I planted a garden. Now what?
Maintaining a garden
And making it THRIVE!
Schedules look a LOT different in the spring/summer of 2020 and perhaps you have used some of that unscheduled time to plant a garden. First of all, GOOD FOR YOU! Gardening is such a rewarding activity and something the whole family can do together. My 8 year old loves to walk through the garden with me to see what has changed from day to day.
My teens have been tasked with hoeing and watering when I ask for help. They aren’t thrilled about it, but I can tell they feel a sense of accomplishment when they see the plants flourish.
Today I want to share five things to consider doing to keep your garden on the right track. Unfortunately the work in the garden isn’t ever really done. There are tasks that can greatly improve your chances of a successful harvest. Nobody wants to see their hard work be for naught right?
1) Feed your plants
Once a month I like to give each of my plants a balanced fertilizer to help boost the health of the plants. When I say balanced I mean the three numbers used to indicate the amount of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium in the plant food is as close to even as possible. A quick google search will bring up a wealth of articles on this subject. I side dress my plants like this tomato plant below. Plants don’t like the fertilizer to touch them so give them a wide birth when you apply the plant food and add water to soak it in.
2) Prune your tomatoes if you are growing the varieties that need it.
3) Tie up or stake your plants.
If you opt for a trellis system vs. tomatoes cages you will need to tie the branches to keep them from falling over as they getting bigger and bigger. This is my preferred method because I can buy four sheets of concrete reinforcement wire instead 20 tomato cages. Hello cost savings!! Note: This photo was taken almost 4 weeks after planting. Now at almost 7 weeks the plants are more than half way up the panels.
4) Mulch around the base of your plants. This cuts down on weeds and the dreaded splash back that happens when it rains really hard. Pruning my tomatoes at the base helps keep the lower leaves from getting wet and muddy (important for keeping diseases at bay), but I like to bag some lawn clippings once a month and add a good inch thick layer of clippings around my tomatoes especially and sometimes my peppers if I have extra clippings.
Mulching around the onions helps retain moisture and it helps weaken the weeds. Notice I didn’t say eliminate. Sorry, that just isn’t the reality of gardening. I wish! It IS much easier to pull the weeds out by their roots though and that is worth adding mulch to plants that are hard to hoe between.
5) Resist the urge to water too often. Instead encourage the plants to send roots DEEP with a good watering. So what IS a good watering? This article is full of a lot of helpful info on watering. A video I watched on YouTube explained the whole '“1 inch of water a week” mystery to me and I finally understand what that means. If your plants are 12 inches apart you need 1 gallon of water per plant. Keep in mind that weather conditions and the size of the plant might alter that a bit, but at least it’s a measurable number to use as a starting point. If you water with a hose use an ice cream pail to count out how many seconds it takes for the bucket to fill from the hose. For me I have to count to 10 before I move on to the next plant. 200 plants at 10 seconds a plant is a little over 30 minutes. For me it is worth it to be able to focus the water on the base of the plant to avoid the leaves.
Obviously this isn’t a complete list of garden maintenance, but these are the ways I make my own garden grow and thrive here in Minnesota from when I plant Mother’s Day weekend until the first frost in October so that we’re able to enjoy a bountiful harvest.