Summer Gardening: Tips On How To Create Your Own Garden Of Eden
Gardening is all about ensuring that plants and flowers grow and flourish, and since it’s summer, there is no better time to exercise that green thumb of yours. Here are some summer gardening tips that will help cultivate your own slice of paradise.
1. Add Some Punch To Your Soil
One of the most important parts of gardening is having nutrient-rich soil. You can do this by adding organic matter, for example mulch, rotting leaves or compost. By doing so, your plants will get the nutrients they need to grow. Moreover, having nutrient-rich soil will also encourage microorganisms such as earthworms to live in the soil, in turn helping your plants and vegetables to grow.
2. Prepare Your Garden For Weeds
Summer gardening is all about making your garden beautiful, but weeds can get in the way of that. To prevent weeds from growing in your garden, you can add a layer of mulch to any bare patch of soil. This is because many weeds will take the opportunity and grow in bare soil. If there are weeds in your garden, you can remove them in several ways: using your hands and/or garden tools, lightly cultivating the soil to dislodge the weeds and laying a black plastic sheet over them to prevent the weeds getting sunlight and water.
3. Remove Dead Foliage
If you’re doing the gardening and you notice that there are some dead leaves, or the leaves are starting to yellow, there could be some kind of infection in your plants. Pruning away the dead or yellow leaves will prevent the infection to spread to the rest of the plant and also encourages plant growth. Likewise, you can also prune your trees if you notice any diseased or dead-looking branches.
4. Water Your Plants
Another essential part when summer gardening is ensuring that your garden is hydrated. The best times to water your plants is first thing in the morning or in the evening. This is because the sun isn’t at its peak during these times, allowing your plants to soak up the water. Watering your garden in the afternoon is counterproductive because your plants won’t get the chance to absorb the water before the sun evaporates it.
5. Keep Potted Plants Cool
Potted plants can be susceptible to overheating, so it is important to prevent this. You can do this by positioning them out of the sun and lightly mulching the plant as well. Furthermore, you can stand potted plants in saucers filled with moist sand, as this ensures that the roots stay cool.
6. Keep Your Lawn Long
This might seem a bit redundant, and you might have the urge to mow your lawn until it resembles a crewcut, but when you’re doing your summer gardening, it pays to keep your lawn long. This is because having the lawn long can actually prevent and suppress weed growth, as well as avoiding heat stress Moreover, you should mow your lawn frequently during the summer months.
7. Pest Control
It is not a pretty sight when you see your garden wasting away because of pests, but there are ways to control garden pests. You can use barriers such as a fine net which can stop the pests from getting into your vegetables. For a more natural solution, you can use garden-friendly insects like ladybugs, spiders and praying mantises to control the pests in your garden. You can even buy ladybugs, release them in your garden and watch nature do its work.
