Better and Healthier Gardens

~ Looking for a birghter and healthier home garden? How about these quick tried and true ideas?

1. Consider Your Drainage 

To make your garden more healthy, it can be helpful to use raised beds to improve your drainage. You can purchase wooden beds, or construct them yourself with wood planks, a mallet, newspaper, and soil. Raised beds are suitable to grow many different types of plants including vegetables, soft fruits, alphines, shrubs and trees, and herbaceous perennials.

2. Rich Compost

If you want a thriving garden, you’ll first need to create a healthy compost pile. To do so, you have to get an equal mix of carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich materials. Carbon-rich items are those like cardboard, wood chippings, or sawdust. Nitrogen-rich materials could be things like vegetables, grass cuttings, or eggshells. It’s important to shred up the tougher materials before you add them to your pile. Good practice is to aerate your compost using a tumbler or a rake. Ensure that your pile is protected from the rain and that it gets a small amount of moisture.

3 . Use a Bit of Mulch 

Mulch is a word that is used to define any kind of material that you lay on top of your soil; a material that is used as a protective layer or covering. One of the best mulches that I utilized in my own garden were straw, pine needles, grass clippings, or bark chips. A layer of mulch can help you to keep your soil moist, keep pests away and stop weeds from growing. In the spring, a layer of mulch will keep your soil warm and prevents water evaporation, thus, no need to water your plants quite so often.

4. Banish the Pests

My shed is full of Diatomaceous earth. Not only I sprinkle it on dogs to keep the flees out (naturally), but also it is useful in the garden setting. In my experience it keeps the soft shelled pests out of your work area. There are plenty of other natural garden pest control solutions, such as neem oil, egg shells, hydrogen peroxide, baking soda. Although Diatomaceous earth is made from fossilized aquatic organisms, quite ancient material in my mind and most underutilized. Hey, I even heard humans take it internally. I tried couple of times myself – no side effects and no changes. My conclusion was that if my body continued fuctioning in the same level, then the garden will most likely benefit from such sprinling addition if not even overproduce.

5. Gardening Apps 

Only wish these were available 20 years ago, when I was just starting! There are several gardening apps that can help you with plenty of support and ideas.

• Garden Plan Pro: This app can help you to design a lovely vegetable garden, with plenty of tips and advice. The application has info on harvest dates, plant care, creating raised beds, pest control, and more.

• Flower Checker: Using the flowerchecker app you can get some great info from experts, helping you to identify a large number of plants and weeds in your garden. With all this new knowledge, you’ll soon be a gardening expert in no time.

For further handy plant apps, check out My Vegetable Garden Planner, or Moon & Garden. With the help of these tools you’ll make your garden stand out.

Make it a very nice day.

Until next time, dear friends.

Luda@PlantsandBeyond🌿

Photographs listed here do not belong to Luda @PlantsandBeyond.com