Gardening Tips
- Meera Naveen
- Feb 4, 2023
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 24, 2024
Of course, we all know that plants don't grow as easily in the cartoons (since in the cartoons you just dig a hole, put some seeds, and with some water it grows to a beautiful plant already). If you're a new gardener and wanted to help the Earth out by growing your own veggies, flowers, fruits and spices, this is the right place to learn about the basic tips to grow the greatest garden ever:
Start out by choosing a space to garden. Whether it's in a place on your rooftop, a plot of land in your backyard, etc., all you need to ensure is that you start with some land you could use to create this. (Ideally you should start in the summer)
Rake and pluck out any weeds or grass growing in this area. For this it's ideal to buy or borrow some gardening tools from a neighbor, a friend, or a market. This includes a hoe, a rake, gardening gloves, etc. Using these materials, rake the soil and pluck out as many weeds and grass as you can to get your new garden started. I normally hate this part since it can sometimes be a lot of work, but I promise you, it'll give good results in the end. You could also use the hoe to turn over the topsoil.
Once you have a good, weedless plot of land, you can add fresh soil and fertilizer. For a natural fertilizer, it's ideal to use manure to spread over the soil. This is mostly to let it stay fresh and full of nutrients.
After that, it's time to add the plants.
a) If you're transferring a potted plant to the soil, you first dig a really large hole wherever you want to put it so it can fit, take the entire plant out by turning the pot over and taking it out (including all its soil and roots), and fit it into the hole, mixing the soil around so it blends in. Since the plant is going through a big change because it's transferring from one place to the other, it's ideal to pour a lot of water into it just after planting it.
b) If you're starting from scratch and just planting seeds, you can dig a much smaller hole, put the seeds in, and cover with soil. When you do this, it's ideal to add a small sign labeling what it is since you wouldn't be able to see it and might forget where it was at the start. And of course, you add water.
For this, you can definitely be more creative. You get to decide the placement of your plants and where you want them to go. You might want one section for beauty, where the flowers go, and another section for food, where the veggies, spices and fruits grow. You might want it any way, but whatever you plan on, it's good to space these apart since we don't want them to tangle in each other when they grow and to follow these steps.
5. Now you've got your garden started, you have to make sure it's maintained in a good way. You have to mostly prevent animals and weeds from killing them. To prevent weeds from coming, and for more beauty, people naturally add mulch on top to give a dark, beautiful color and to cover the soil, so weeds don't easily spring up. People also add grass clippings from mowing their lawns on top of the soil for the same reason.
For animals, people do many things. Some just try to scare an animal off if they see one by just coming up to them. Others, to have a more reliable effect, put up a scarecrow or animal traps and release the animal in the woods later. But whatever you choose, we should always remember to be kind to these animals, and don't choose any violent way to get them off; just do only what's necessary to keep them off our gardens. For insects, some people use pesticides, although it's recommended to use natural ones since they're cleaner for the environment.
6. Now you have a routine: what's recommended is that every day (except rainy ones), you water each plant with some water (not too much, not too less). Weekly or at least once in two weeks, you can weed the garden, so the weeds don't take over and kill the plants, whether they're vine weeds or the regular ones that are like grass. This way, your plants could grow safely and healthily. For harvesting, some ripen even if you picked them unripe. If you pick green tomatoes, for instance, they'd ripen even if you just left them at the windowsill (it's better to leave them in the sunlight). Others need to be picked ripe. Another tip is that when you're growing them and leaves or other parts of a plant start getting yellow or crumpled, cut that part out because we don't need any disease spreading or for old parts of a plant to stay there.
And if you're really passionate, you could grow your plants year - long based on their season.
In the winter, you could grow plants that grow in the cold, such as arugula, beets, and broccoli. In the spring, you can grow lettuce, onions, and peppers. In the summer, you can grow tomatoes, potatoes, and peas. In the fall, you can grow garlic, carrots, and turnips.
There are many things you can grow year - round or in a specific season, and this also includes flowers, such as annuals and perennials.
To conclude, these are some of the many gardening tips out there to be a great, climatarian, healthy, eco - friendly gardener that grows his or her own food. Growing your own produce, especially with friends, is an awesome, enjoyable way to help the planet.
Works Cited:
Images from Unsplash and Wix
Comments