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Tips for a healthy garden

Maintain a Healthy Garden

 * Written by: Tonny Youg


When the sunflowers are in full bloom, you know it is time to plant your fall garden. Some of the vegetables are great for the fall like Kohlrabi, beets, carrots, endive, lettuces, broccoli and spinach. In this post, I am going to start with carrots.

The temperature of vegetable garden seeds is very important to their growth. Some cool season crops like spinach won't geminate if the soil is too warm. In fact, it needs to be below 75 degrees. I am planting carrots which don't mind zero temperature up to 95 degrees. But they will be happy when it gets cooler. Just cover the seeds with soil. You don't have to plant them deep. Just about a quarter of inch deep would be fine. Add a little bit of water and it is done.

Good garden equipment can increase the gemination of the seeds. If you want to plant the spinach soon, you can put the shade fabric over the bed to cool the soil down to the right temperature so that the seeds will geminate. To further cool the soil, you can water the bed generously. A soil thermometer helps you know when the soil reaches the ideal temperature for germination. If you don't have a permanent structure, you can use some steel wires for hoops. All you need to do is to insert them into the bed no matter what kind of shade fabric or frost protection fabric later on the season. So you don't have to build the permanent structure. Your fall garden may need some frost protection later on the season.

The fun part is to decide what fall crops to plant and when to plant them. The first step is to figure out your first frost date. Contact your local gardener for the frost date in your area and then work backwards. Take the first date and subtract the varieties date to maturity. Then substrate about two weeks because plants grow more slowly in short autumn days. Then subtract the days to germination. So don't wait too late because your fall seeds have to geminate.


1. Prepare garden plot

One of the most important decisions that gardeners will make is where to locate their garden. And once you have that site selected, there is something you need to take into consideration. Whether the location is lever, the amount of sunlight the location can get a day and the soil structure of the location have to be considered. If you are not familiar with the soil type, the other thing you probably need to do is to submit the sample for analysis.

2. Prevent weeds with weed barrier

A weed barrier is a fabric material that lies over the ground. It is one of the best gardening tools that prevent the weeds from growing up through. There are different materials to use in different situations. For example, if you are growing strawberries, you can use the fabric material that allows water down through but is strong enough to prevent weeds from growing up from the soil. The nice thing about this weed barrier is that it can greatly reduce the needs for pulling weeds.

3. Dealing with houseplant pest


Hanging garden decor is becoming trendy recently. However, you should pay attention to the pest issue of your indoor plants. One of the best ways to identify whether your plants are having a pest issue is to take a look at them and look for a substance called honey dew. Honey dew is actually a waste product from the insect's feeding. Honey dew generally collects in the lower part of the plants. Take a look at the lower part and see if you can find a sugary sticky substance on the surface of the leaves. Basically there are tree types of insects can produce honey dew. Those are scale insects, white flies and Aphids. There are several ways to control them. The best way to control these insects is by using a soapy water solution. So in the wintertime, you want to make sure you check the plants regularly for insect problems. If you do detect something, you take action quickly.








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