Grow healthy and delicious food at home, right outside your door. You can make things like salads with freshly picked tomatoes right from your garden, or if you are advanced enough you can even make salads that are completely from your own garden. The following paragraphs contain a handful of helpful hints that will enable you to maximize your horticulture endeavor.
Keep the weeds out of your garden by removing them regularly. Unwanted weeds fight for the same nutrients that more desirable plants do, and they also are unsightly. To aid in this venture, you might want to use white vinegar. White vinegar can not only kill the weeds, it’s also a non-toxic spray that won’t harm pets or people. So, if weed pulling is tiring you out, spray a white vinegar solution all over them.
Fragile Shrubs
Take extra care of any fragile shrubs that are known to drop their leaves in the autumn. Fragile shrubs, that are planted in pots, should be covered to protect them during the cold season. Tie the canes together, and drape a sheet or blanket over the top of the wigwam. This is a much better method, instead of putting the plastic wrap around the plant. It allows proper air circulation that can prevent rotting.
Put money into a quality wheelbarrow and kneeling stool if you plan to do garden work often. Spending a lot of time near the ground working is very hard on the knees, so a lightweight and portable garden stool will make horticulture more comfortable. Gardening involves moving heavy objects and dirt, so a wheelbarrow makes for a wise investment.
If you have a vegetable garden, one of your main enemies is garden pests. It is important not to use harmful chemical agents, because you are growing produce that is intended to be eaten. So to help you control the pests that may invade your garden, you will want to stay vigilant. When pests are noticed early, the best way to get rid of them is to remove then from the plants by hand.
To help them out, try poring leftover water from steamed vegetables on them. To add acidity to the soil of your rhododendrons and gardenias, use coffee or tea grounds. Herbal chamomile tea is an effective, affordable treatment for fighting fungi.
Beneficial Bugs
Keep your garden free from broad-spectrum pesticides. These pesticides will kill every type of pest in your garden, including beneficial bugs that eat garden pests. Beneficial bugs are more sensitive to these pesticides than the bugs that are detrimental to plants, so if the good bugs are eliminated, the bad pest population may grow. If this happens, you just fuel an expanding cycle of needing even more pesticides.
You need to be smart when it comes to watering your garden. Use a type of soaker hose so that you don’t need to do individual waterings with the hose nozzle, or be refilling a watering can constantly. To avoid damaging delicate plants, you should water them with low pressure. This allows you to leave the hose running as you go about your business.
Plant heather to attract beneficial insects. Bees are very attracted to heather. When heather is first formed during the spring, it’s an early nectar source. Heather beds are common grounds for helpful insects such as spiders and ground beetles, because they don’t usually get bothered by human activity. For this reason, you should always remember to put on your horticulture gloves when tending to your heather.
More Gardening Ideas & Resources
As you have seen, it is easy to grow tasty vegetables and fruits in your own garden. You’ll feel great using ingredients from your own garden to cook delicious food. Put the points in the preceding paragraphs into play if you want to maximize your gardening efforts.