15 ways to make gardening easy

Growing garden crops takes a lot of time from owners of personal plots and summer residents. But in order to get good harvests and maintain order in the garden, it is not at all necessary to work from morning to evening. There are methods that make caring for your garden much easier.

Use automatic watering systems

One of the most labor-intensive and time-consuming activities is water supply. If the beds have to be watered with buckets and watering cans, a lot of time and effort is wasted. Using hoses makes hydration quicker and easier, but it's not ideal.

Irrigation systems allow you to organize the supply of water to plants, ensuring soil moisture without human intervention. The owner of the plot of land can leave without fear that his garden will begin to suffer from drought - water will flow according to schedule.

Irrigation systems:

• Gravity flow. Trenches 10 cm deep are dug on the sides of the beds, and a plastic pipe or ordinary hose is supplied - it can be connected to a barrel of water. It is placed at a height of 1.5-2 m above the ground so that the liquid flows under its own pressure. If there is a centralized water supply, the task is simplified.

• Drip. This method is especially beneficial for watering moisture-loving plants. Water comes from a storage tank or through a pipeline. First, a central pipe is installed, from which connectors extend in the direction of the beds. To ensure that water flows in the required mode, a timer is set.

• Sprinkler Sprinklers are installed on the site - rotary or static, with different irrigation angles. This option is suitable for large areas, and only if there is good pressure in the system. Additionally, a pump is used. The spray radius reaches 2 m. Irrigation by sprinkling allows you not to wash away the fertile layer of soil, since there is no movement of water along the surface. The downside is the high cost of purchasing equipment.

• Subsurface. The system consists of plastic pipes distributed throughout the site. They are buried in the ground to a depth of at least 30 cm. Holes are made in the pipes through which water flows to the roots of the plants. This system is used in areas that are not subject to digging. Polyethylene pipes are used for laying subsoil systems - they are easy to install, strong, durable, and deposits do not form on their surface. Plastic is absolutely inert to soil and does not collapse even when water pipes freeze.

What do you need to grow vegetables and herbs at home?

Place. Usually this is a windowsill or balcony. It is better if they are located on the sunny side. But in any case, most likely you will need lamps for additional lighting.

Pots. The size of the pot and its depth will depend on the type of plant. There should be holes at the bottom of the pot to drain water. It is recommended to place pots on pallets.

Earth. There are many soil mixtures for growing plants. As a rule, they consist of several components: peat, compost, sand, vermicompost. You can prepare this mixture yourself or buy it at a specialty store.

Seeds. Some varieties grow well at home, while others don't even germinate. Therefore, before gardening, it is worth researching what seeds you will need. In addition, you may need fertilizer, a thermometer and a container for settling water in order to water the plants with water at room temperature and without chlorine.

Stop weeds from growing

Weed control has always taken a lot of effort and time. This is completely unproductive work aimed at destroying a factor that impedes the normal growth of cultivated plants.

The traditional way to destroy weeds is by hand weeding with a hoe. The beds have to be treated every 2-3 weeks, since weeds quickly grow from the rhizome, plus new ones appear from seeds scattered throughout the garden.

How to prevent weed growth:

• Use herbicides. There are drugs with continuous and selective action. The former destroy all weeds, the latter act against certain species. Popular herbicides are Roundup, Tornado, etc. With the help of herbicides, it is possible to cope with such tenacious weeds as wheatgrass, cow parsnip, and hogweed. Use the products according to the instructions indicated on the packaging.
• Cover the beds. To prevent weeds from growing, cover the beds with an opaque material. Black film, agrofibre or regular cardboard will do. Make slits in the material in which plants will grow. To make the beds look prettier, the film can be sprinkled with sawdust, hay, and straw.
• Sow green manure. After harvesting, weeds grow vigorously in the vacated area.
  To prevent them, sow the area with rapeseed, rye, and white clover. They prevent the growth of weeds by saturating the soil with glycosides that inhibit the growth of harmful plants. Green manure is an excellent fertilizer. 3 weeks after sowing, dig up the area, embedding the greens in the soil to a depth of 3-4 cm.

Agrofibre, unlike film, “breathes”. This is a lightweight material, strong and resistant to natural influences. No condensation is created under it, so the development of fungal diseases is not provoked.

