Plant Growth

In order to achieve success with growing plants in your garden, you need to ensure you respect several rules. Pulling out the weeds, supporting strong roots by building a good environment, giving your plants more independence when they reach maturity while ensuring enough protection when they are at the seedling stage, and ensuring strong growth by providing the proper nutrition are just a few tips that can ensure the effective growth of plants in your garden. It is also important to know what to avoid during planting. By following these rules you will be able to guide your garden plants to blooming maturity.

Prepare the soil

An important aspect of gardening is good soil preparation. You need to loosen the soil in your garden to a level of at least 6 inches. Then add organic fertilizers such as manure, compost or peat moss. Rake the soil in order to level.

Avoid overworking the soil when it’s too wet

You will be more than rewarded with healthy garden plants if you treat the fragile garden soil right, with care and patience. Many beginner gardeners get carried away with external factors such as sunny weather, a spring plant sale or free time to get in the garden. However, it is best to pay attention to what is going on in your ground. Avoid overworking the soil when it is too wet and rather work on it only when it’s at a near-perfect moisture level.

Plants

Use proper soil blanket

It is not recommended to smother your new garden plants with a soil blanket that is too thick. Most plant seeds need to be just barely covered. The proper soil layer should usually be just 1/4 inch thick. A common mistake encountered to most beginner gardeners is planting plant seeds too deep. People new to gardening tend to cover the plant seeds with soil just like new parents cover a newborn with too many blankets. Planting time and seed depth are critical aspects to consider. For this reason, you might need to ask some expert advice.

Well nourish your young garden plants

During the growth period, it is important to nourish well your young garden plants. Water-soluble fertilizers added to the hose-end sprayer or watering can could be used to feed your actively growing plants. However, if you don’t feel that these chemical heavy fertilizers are the best way to nourish your plants, you may go organic by using slow acting but healthier manure, fish fertilizer or compost.

Remove the weeds

The kind of weeds your garden plants hang around with will influence how healthy they become as adults. Weeds make your seedlings look bad and rob them of much-needed water and nutrient compounds. The most common reason when a good plant garden goes bad is the presence of the plants’ weedy companions. Stay in control and set limits. Pull out the weeds before they can undermine the quality of your plant garden. Surprisingly some of these weeds are actually edible, so check out this list of common garden weeds to find out which ones are safe to eat before throwing them away.

Be overprotective with your plants

At plant’s vulnerable seedling stage you should be overprotective. Seeds are at their vulnerable toddler or seedling stage once they sprout. You’ll have to protect them at this point. Until your young plants have at least two true leaves, avoid fertilizing but keep the soil moist. Feeding fertilizers to freshly sprouted seeds could be harmful. Wait for the first true leaves as the signal that you can change their diet.

Offer support as plants mature

As your seedling plants turn into adolescent plants, you need to offer them additional support. Is the time now to offer props such as forked twigs. For your young fuchsias and petunias, you can pinch out the center in order to support side growth. Tall sunflowers and delphiniums may need some additional support and props.

Avoid planting strawberries on sunny days

If you choose to plant strawberries in your garden then you need to have good knowledge about these delicious berries. How do strawberries reproduce? They are plants that can reproduce either through sexual reproduction as well as asexual reproduction. The sexual reproduction involves fruit and seed, while the asexual reproduction takes place by sending out runners to create new plants. In order to plant strawberries, you need to avoid sunny days and wait for a cloudy day. This way, your plants will not wilt while you are planting them. Also, ensure to barely cover the roots and avoid covering the crown of the strawberry plant with dirt.

Plants

Try hydroponics

Hydroponics is getting more and more popular these days. This is a subset of hydroculture, a method of growing plants in without soil. Hydroponics plant culture is feed with a water solvent that contains mineral nutrient solutions. Terrestrial plants can have their roots supported by an inert medium such as gravel or their roots could be exposed directly to the mineral solution. You can use normal nutrients in hydroponics or organic nutrients such as duck manure or fish waste. Take your time to research what are the best air pumps for hydroponics, as this is an important factor for the success of your hydroponics experiment.

 

Garden Ambition Lucy

Hi there! I’m Lucy – founder of GardenAmbition.com and I’m a self-confessed garden fanatic. Gardening has always been a passion of mine and will always be my favorite pastime. Now that I am married and have one adorable son, I have the time to write and share my personal experiences with other garden enthusiasts like me.