Top 8 Mistakes to Avoid in Gardening

Every gardener is passionate about giving the best to his plants, but unintentional mistakes happen as well. I will explain 8 most common mistakes gardeners often make, give them a heedful read to avoid hurting your buddies who can’t speak i.e. your plants.

8) Gardeners Forget Applying Mulch

If weeds are allowed to grow around plants, they start consuming essential nutrients. They can also block sunlight from reaching plants. To eradicate weeds, apply mulch. It helps the soil retain water and shields plants from bacteria, fungi and viruses. You should always start with removing the weeds, and then apply mulch to keep them from re-invading.

7) Inadequate Digging

For most plants never dig a hole that is less than twice as big and deep as the size of the plants root ball. If the hole is too small, the roots don’t get a chance to grow properly.

Of course, you don’t want hole to be too deep either, it can stop plants from flourishing sufficiently. Likewise, you should ensure that the stem isn’t buried and the roots aren’t exposed to air.

6) Improper Fertilization

Fertilizers help in providing sufficient nutrients to plants. However, avoid over-fertilization of plants. Follow the following tips:

• Minimize the use of high nitrogen based fertilizers. They can result in limited fruits and may even burn the plants.
• Fertilize at the time of planting and then at least once every month.
• Use organic fertilizers if you can. They offer the best results for food growing plants.

5) Gardeners don’t assess the type of their soil

Sometimes gardeners don not test the quality of the soil before planting. Testing soil before planting is always recommendable. It tells you what kinds of modifications you need for best results.

Most types of soil can be prepared for gardening. Start with removing large rocks and adding fresh garden soil and some compost if desired. This will enhance the consistency and organic matter in the soil. In case of a highly unfriendly soil, you may grow plants in raised beds or containers.

4) Gardeners don’t follow the right timing

Never forget conducting some research before you plant your garden. Tomatoes show poor health in weather that is too cold and corn flourishes best when soil temperature is below 60°F.

Planting when too half the growing season has been passed can be a mistake. In such a situation you should adopt the greenhouse planting strategy.

3) Plants placed too close together

Plants don’t thrive when they are situated too close to each other because when you crowd your plants too close together become more vulnerable to diseases and pests. Unhealthy proximity forces the plants to compete against each other for water and nutrients.

2) Too much sun or too much shade

Sometimes gardeners don’t follow the recommendations related to sun and shade needs of different plants. Plants like tomatoes need sunlight to flourish while cauliflower doesn’t do well in the direct heat of sun. To ensure you provide recommended sun or shade to plants, make proper research on such needs of particular plants you want to grow.

1) Gardeners neglect watering needs of plants

Some gardeners mistakenly end up depriving their plants of essential watering needs. Additionally, crops that survive through severe water stress produce no or low yield. The best solution is to devise a timetable for watering plants and having a suitable watering system in place. You can choose from a host of methods for irrigating your plants effectively like:

• Drip irrigation
• Hand watering
• Soaker hoses.

This article was created by Nadeem Azmat, a content writer, a gardner, a biker and an outdoor enthusiast. For more tips on gardening and finding best protective gloves for gardening and other outdoor jobs go to americanfur.us