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Fertilizing on a Schedule

To keep your plants healthy and maximize yields, you need to fertilize your garden through the growing season. The best way to keep your garden on track is to put together a plan early.

Why Do Plants Need Regular Fertilization?

Over time, as plants pull nutrients from the soil for growth and water leaches them from the ground, you need to reintroduce these elements back into the soil. Plant growth will be negatively impacted if you don’t, and your harvest may be smaller.

How Often to Fertilize Garden Vegetables?

The best way to fertilize is to create an overall schedule for your garden, with some customizations for particular circumstances, and then supplement nitrogen as plants need an extra dose.

Create a General Schedule

Most gardeners add fertilizer to the soil when preparing the planting bed. This early dose feeds seedlings for the first little bit, but they will need fertilizer again once the plants flower or hit a rapid growth spurt.

Once you start fertilizing, plan to feed the entire garden with a balanced fertilizer every three to four weeks through the growing season. Always follow the label directions, and when in doubt, it’s best to give plants less fertilizer than too much.

Plants like tomatoes and cauliflower are heavy feeders, so they need more fertilizer for growth. It may be beneficial to feed them every three weeks and the rest of the garden every four.

Create a Customized Plan

Certain vegetables have additional fertilizer requirements that require you to fine-tune your fertilization plan slightly. It’s best to research your plant types to determine if they have special needs.

Add Supplemental Nitrogen as Necessary

During the growing season, some veggies need a nitrogen boost via side-dressing, which is where you incorporate fertilizer into the soil about six inches away from the plant. Standard guidelines for nitrogen supplementation include:

Asparagus: Early spring, just before growth emerges from the ground.
Cruciferous vegetables: Three weeks after you transplant seedlings and every three weeks following that until they crown.
Cucumbers: One week after they flower.
Peas and beans: After the first pods develop.
Peppers and eggplants: After the first flowers bloom.
Sweet corn: When plants are eight to ten inches tall and then right after tassels appear.
Tomatoes: One to two weeks before fruit ripening and two weeks after picking the first tomato on indeterminate varieties.

Watering Properly

Watering your vegetables properly is very important to their growth and almost as essential as getting the proper sunlight. Water is needed for photosynthesis, but how much water your plants get and how often they get it is critical.

How Much Water Do My Vegetables Need?

Most garden vegetables need approximately an inch of water each week during the growing season through rainfall or irrigation. This amount is average, though, and you may need to give them a little more water if the weather is unnaturally warm, if you live in an arid climate, or if your garden bed is high in sand.

What Exactly is an Inch of Water?

An inch of water each week is the standard recommendation since many gardeners rely solely on rainfall to water their plants. For them, it’s easy to measure an inch of water in a rain gauge. In areas where rainfall is low and you’re watering plants by hand, aim to give each plant about two-thirds of a gallon of water weekly.

The goal is to wet the top six inches of soil each time you water.

How Often Should I Water?

You may have heard (or read) that it’s best to water your plants deeply, infrequently, which can be confusing. You want to give your plants a good dose of water a couple of times a week versus giving them a little bit every day.

For most gardeners, you can expect to water your vegetables two or three times a week when the soil’s top one or two inches are dry. You don’t want to give them an inch of water every time, though—you want to break up that inch of water over a week.

Watering thoroughly yet infrequently helps develop strong, drought-tolerant plants. When you don’t water every day but water a large amount, the root system grows deeper, looking for water. In turn, it improves the plant’s drought tolerance.

Special Considerations When Watering

Tips for Watering

Water the soil around the bottom of the plant instead of getting water on its leaves to minimize fungal problems. Watering the soil directly also decreases evaporation, so more water is available to the roots.
If possible, water early in the morning (between 5 and 9 am).
Consider using a soaker hose or drip irrigation system to water efficiently, and save yourself time.

Starting Seeds: Where, When, and How

If you choose to grow your vegetables from seed, it’s essential to understand where to start them, when to plant them, and how to sow seeds to have the best plants for your garden.