Trellis arrangement

Plants are very small only in the initial period of their life. Over time, they will require an increase in the volume of food and lighting, and as they grow, they will occupy an ever larger area. Every day it will become more and more difficult for the stems and branches of plants to hold the filling fruits.

To prevent possible plant death, it is important to arrange supporting trellises for indoor vegetable crops in your home garden, which can be:

• vertical - for long-climbing plants, cucumbers and vine-shaped tomatoes;
• horizontal - for bush vegetables such as peppers and determinate tomatoes.

Do-it-yourself trellises for the winter garden:

1. To install vertical trellises, it is necessary to secure hooks, rings or other elements for tying twine in the upper slope of the window opening. Fastening elements can be mounted directly in the slope, or on a specially prepared wooden strip attached to the slope.
2. This rail must be carefully sanded, painted to match the window opening and secured on the slope with dowels, masking the fasteners with overhead elements. In the future, it will be convenient to attach lighting elements to this rail.
3. The twine is tied at one end to the fastening element, and at the other end it is tied in a loop around the trunk of the plant. As it grows, the stem is wrapped around twine, and additional garters are made if necessary.

When installing horizontal trellises of mounting slats, you need to make two and secure them on opposite vertical window slopes. Fastening elements are installed after 200-300 mm in height. Rows of twine are pulled tightly between them to the desired height.

How it works? The branches of bush plants are alternately placed on different sides of the twine, tied in several places. You can tie either bunches of tomatoes or individual especially large fruits to the twine.

Use new types of fertilizers

Whatever crop you take, it has its own fertilizer application schedule. Gardeners and gardeners have to apply fertilizers from early spring to late autumn, either for fruit trees, or for tomatoes, cabbage, berries, etc. APION, “fertilizer for the lazy,” helps solve the problem.

The abbreviation “APION” stands for: Automatic Feeding Osmotic Pump. Any plant is a biological pump that consumes nutrients from Apion.

What is APION and how does it work:

• This is a tablet or small packet. They bury it in the ground so that they can forget about feeding for a year and a half.
• Inside the semi-permeable shell there are soluble fertilizers and biostimulants for growth.
• The validity period varies from several months to 1.5 years.
• Fertilizers are dosed evenly, reaching the roots of the plant in the required quantities throughout the growing season.

Smart beds are a great option for your garden

Smart beds (also called warm beds) are practically no different from lazy beds, except that the main emphasis here is on fertilizers. It is well known that good fertilizer helps to increase yields (even with a minimum of effort). The soil in such beds is not ordinary soil, but compost, which includes sawdust, leaves, and straw, thanks to which future plants will receive even more nutrients. A thin layer of soil is laid on top of the compost, and a month after preparation, you can begin planting.

Multi-level smart beds

Smart beds

The height of such warm beds can reach 1 m, but they can be fenced in the same way as the previously described high beds. It is recommended to use logs, stones, and bricks for this, thanks to which the garden will look even more attractive. Also, don't forget about indoor watering.

The method is suitable for those who can spend time on construction and get a lot of fertilizers. But we can say with confidence that all the efforts will more than pay off, and you will have beautiful beds that will yield a harvest a couple of weeks ahead of schedule.

Wooden fences of smart beds can be decorated with brackets with metal carvings (laser cutting)

Choose “convenient” trees

Caring for an orchard requires not only time, but also certain knowledge, skills, and abilities. To simplify and reduce worries about the garden, it is recommended to adhere to a certain strategy at different stages of cultivation.

How to simplify the care of garden trees:

• Low growing varieties. The smaller the height of the tree, the easier it is to care for. A large pear or apple tree is very difficult to maintain; you have to use a stepladder to perform various tasks. In a garden of dwarf and columnar fruit trees it is easier to: spray;
• perform pruning (in the indicated types it is kept to a minimum) - standing on the ground, you can trim any branch;
• to collect fruits - you don’t have to climb ladders and use fruit pickers.

Cool lifehacks

Creative ideas for organizing a garden in an apartment:

1. In order not to miss a single ray of sunlight, an additional mirror is placed in the room or reflective films are glued.
2. In winter, you can compensate for insufficient air humidity by placing a damp towel on the radiator. At the same time, the temperature will drop. The heat will be spent on moisture evaporation.
3. If the battery is too hot, if it is not possible to regulate the heating, cover it with a piece of polystyrene foam. The material is also used for the opposite purpose - to insulate from a cold window.
4. The desired sunlight may be too bright. To weaken the power of the rays, hang blinds or a gauze curtain.

