CubicFootGardening
Introduction
Your garden is flourishing beautifully since planting peas, tomatoes, zucchini, carrots, or beans! Now comes the tough part – taking steps to ensure their continued health and growth! These suggestions will help create a stunning vegetable garden that yields delicious produce throughout its growing season.
Take on the role of a plant investigator
Frequently examine leaves for signs of illness or insect intrusion to identify issues before they become serious. Take a closer look at your plants when you walk outside to enjoy them. It just takes a few minutes to examine the stems and leaves of your plants to identify plant issues before they become disastrous.
Look at the leaves first. Be careful to examine some leaves’ undersides in addition to their tops. Usually, insects hide behind foliage. Next, examine the stems; particularly, note where they touch the earth, as this is where insects often nibble. Infections from being splashed with precipitation or various forms of root rot can also develop close to the soil.
Sprinkle some kosher salt on your plants
Many green vegetables and plants will grow only one stem if left to their ways. For those who choose to consume their leaves, that is not as beneficial as it is for sustaining the flower stalks of these plants. To increase the number of stems and leaves, gardeners “pinch” the primary stem by cutting it back to the top set of leaves.
Many plants will produce two new stems when you pinch off the primary one, increasing your plant’s potential size and making preparation of Brussels sprouts with multiple herbs such as basil, lavender, oregano, rosemary, sage, tarragon and thyme easy and efficient.
Get that jerk out of there
You must cut out the “suckers,” or strange in-between stems that develop between the tomato plant’s main stem and its side branches if you want the largest, sweetest tomatoes. They protrude at 45-degree intervals.
Your tomatoes won’t be harmed by the suckers, and they will ultimately produce fruit, flowers, and leaves. However, they do lessen air circulation and light penetration to the bottom leaves, which may increase the susceptibility of your tomato plants to fungal infections.
The likelihood of absorbing plant diseases from the surrounding soil is increased by suckers near the base of the stem, particularly if they are splashed during a downpour. It’s also difficult to notice any issues that may be forming on your plant.
Secure them
Sure, the illustrations in your kids’ books depict verdant patches of pumpkins with vines draping over the ground, but they don’t show your kids and dogs tripping over the vines and trampling on the squash, or the slugs and bugs that take pleasure in discovering juicy veggies at their eye level.
Consider growing your fruit or vegetables that vine vertically, such as melons, squash, pumpkins, or cucumbers, on a trellis like this A-frame trellis or a pole or cage. It will conserve your valuable garden space, spare you the agony of trampling on cherished plants, and by improving air circulation, it will lessen disease and insect damage.
Gather vegetables when they are young
When veggies are still young and flavorful, harvest them before they become massive, bland monsters.
Growing larger vegetables at home is not beneficial – bean pods with overripe and stringy beans, large woody okra pods, and zucchini the size of a baseball bat without taste can quickly become unattractive to most consumers.
Not only are older veggies often overly fibrous and difficult to consume, but they often attract pests such as ants, wasps, and squirrels who will feed on your overripe produce before moving onto more delicate younger crops as their second course!
The answer is to harvest your veggies as soon as they become ready. A useful guide from the University of Georgia illustrates when to harvest popular vegetables, indicating when they are ripe, underripe, and past their prime.
Verify that they are consuming adequate water
Water is necessary for plants, and plants that provide luscious fruits, like tomatoes, require a consistent supply. When tomatoes receive less than one inch of water each week, they develop blossom end rot, which turns otherwise gorgeous, ripe tomatoes from the bottom up into brown mush.
Prevent this from happening in your garden by measuring how much rainwater falls on it with a rain gauge and watering vegetable plants if less than one inch falls every week.
One full watering session per week instead of constant misting will make your plants healthier. Doing this allows them to retain any residual moisture they may still need.
Don’t overfeed your plants, though
Plants require nutrients, chemicals, and minerals, all of which are found naturally in rich garden soils, to flourish. Runoff from the aggressive chemical fertilizer that many amateur gardeners use is something they don’t need.
Even worse, your plants may suffer harm from an excessive amount of chemical fertilizer. Overuse of nitrogen fertilizer causes plants to cease producing flowers, fruit, or roots and instead produce leaves and vines quickly. Carrots and tomatoes say farewell! An excess of phosphorus can cause chlorosis, leading to yellowed leaves on plants and impairing their ability to photosynthesize.
Get your soil tested before applying fertilizer to your plants, ideally before planting your garden. You may obtain tests from your local agricultural extension offices for around $10 to $20, and they will tell you what amounts.
Take out the opposition
You might feel inclined to give up weeding now that all your seeds and seedlings are in the ground. Avoid it! Small newborn weeds may develop into enormous, garden-strangling monsters in only one week during midsummer when many gardens in the United States receive up to 16 hours of sunlight daily. They’ll steal water from your prized veggies, block out their leaves, and infect your priceless garden plants.
Using a robust garden hoe or a Japanese hand hoe, you may remove the leaves from the roots of tiny weeds. If you need to remove a well-established plant with strong roots after some time has passed, a CobraHead weeder can assist you in hooking beneath.