Direct sowing vs. starting seeds indoors

Whether you can direct sow seeds into the planting bed or if you need to start them indoors depends on how long it takes the plants to grow to maturity and how long your growing season is.

If your vegetables have a shorter growing period than the local season, you can direct-sow them outside.
If your vegetables have a longer growing period than your growing season and are frost tolerant, you can direct-sow them.
If your vegetables have a longer growing period than your season and aren’t frost tolerant, you need to start the seeds indoors ahead of time.

When to Direct-sow?

Seeds that you can direct-sow fall into two timing categories based on their cold tolerance.

Seeds That You Can Plant Early in the Season

Some plants prefer cooler soil and air temperatures and may even survive a light frost. These cool-season plants can be sown directly outside before you can plant the rest and include leafy greens, peas, carrots, beets, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, parsnips, and turnips.

Seeds That Need to be Planted After the Last Frost

Warm-season crops need summer heat and aren’t frost tolerant. You can’t plant them until the last threat of frost has passed. They include peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, and sweet corn.

How to Direct-sow Seeds Outdoors

When it comes to sowing seeds directly into the garden, there are three things you need to consider:

After you prep the garden bed, place seeds at the correct spacing and depth listed on the seed packet. Gently cover them with soil and tamp it down lightly, if needed.

When to Start Seeds Indoors

The key to determining when to start seeds indoors is making sure plants have enough time to mature before the fall frost. Figure when they need to be harvested, and count backward from there, using their days to maturity, to determine when to plant.

Depending on the vegetable, this is typically four to eight weeks before the last spring frost.

How to Start Seeds Indoors

Fill seed starting trays or plastic containers with pre-moistened seed starting mix.
Plant seeds at their recommended depth, covering them lightly with potting soil if needed.
Cover the containers with clear plastic or the accompanying plastic lid to keep the humidity high.
Set containers on a seed starting mat or somewhere it is slightly warmer in your home, like the top of the refrigerator.
Mist with a spray bottle to moisten the potting soil without dislodging seeds.

Planning the Garden

Creating a Layout Design

Think about how much available space you have and the plants you want to grow, and sketch out a layout. When planning, consider the following:

Start with a smaller design. In the first year, start smaller to feel how much work is involved. You can expand the size in future seasons.
Maximize your usable space. Use trellises to grow upwards and implement companion planting.
Consider mature plant height when sketching a design. Make sure taller plants won’t shade shorter plants as the sun moves across the sky during the day.

Determine Your Planting Schedule

To determine when to plant, you must compare the plants’ days to maturity versus your growing season length.

The goal is to get plants to maturity before it gets too cold in the fall, so you have harvestable produce.

If a plant’s days to maturity are greater than the growing season, you can:

Whether a plant is a cool-season or warm-season crop also affects the planting schedule.

Selecting the Best Varieties for Your Zone

When selecting plants to grow, you need varieties suitable for your climate or growing zone. U.S. growing zones are the standard by which gardeners determine what plants are likely to thrive in their climate. The growing zone map divides the U.S. into 10°F zones based on average low winter temperatures.

Companion Plants: What are They, Why are They Good?

Companion planting is where plants are grouped to improve their growth, such as beans adding nitrogen to the soil for neighboring plants. They are also used for pest control, where one of the companion plants naturally repels insects for the others.

Seeds or starts? Which Route is Best, and Why?

Choosing to go with seeds or starts depends on a few factors and personal preference.

Preparing Your Planting Beds

Plants can grow in less than ideal conditions, but having planting beds in a good spot with great soil is essential for robust plant growth and bountiful harvests.

Finding the Right Location

The first step in prepping planting beds is picking a good location in your yard. When looking around your property for a spot, there are some questions to keep in mind.

Is the Ground Relatively Flat?

