Tips for a successful garden:
With a little knowledge about plants and soil, anyone can have a successful garden and start to hone in the “green thumb”. Here are some garden tips that could boom you your garden this year.
1. Don’t plant too soon. For many people in the southern reigns of the US, spring starts earlier and warms up quickly. For us in Colorado, spring can mean warm sunny days or spring snow storms, that can do damage to young trees and plants. To avoid this, find out what your average last frost date is and use that as a judge as when to plant. Mothers Day is the marker for us so around the 1st of June. If you plan on growing under cover or in a green house, you can start cool weather crops a little sooner. For warm season vegetables, you need to wait for the heat of the summer to kick in as cool night temperatures could stunt or kill warm loving plants.
2. Plant selection: Plant things that high survival rate. Most vegetables and flowers can be grown in most places with at least a 3 month growing. Tip: grow native species flowers, plants, and trees that are local to your region this way you know they perform well there.
3. Plants need a consistent watering schedule. The more consistently they get watered, the better they should perform, granted, you are not overwatering and drowning your plants. Watering is best done in the cool mornings or evenings when the sun is not out at its peak and evaporation of water is at a minimum. Tip: Drip irrigation or hand watering at the base of plants will help keep unwanted bacterias or pests from the soil from splashing up on leaves and spreading.
4. Soil Health is the most important aspect of gardening. Many people see it as dirt, but “soil” is a mixture of sands, silts, and clays with beneficial microbes and organisms that make your soil be alive and help your plants. The more alive your soil, the better plants will grow. If you grow in soil and do not add anything to it each year, plants will quickly deplete your soils nutrients, leaving with poor results at the end of the season. Compost is black gold in the minds of gardeners. Tip: Adding compost to your garden soil each year will add back beneficial microbes as well as fertilizers that your plants need to thrive and will help your soil create a better looser structure over time which decreases compaction and increases oxygen in the soil.
Save time and money and keep your garden soil healthy by keeping out of the beds, heavy compaction leads to compaction of the soil that reduces oxygen and the ability for plant roots to travel.
Save time and money and keep your garden soil healthy by keeping out of the beds, heavy compaction leads to compaction of the soil that reduces oxygen and the ability for plant roots to travel.
5. Keep your Soil Covered by Mulching. Mulch Is anything organic you use to cover the soil; dried leaves or straw are most commonly used. Covering creates a buffer between the sun and the soil which helps cool the soil, keeping it more humid and thus reducing evaporation and the need to water as much. Mulch also helps conserve the life in the soil that would literarily be baked out of it by Summer heat if soil is bare. Tip: At the end of the growing season, cover your soil again to tuck it in for winter. This helps reduce soil erosion and will keep the soil a little warmer through the winter.
6. Pruning promotes more growth. If a plant has a leaf or branch that isn’t looking good, trim it off and compost it. Plants will push nutrients and energy into the whole plant so trimming off non productive branches and leaves, gives more energy to the rest of the plant that is in good health. Pruning also helps by giving plants more space to breath. Plants take in co2 through their leaves so when plants get overgrown and crowded, air and light have a harder time getting through which could cause other issues. Pruning unnecessary plant growth with help the overall health of the plant. Tip: if you have flowers, pruning off spent flowers, will keep production up of new flowers to produce. If you grow pumpkins, you can prune off flowers that will focus more energy on a limited number of flowers that are left which will leads to larger size pumpkins at harvest.
7. Using compost tea is a way to add back these beneficial microbes. Compost tea or aerated compost tea is a compost that sits in water as an aerator pumps oxygen into the water; Plants and soils benefit greatly from having and/or adding microorganisms. These beneficial organisms and bacteria act as a line of defense from other pathogens and pests. The more “biology” there is in the soil, the healthier your plants will be.
Quick DIY Compost Recipe: Compost tea consists of 5 gallon buckets, water, compost, unsulphard molasses, and an air pump. The air and molasses feed the microbes from the compost. You let your compost tea brew for 24-48 hours and use it within there day it is finished as it will turn quickly. The teas can be used to water the root zone or even better, spray the leaves.
Tip: Plants absorb a large percentage or nutrients through their leaves. Spraying compost teas on the plants leaves, tops and undersides, will greatly improve vigor of your plants. Reminder: Use only un-chlorinated water with compost teas, as chlorines and chemicals used to kill bad pathogens also kills the beneficial organisms in your compost teas. You can buy de-chlorinators that attach to your gardens hose spigot and removes these chemicals.
Quick DIY Compost Recipe: Compost tea consists of 5 gallon buckets, water, compost, unsulphard molasses, and an air pump. The air and molasses feed the microbes from the compost. You let your compost tea brew for 24-48 hours and use it within there day it is finished as it will turn quickly. The teas can be used to water the root zone or even better, spray the leaves.
Tip: Plants absorb a large percentage or nutrients through their leaves. Spraying compost teas on the plants leaves, tops and undersides, will greatly improve vigor of your plants. Reminder: Use only un-chlorinated water with compost teas, as chlorines and chemicals used to kill bad pathogens also kills the beneficial organisms in your compost teas. You can buy de-chlorinators that attach to your gardens hose spigot and removes these chemicals.
Friendly Reminder: Gardening should be a fun, that gets you more in touch with mother nature. Every year you garden, she will show you more about how nature works, if you keep your eyes open, and you will see the connections that will help your future gardening adventures. Happy Gardening!