8 Time Wasting Things You Are Doing In The Garden That You Should Stop Right Now

8 Time Wasting Things You Are Doing In The Garden That You Should Stop Right Now

1. Trying to amend the basic nature of your soil
If you garden in an area with limestone, your soil will be alkaline. Similarly, gardens close to woods and in low-lying, waterlogged areas tend to have acidic soil.

Some plants love slightly acidic soil; some prefer it a little on the sweeter side. But don’t waste your time trying to drastically change the basic nature of the soil in your area to suit the plants you want to grow.

Adding urea and plenty of organic matter to alkaline soil or liming acid soils with calcium carbonate or magnesium carbonate may neutralize the pH temporarily, but the effect will not be permanent.

2. Tilling large areas of the garden
Tilling the land is an age-old gardening practice to remove weeds, aerate the soil, and mix in compost and other additives.

All self-righteous gardeners feel an inner urge to give the land a thorough tilling before the planting season, although it has been found to be a time-wasting exercise in most situations.

If you till your yard once, you will find that you have to continue doing that over and over again.

3. Pulling out all the crops at the end of season
Meticulous gardening involves a thorough fall clean up, but there’s really no need to pull up each and every crop and add it to the garbage or compost pile.

Remove the top growth if you must, but leave the roots to decompose in the soil. They help keep the soil aerated and may even enrich it with some nutrients.

4. Overwatering

Watering the garden is a highly therapeutic activity; it satisfies our nurturing instincts. But plants only need just enough water to keep them hydrated.

Overwatering can result in extensive vegetative growth at the expense of yield. It promotes weed growth and depletes the nutrients in the soil.

5. Overfertilizing

This is another common mistake of both novice and veteran gardeners. Soil enriched with compost and other organic matter often has all the nutrients plants need.

An occasional feeding is appreciated by all plants, but heavy and frequent fertilization increases salt buildup, which can burn the plant tissues.

6. Trying to grow vegetables in shade

Most vegetables need full sun to reach their potential in terms of growth and yield. Some may tolerate dappled light if all their other needs are met. There are only a few that will thrive in partial shade, and you’d be hard pressed to find any that do well in complete shade.

7. Spraying pesticides

If you research on any authentic agricultural websites, you will find spraying schedules as part of routine crop maintenance.

Many gardeners are under the impression that they need to use wide-spectrum pesticides on a regular schedule to maximize yield. Home gardeners need not follow the practices of large food production firms.

A garden is meant to be populated by not only plants but a variety of animal life. In fact, their presence is an indication of the health of your garden.

8. Spraying herbicides
Herbicides may seem like an easy alternative to other time-consuming weeding operations, but the action of weed killers that do not harm your plants is limited to existing weeds. That’s why they are called post-emergent herbicides.