Look for a spot that doesn’t have a significant slope. That way, yu won’t need to worry about soil erosion or low areas that tend to stay wet with level ground.

How Much Sunlight Does it Get?

Your planting beds need to get six to eight hours of full sun every day. It’s also important to check the spot at random times of the day to make sure it doesn’t get unexpected shade.

Testing the Soil Composition and Nutrients

After you’ve decided on a possible location, it’s time to look at the soil texture, pH, and nutrient content.

What is Soil Texture, and Why is it Important?

Soil texture is determined by the amount of sand, silt, and clay (in percentages) that make up your topsoil.

Ideally, you want a blend of all three, or what is known as a loam type of soil. This soil type gives you good drainage while holding onto a respectable amount of soil moisture and nutrients.

What is Soil pH, and Why is it Important?

Soil pH measures how acidic or basic (i.e., alkaline) the soil is, just like the acidity we are familiar with regarding liquids like vinegar or lemon juice. Knowing your soil’s pH is important because it directly influences the nutrients in the soil. If the pH value is too acidic or basic, it can make nutrients unavailable to the plants or create toxicities.

Ideally, you want the soil to be neutral or slightly acidic — most plants like a pH value between 6.0 and 7.0 because it has the best nutrient availability.

Why are Soil Nutrients Important?

There are just over a dozen nutrients required for all plant growth: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, boron, chlorine, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum, and zinc. Each of these nutrients has specific roles, and if any of them are deficient, it affects plant growth.

Over time, these nutrients can become depleted from the soil, and fertilizers are used to get them sufficient again. But it’s essential to know the nutrient content of your soil to help you determine how much fertilizer — and what kinds — to apply.

How to Determine Soil Texture, pH, and Nutrient Concentration?

First, you need to collect a soil sample from the planting bed. Collect small shovelfuls from a dozen spots, digging down six to 10 inches and then putting them in a bucket. Mix the soil and pull out any rocks and debris.

After collecting a sample, spread it out on a newspaper to dry overnight. The soil pH is easy to check yourself, but a commercial soil testing laboratory best analyzes the texture and nutrient content.

Preparing the Planting Beds

Once you have looked at the soil, it’s time to start preparing the beds for planting.

The first step is to add amendments to improve the soil texture, water holding capacity, soil pH, and nutrient capacity.

Add two to four inches of organic material such as finished compost or fully decomposed cow manure.
If your soil is too acidic, add lime to raise the soil pH.
If your soil is too alkaline, add sulfur products to lower the soil pH.
Add the recommended amount of fertilizer based on your soil test results.

Dig down to about a foot deep to loosen the soil adequately and incorporate the amendments, working the ground well by hand or with a rototiller. Loose, crumbly soil lets water move quickly through the soil profile and allows roots to grow down and outward without interference.

Alasan mengapa tanaman yang sama bisa terlihat berbeda

Perbedaan antar kultivar

Buah, bunga, dan daun dari satu spesies tanaman dapat bervariasi dalam ukuran, warna, dan bentuk apakah dipengaruhi oleh seleksi buatan atau lingkungan alam. Variasi yang disengaja dari satu spesies menghasilkan apa yang disebut kultivar.

Puring kebun (Codiaeum variegatum) adalah tanaman hias yang populer. Daunnya bisa filiform, lanset, bulat telur, spatulate, sagittate, atau bulat. Pewarnaan dapat mencakup merah, kuning, hijau, atau ungu di berbagai pola, seperti berbintik, bergaris, atau bertambal (digambarkan di bawah).

Kultivar puring kebun.

Mawar adalah contoh sempurna dari variasi hebat yang dapat terjadi di seluruh kultivar. Bunga mawar bisa tunggal atau berlapis-lapis, dan berwarna merah, ungu, oranye, atau merah muda. Tunas juga bisa tumbuh sendiri-sendiri atau berkelompok.

Kultivar mawar.

