Keeping Your Garden Healthy

Everyone who gardens wants the best results possible. Whether it be with your perennial garden, your vegetable garden or your container gardens, you want your hard work to pay off and look great.  The best way to achieve this, is to make sure your garden is as healthy as possible.  When you start off with a healthy and happy foundation, the garden you plant from there will thrive.

The first thing to look at is your soil. Whether planting in a container, a raised bed or directly into the ground, the soil plays an important role. With containers, you want to use a potting soil or potting mix. These lighter weight soils are designed to be in smaller areas, like pots, to help the soil drain properly.  For planting in the ground or raised beds, you want to be sure you have tilled the soil before planting anything, to help break up the ground and spread nutrients throughout the garden.  When tilling the soil, it’s also a good time to add nutrients that your soil may be lacking. Adding things like manure or mushroom compost to your soil gives you organic fertilizer in your soil from the start. 

After making sure your soil is prepared for your plants, the next thing to take into account is siting. This is an important step in all types of gardening, but especially in perennial gardens.  With container gardens and vegetable gardens, siting mostly takes place with the light you have to plant in. You don’t want to plant tomatoes in a shady spot or impatiens in a sunny location.  With perennial gardens and general landscaping, siting is about light, size and location.  You need to be sure you are selecting plants that are not going to outgrow your space and that you’re giving room to grow.  Any perennial you plant for its first year will come back the following year much larger.  So even if you think you have enough space around that plant, be sure to check the maturity size on the plants tag.

Once you have planted your gardens, watering is key.  Not just watering, but overwatering can play an important role to how your garden will grow.   When plants are overwatered, not only can the roots rot but diseases like mildew can develop, causing you lots of trouble.  To help prevent this, be sure plants like impatiens, petunias and begonias, flowers that hate to be overwatered, are not in the range of your sprinkler system.  On the other hand, you do not want your flowers or vegetables to experience drought, unless of course you have planted drought tolerant plants.  Finding your tomatoes or verbena wilting once or twice isn’t necessarily the end of the world, but do not make a habit of it.  They will most likely recover with a good amount of water the first time it happens, but eventually it will affect the plant.

Just like us, plants need a little bit of food now and again. Fertilizers give plants the nutrients they may not be getting from your soil.  All fertilizers have three numbers (i.e. 10-10-10) to describe the three major nutrients contained in the fertilizer represented as 'N-P-K' or 'Nitrogen-Phosphorus-Potassium'. Nitrogen makes the plant grow and keeps them green. Phosphorus (P) percentage is the middle number. This is primary nutrient encourages rooting, blooming and fruit production. The last number is Potassium, which helps plants resist disease and aids in hardiness. So depending on the type of plant you have, picking a fertilizer with a higher number in that area can help the plant thrive all season long.  If you don’t necessarily have one area you want to focus on, there are great general fertilizers, such as Osmocote or Schultz’s All Purpose Plant Food that will treat your plants in all three areas. Other plants like vegetables, shrubs or trees, need more specific care.  Espoma is a great brand that makes a variety of plant-specific fertilizers. When selecting your fertilizer, look at how you want to apply it, while watering or granular slow release, as well as what plant you’re putting it on.  For vegetables and herbs, we encourage you to use an organic fertilizer, seeing as you will be eating what you’re growing.

Finally, pest and disease control.  Unfortunately, these happen to even the best gardeners.  By properly watering, checking for good drainage, and good siting, you should be able to prevent most disease issues.  Pests, especially rabbits, happen to everyone.  If you have plants they just won’t leave alone, there are several products you can use to deter them.  Some are physical, like fences, while others are chemical, sprays and granules.  Just remember where you are going to be using these products in your garden. Again, with vegetable gardens and any plant you’re going to be eating, we encourage you to look for organic methods. There are also organic sprays out there for various diseases you might get in your gardens.

For more information on how to keep your garden healthy, be sure to check out our free class on Saturday, March 9. To reserve a seat, call 630-323-1085.

Happy Planting!