5 Secrets To A Healthy Garden
Gardening is actually quite fun and rewarding but that doesn’t mean you won’t encounter challenges. Garden challenges are easy to overcome, and even prevent if you know a few Secrets To A Healthy Garden!
We’ve learned the hard way and you can learn from our challenges!
1) Raised Beds
Raised Garden Beds are my thing! Not only do we deal with fewer weeds but the soil is perfect for plants and picking is easier on my back!
We didn’t always have raised garden beds though. As a matter of fact, we still have a lovely, in-ground, garden area beside the house. This garden area has served us well but we didn’t know what we were missing until the raised beds went in!
We now use the in-ground garden area for potato crates and green beans. The raised beds are excellent for root vegetables with the nice loose soil!
2) Marigolds
If you’ve ever dealt with pesky aphids, you’ll want to avoid them at all costs! My experience with aphids put me on a mission to figure out how to avoid them altogether.
My research led me to Marigolds! Lo and behold, the year after aphids, we planted Marigolds and not one aphid was found!
3) Soaker Hose
Out of all our garden beds, the bed with the soaker hose did the best! The other two beds did great but, eventually, became full of mildew.
My thought is, that the overhead sprinkler we had set up to automatically water, contributed to the mildew.
If you catch mildew early, Neem Oil will help but why not avoid it altogether?
Set up soaker hoses to water your plant roots and not the foliage.
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4) Water Timer
You enjoy gardening and plan to get out and water your plants yourself but, let’s face it, life happens and you may not have time to water at the ideal time. Setting up a water timer will give your garden a refreshing drink right when it needs it!
When your garden is young, you will want to water every day. Once your plants are established, two or three times a week is sufficient and will encourage a strong root system.
Our favorite time to water is first thing in the morning!
5) Eggs and Coffee Grounds
What do eggs and coffee grounds have to do with gardens? Let me tell you! We learned this trick from Old World Garden Farms and used it successfully last year.
Egg shells add calcium to the soil and coffee grounds release minerals into the soil, serving as a fertilizer. What’s easier than that?
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Bonus: Companion Planting
You may not want to hang out with that acquaintance that drives you batty and, guess what, neither do your plants! Pay attention to garden friends and foes!
Garden challenges seem to crop up each year and we continue to learn secrets to a healthy garden with lots of help from friends, the internet, and the garden itself!
Planting flowers (like marigolds) amongst the veggies was a huge help to my garden too. I balked at the idea since I wanted to produce as much “food” as possible, but I’ve since come to love growing some cut flowers. Makes the whole summer brighter, AND keeps bugs away 🙂
You’re so right, Janeen! Flowers do brighten up our summer with the added benefit of keeping those aphids away! Now to make sure those cute little bunnies, that have been running around our yard, can’t get into the garden bedsÃœ
I need to try your raised bed idea. I am SO bad at gardening. The year we tried in a spot beside our house I grew more weeds than vegetables!
Lol! Weeds can actually enrich the soil;0) We started small and eventually built our way up to growing more and more! You can do it, Julie!
I’ve never gardened, but always wanted to. When I was a kid, I dug up a garden in the backyard, and when I saw that I had accidentally cut a worm in half and finished running and screaming into the house, that was pretty much my last attempt. I really looked forward to radishes especially. I love all of your tips and would love to use them Bridget, but how do I get over my aversion to possibly accidentally chopping up our little wormy pals? Thanks in advance! 🙂
Oh my goodness! You must have been devastated! I still gross out when I find worms in the garden, or any other creeper crawlers, but I know those worms are doing a great job and are beneficial to my garden! You might want to try an earth box http://amzn.to/1R0cXAH. We have a few of those too and they are awesome!