Labu musim dingin (Cucurbita maxima), umumnya terlihat di Amerika, diakui sebagai salah satu spesies tanaman peliharaan yang paling beragam. Ini memiliki banyak kultivar yang menghasilkan buah yang sangat berbeda dalam ukuran, bentuk, dan warna.

Kultivar labu musim dingin.

Perbedaan penampilan yang disebabkan oleh tahap pertumbuhan dan adaptasi

Bentuk dan ukuran daun dari tanaman yang sama dapat sangat berbeda sehingga sering disalahartikan sebagai daun dari dua spesies yang berbeda. Hal ini dapat disebabkan oleh perbedaan antara daun muda dan dewasa atau daun bawah dan atas, serta daun yang kekurangan nutrisi dan cukup dibuahi. Misalnya, daun muda dan bawah dari Paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) selalu memiliki 3-5 lobus. Ini menyampaikan pesan yang jelas kepada kupu-kupu atau serangga lain: “Saya sedang dimakan, jangan bertelur di atas saya!” Daun dewasa, atau atas, tidak melengkung karena mereka mengembangkan lapisan pelindung yang keras dan tidak membutuhkan kamuflase seperti itu.

Daun atas dewasa dan daun bawah muda.

Bentuk pertumbuhan suatu tanaman juga dapat bergeser, tergantung pada lingkungannya. Tanaman mata panah (Syngonium podophyllum) dapat digunakan sebagai penutup tanah yang perawatannya rendah. Namun, ketika tanaman mencapai pohon atau dinding, itu menjadi pokok anggur.

Tanaman Arrowhead dalam bentuk sulur dan penutup tanah.

Perbedaan yang disebabkan oleh metode penanaman

Rasio daun, bunga, dan buah berubah ketika tanaman ditanam dalam wadah, seperti proses Bonsai.

Rhododendron sebagai bonsai dan dalam kondisi normal.

How to Prune Your Shrubs?

Pruning your shrubs isn’t as straightforward as going outside and lopping off whatever branches you want. It’s important to prune them correctly, so they continue to flower and put out healthy, vigorous new growth.

What is the Best Time to Prune Shrubs?

For many shrubs, you should prune them in late winter or early spring while they are still dormant. However, if you have flowering shrubs, you need to determine if they bloom on old wood or new growth because it affects their pruning schedule.

Determine How Your Shrub Needs Pruning

It isn’t feasible to list detailed pruning instructions for each type with so many different shrubs. Therefore, it’s best to consult an online guide to determine how and when to prune your shrubs.

Pruning Dos and Don’ts

Regardless of your shrub’s growth habit or when it flowers, there are some basic things you should and shouldn’t do when pruning.

Do step back periodically to assess your progress and gauge the overall form.
Do clean and disinfect your pruners before you start and between each shrub.
Do open up the center of the plant with thinning cuts. If you just trim back branch tips, you’ll have dense foliage at the top and weak, leafless branches at the center.
Remove your shrub’s thickest, oldest wood first, and then prune younger stems.
Don't remove more than one-third of a shrub’s mass in a single growing season.
Don't remove more than one-quarter of a stem's length in a single cut.

Why are Sterilized Pruning Shears Essential?

Keeping your pruners clean and sterilized is critical to prevent spreading diseases or other problems between plants. Unfortunately, you may not always see visible symptoms, but your shrub is infected. Cutting through the stems and branches and then moving to a healthy plant is an easy way to spread problems.

To sterilize your shears, wipe down the cutting surfaces with isopropyl alcohol before pruning and between each plant. Allow them to air dry before making any cuts.

How Do Different Seasons Affect Your Shrubs?

While some shrubs make a grand affair of season changes — changing their leaf color in the fall, dropping leaves before winter, and coming back strong the following spring — others go through the seasons much more quietly. However, it doesn’t mean they aren’t affected by the different seasons because the seasonal change is always noticed.

Do Shrubs Notice Temperature Changes?

