Some thoughts on gardening 2011
Written by Darcie, a member of Broadview Garden Club
I spent Christmas in NY with my east coast family. Our flight home was delayed 4 days due to the storm, arriving home Friday evening. On the flight home I was listening to one of my garden pod casts and they were talking about the 7 common mistakes gardeners make. All of these stuck true too me and I vowed to make a new year’s resolution on each one.
The top 7 common garden mistakes and how the Broadview Garden club can help you conquer a few…
– Plant too many edibles such that you can’t pick or consume it all…but that is so easy to do with such great selections from the Broadview Garden Club plant sale (scheduled for May 7 th 2011)! And what a lovely gift to share with neighbors.
– Plant too early; anxious gardeners put out plants before they are ready.
– Plant items too close together…again great items at the plant sale makes it easy to try and squeeze more plants in!
– Not composting. Can’t say I understand why folks don’t do this anyway.
– Too much/not enough watering…well, I’m too lazy to overwater so underwater must be my problem…and I blame that on mother nature.
– Not knowing the soil Ph. Ok, I’ll get some of those cheap Ph tests from the local box store and see why I can grow a zucchini for the life of me.
– Killing all bugs for no reason. (i.e. using broad based bug killers)…not in my garden, again this takes too much effort and I rely on mother nature to take care of them pests.
Here is a link to Mike the Gardener http://www.averagepersongardening.com/
Don’t forget to mark you Calendar for the Northwest Flower & Garden Show Feb 23-27th 2011
Let us know how the PH tests from the box stores go. I always thought I needed to send a sample away to an expensive lab.
I really need my soil tested – I think I over Nitrogenized it a couple years ago.
Darcy:
Thanks for sharing this on the blog.
Last year was a tough year. If last year was a first try for anyone, do try again.
I couldn’t be sure when was the right time to plant. For that reason it’s good to have some greens in the garden. They seem to do well if the spring is wet/cool.