Growing a vegetable garden may be on top of your priority list during the summer months, but if you’re unsure how to take care of your plants once you get them growing, keep reading! Whether you are a gardening veteran or a beginner, all you need is a scheduled caring routine to keep your plants thriving and healthy. Even first-timers can achieve remarkable results. This blog will include landscaping and vegetable plant care, focusing on fertilizer, watering, and weed, pest, and disease maintenance.
How to Take Care of Your Plant Garden?
To effectively take care of your summer plant garden, you need the basic requirements. However, each plant’s needs differ, so it’s essential to understand what they need versus another. For example, some plants prefer shade over the sun, and others prefer dry environments over moist. However, the basic survival needs of vegetable gardens are watering, fertilizer, and pest or disease control (and sunlight, of course!)
Landscaping
Adding mulch to your garden is always a good step! Mulch suppresses weeds, cools your plant roots, and reduces water evaporation. Seed-free straw material is a great option as mulch for vegetable plants. It makes an excellent cover, is simple to grow, and may be integrated into the soil at the end of the season. Spiders love to hide in straw and eat plant pests, which is a bonus.
Vegetable Plant Care
Watering your vegetable garden 1-2 inches every week is just as important as sunlight in the summer heat. If you grow your veggies in a container, watering every day is essential since the soil will dry out much faster. If you find yourself short on time to water your plants manually, consider a drip irrigation system to water the roots.
Pest and Disease Maintenance
There are a variety of pests that can prey on your summer plants. Keep an eye out for symptoms such as chewed leaves, sticky residue, and visible bug swarms. Natural pest control solutions include insecticidal soap or neem oil to treat most garden pests. Remove any plant portions that are severely damaged.
Neem oil is the most popular natural pest control solution on the market for gardeners, especially in summer when bugs are in the air. To use this solution:
- Mix one teaspoon of dish soap with a teaspoon of neem oil into a quart of water in a spray bottle.
- Spray on top of the leaves and underneath the leaves to prevent and get rid of plant bugs.
- Repeat the insecticidal spray treatment every few days until they are gone.
Weeding Maintenance
The best method to beat weeds is to stay ahead of them! Preventing weed growth means less work for you during the summer. Pull them right when you see them and dig up any larger ones by the roots so that they don’t come back.
Suckers are a common problem for tomato plants as they grow and typically appear where the stem meets the branch of the tomato plant. We recommend pruning them not only for appearance maintenance for your summer garden but also for the tomato plant’s health. Suckers that remain can “suck” energy from the main stems and slow your plant’s growth rate.
Fertilizer
Vegetable plants in the summer absorb a lot of nutrients from the soil for their basic tasks, including spreading roots, growing leaves, blossoming, and generating crisp, delicious fruits. Our plant babies grow up so fast! Extra nutrients prevent illness in growing summer vegetable plants as well. Regularly adding fertilizer to the soil helps guarantee that your summer plants get enough of the fuel they require to thrive and defend themselves.
The ratios of nutrients in different fertilizers prepared for different types of plants will vary. Select a formula that is safe to use in vegetable crops. For example, a calcium-fortified fertilizer will help you avoid blossom end rot when you grow tomatoes. Water-soluble fertilizers will start working once the granulated solution releases nutrients gradually over time during the summer season.
Visit Plant Perfect Garden Center to buy vegetable plants for your garden this summer! We carry a wide selection of pots and containers that match your garden’s aesthetic so that you can grow your plants in style, too!