Plants don’t rely on temperature changes as humans do, as the seasons move from spring, summer, fall, and winter. Some may recognize variations, but genetically they are constructed to primarily notice and respond to changes in the day lengths known as the photoperiod. As the day length lengthens in the spring and shortens in the fall, plants respond accordingly.

Why is Day Length Significant?

Keep in mind the day and night length fluctuates as the Earth moves around the sun. Different phytochromes or pigments in the foliage allow shrubs to measure the light and darkness over 24-hour periods and, in turn, activate plant hormones responsible for blooming, fruiting, leaf drop, etc. These adaptations have evolved so that plants can survive conditions like drought and cold temperatures.

What Do Shrubs Do in the Spring?

Spring is typically known as a season for rebirth. As the days get longer, shrubs come out of their winter dormancy and begin actively growing because they have adequate sunshine and moisture. Buds develop and turn into leaves and flowers. Pollination of the flowers on fruit-bearing shrubs causes an embryo to form, and the fruits begin to grow.

How Does Summer Affect Shrubs?

The day lengths continue to grow longer as we come into summer, further driving growth and sometimes fruit ripening.

But the high temperatures and intense sun often have plants increasing their self-defense mechanisms against drought and damage from the sun’s rays. Growth may slow a bit as they conserve water resources in case of a shortage.

Changes in Shrubs During the Fall

As plants come into fall, the day lengths are shortening again, and plant hormones begin preparing shrubs for winter. They stop making food to drive growth and start moving sugars and carbohydrates from the leaves to the roots for storage. Leaf chlorophyll breaks down, causing the green to disappear and the yellow and orange pigments become visible, thus giving leaves their stunning fall color.

Why Do Shrubs Go Dormant in the Winter?

Winter is the most challenging season for plants as they may experience dry weather, freezing temperatures, and nutrient shortages. To protect themselves from these often fatal conditions, they stop growing and conserve energy until the mild weather returns, to complete the cycle again.

How Do I Water My New Shrub?

Unlike a newly planted seed that doesn’t have a well-formed root system, shrubs do have a fair amount of roots. However, newly planted shrubs still need hand-watering until these roots grow out into the soil surrounding the planting hole.

How Often to Water After Planting?

The first three months require frequent watering, and then you can scale back until the roots are established. Once the shrub’s root system is robust, there isn’t a need to water plants by hand unless you live in a climate with little rainfall.

Most shrubs are considered established after one to two years when the roots grow out to equal the plant’s above-ground canopy spread.

How Much Water to Apply?

At each watering, you should apply a volume of water equivalent to about one-fourth or one-third of the volume of the pot the shrub was in at the nursery or store. As the roots grow into the surrounding soil and spread, this volume needs to be increased.

Water Slowly and Deeply

The goal of watering your new shrub is to soak the entire root zone, losing as little water as possible to runoff. Your intent isn’t only to water the first few inches of soil; the roots live much deeper. Slowly trickle the water around the base of the plant, allowing it to infiltrate and percolate deep down into the ground gradually.

Keep Water Off the Foliage

Be careful to water the soil directly around the base of your shrub. A great way to do this is by using a soaker hose or drip irrigation. Keeping moisture off of the leaves helps minimize disease problems and improves water-use efficiency. When water is applied to the ground, less moisture is lost to evaporation.

Improve Soil Moisture Retention

Spread three inches of organic mulch on the soil around the trunk of your shrub, fanning it out a couple of feet regardless of the canopy size. Be careful to keep the mulch from touching the bark directly. The mulch helps to keep the soil cooler and, in turn, minimizes evaporation, so the soil retains more moisture for longer. You can use bark chips, shredded bark, pine needles, or even straw.

What Time of Day Should I Water?

The best time to water your new shrub is earlier in the morning after the sun comes up but before the temperature begins to climb. Watering early gives the plant a reservoir of moisture to draw from during the warmest part of the day. It also helps minimize soil fungal diseases.

