to keep the pumpkin from rotting. You are prepared to plant after this is done.
When you mow your lawn, do not mow it close to the ground. If you leave your grass a bit longer, the roots can grow deeper. This results in a lawn that is stronger and less likely to dry out. If you have short grass, you will have short roots and you will dry out your grass.
Before you start planting your garden, plan it! This will help you to remember where you planted the different plants when sprouts begin to shoot up from the ground. You can also avoid losing the smaller plants, or in larger gardens, the small plant groups.
If you are looking for an all-natural, organic way to weed your garden, consider “boiling off” the weeds. Water is cheaper than chemical herbicides, and less hazardous to humans and soil. All you need to do is apply boiling water right to the weeds you want to get rid of. Be careful not to get any on the plants you want to keep. Boiling water damages the weed roots and will inhibit future growth.
A touch of organic mulch will boost the potential of the vegetable plants in your garden. The mulch will help keep the soil moist for longer periods of time. In addition, mulch will help you to prevent weeds. This can prevent you from having to constantly pull weeds.
Potted Plants
Try pouring water leftover from steamed vegetables onto your potted plants. It contains rich nutrients that come from the vegetables. If you grow rhododendrons, azaleas or gardenias, increase the acid in your your soil by working in coffee or tea grounds. If fungus is ravaging your potted plants, sprinkle a bit of Chamomile tea on them, and see if it helps.
Keep your garden free from broad-spectrum pesticides. Besides killing the insects you don’t want, this type of pesticide will also kill beneficial insects. Many times good bugs will be more sensitive to harmful pesticides than the ones you are trying to get rid of. If your good bug population goes down, your problem will only get worse. If you respond to the growing pest problem with more broad-spectrum pesticide, you only continue the harmful cycle.
Heat softens vegetables, so you can damage them immensely by pulling them out of the ground or cutting them off vines when it is too hot outside. Cut vegetables off at the vine, and don’t twist them off, as this could hurt the plant.
If you want to get children in on the fun, plant a few strawberries, everbearing if possible. Children find it fun to pick strawberries and love to assist with the harvest if they get some yummy treats as they work.
You never want to do any horticulture with open wounds, so make sure everything is completely healed up before you begin; otherwise, you run the risk of your cut being exposed to dangerous chemicals and dirt. If an open wound is not protected while you are working in the garden, dirt and bacteria may cause the cut to become infected. You can completely seal the area using some of the great bandages that are now available.
It just requires doing research, working a lot outside, and having a lot of patience. Your efforts will be rewarded by a great garden, and the satisfaction of having created something yourself.