Spesies dan varietas, apa perbedaannya?

Jenis

Unit ilmiah klasifikasi tumbuhan adalah spesies. Setiap spesies berada di bawah genus, dan setiap genus di bawah keluarga secara menyeluruh

Aturan penamaan spesies

Nama ilmiah spesies ditulis sebagai nama Genus (Kapital, miring) + julukan tertentu (miring)

Misalnya, nama ilmiah Crimson Cattleya adalah Cattleya labiata.

Cattleya adalah nama ilmiah dari genus dan labiata adalah julukan (spesies) spesifik.

Kultivar hortikultura

Sebagian besar tanaman yang dibeli dari toko adalah kultivar hortikultura. Artinya, mereka adalah spesies baru yang sengaja diciptakan oleh pemulia tanaman melalui budidaya selektif yang cermat. Ini disebut varietas.

Nama ilmiah suatu varietas ditulis sebagai nama Genus (huruf besar, miring) + julukan tertentu (miring) + ‘nama kultivar’ (biasa, tanda kutip tunggal, huruf besar)

Contoh: Vitis vinifera ‘Kyoho’

Beberapa varietas dengan latar belakang hibrida yang kompleks dapat menghilangkan julukan tertentu dan ditulis sebagai nama genus + ‘nama kultivar’ (misalnya Rosa ‘Graham Thomas’).

Hibrida

Kebanyakan hibrida berasal dari persilangan spesies yang berbeda dalam genus yang sama. Nama ilmiah mereka dapat ditulis dalam dua cara. Contoh di bawah ini adalah untuk stroberi.

Opsi #1: nama genus induk betina + julukan spesifik × julukan spesifik induk jantan – mis. Fragaria virgirniana × chiloensis

Opsi # 2 (jika julukan spesifik baru diberikan kepada hibrida) nama genus (miring) × julukan spesifik baru (miring), mis. Fragaria × ananassa

Jika hibrida dihasilkan dari dua genera yang berbeda, nama genus baru diberikan, jadi “×” ditempatkan sebelum nama genus baru. Misalnya, hibrida Rhodohypoxis baurii dan Hypoxis parvula ditulis sebagai ×Rhodoxis hybrida.

Klasifikasi di bawah spesies yang sama

Individu dalam satu spesies mungkin masih sangat bervariasi. Oleh karena itu, ada tiga kelas taksonomi di bawah spesies.

Varietas (disingkat var.)

Sekelompok taksa yang berbeda secara morfologis dari spesies yang sama yang berbagi area distribusi yang sama disebut varietas. Fitur yang membedakan biasanya disebabkan oleh perbedaan lingkungan dan geografis, dan dapat diwariskan secara stabil.

Nama ilmiah varietas ditulis sebagai nama Genus (huruf besar, miring) + julukan khusus (miring) + var. (biasa) + nama varietas (miring)

Contoh: Loropetalum chinense var. rubrum

Subspesies (disingkat subsp.)

(Penggunaan subspesies sebagai klasifikasi sekarang tidak disarankan untuk tumbuhan dan lebih banyak digunakan untuk hewan)

Subspesies adalah sekelompok individu dari spesies yang sama yang agak berbeda satu sama lain karena periode isolasi geografis atau ekologis yang lama.

Nama ilmiah subspesies ditulis sebagai nama Genus (huruf besar, miring) + julukan khusus (miring) + subsp. (reguler) + nama subspesies (miring)

Contoh: Syringa reticulata subsp. amurensis

Bentuk (disingkat f.)

Bentuk berasal dari perbedaan kecil dalam spesies asli karena faktor lingkungan. Bentuk biasanya tidak stabil dalam hal pewarisan genetik.

Nama ilmiah suatu formulir ditulis dengan nama Genus (huruf besar, miring) + julukan tertentu (miring) + f. (biasa) + nama formulir (miring)

Contoh: Lamprocapnos spectabilis f. alba