Plant growers believe that apartment conditions in terms of comfort for plants can be classified as cave-like. Despite this, housewives manage to grow, in addition to ordinary herbs, light-loving crops such as tomatoes and eggplants. Balcony cucumbers on the windowsill have become commonplace. It remains to wish those who have taken on this task good luck in an interesting business that can become (or has already become) your hobby.

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Take care of garden tools

Many inexperienced gardeners waste a lot of effort due to the use of low-quality or unproductive gardening tools. Dull hoes, inconvenient handles, all this complicates and delays gardening work. Often the instrument deteriorates due to improper storage.

How to choose good equipment:

• The cutting parts must be sharp. Otherwise, you will have to devote more effort to work than necessary.
• When choosing hoes, shovels and rakes, take into account your height - and choose equipment for it.

To prevent equipment from deteriorating, it must be stored correctly. If you throw rakes and shovels on the street, the iron parts will rust, and the wooden parts will begin to rot and deteriorate.

There is equipment for a variety of types of work that can simplify work in the garden and vegetable garden - fruit and berry pickers, special stools and carts for doing work while sitting, hand cultivators, mowers and much more.

Perennials

Summer residents will not have to start the season by pulling out dead wood, weeding and planting new plants in the garden if they plant it with perennials. This move will free up a lot of time, which can be spent on important matters - pruning trees, preparing beds, etc.

What perennial plants to plant in the garden:

• Reseed the soil with lawn grass. You don’t have to weed and dig up the area, and there will always be beautiful greenery in the garden.
• Plant shrubs. They can serve as a wonderful hedge, decorate the garden, and bear fruit. Pay attention to shadberry, dogwood, barberry, hawthorn and other berry bushes that are hardy and drought-resistant.
• Sow and plant perennial flowers in the flower beds - tulips, peonies, chrysanthemums, various succulents.
• Replace large-flowered species and varieties of flowers with natural analogues. They look more modest, but can grow for many years without replanting.

If you don’t want to devote all your free time to caring for your garden, give up crops, trees, flowers and shrubs that require a lot of attention. Give preference to undemanding plants.

You can learn about perennial flowers in the following video:

Making an inexpensive raised bed

The cheapest way to build raised beds is to fence them with fences. Among other things, such beds will be an ideal decoration for a site designed in a natural style. Here you can grow not only vegetables, but also flowers. As noted above, the arrangement involves multi-layer filling. Let's look at its simplest example.

Table. Instructions for arranging budget warm beds.

Video - Making universal warm beds

Install modern greenhouses

Many gardeners have their own greenhouse on the site, in which they grow seedlings for open ground or grow heat-loving crops in them - tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. Traditional greenhouses are film. The transparent covering material is simply pulled over the arches.

To facilitate and simplify the process of growing indoors, it is recommended to abandon outdated structures and install more modern polycarbonate structures on the site.

Choose a greenhouse model with an automated irrigation, ventilation, and temperature maintenance system. This will save a lot of effort and time, and at the same time provide ideal conditions for plant growth.

Recommendations for varieties

Not all varieties of vegetables are equally suitable for growing at home. It is better to choose early-ripening small-fruited varieties. Below are some of the most successful ones for a mini-garden.

1. Cherry tomatoes: Bead, Pygmy, Bonsai.
2. Cucumbers: Ant, Rykov's Room, Miracle on the Window.
3. Sweet pepper: Caramel, Gypsy, Ermak.
4. Hot pepper: Ogonyok, Ryabinushka, Carmen.
5. Carrots: Carotel Parisian, Touchon, Amsterdam.
6. Radishes: Carmen, Celeste, White Fang.

Grow fewer seedlings

Many garden crops are grown by seedlings. At the same time, it is not at all necessary to plant it on windowsills. Seedlings can be grown directly in a greenhouse, or even directly sown in the ground. Indoors, seedlings often stretch out and get sick and do not tolerate transplantation well.

The seedling method should be used only if it is truly profitable, or if it is impossible to obtain a harvest in any other way. Cabbage, cucumbers, pumpkin and melons - all this can be grown from seeds. The harvest will be later, but you won’t have to bother with seedlings.

Legumes

Legumes can be grown with children in a garden set up on the kitchen windowsill. For this purpose, low-growing, bush varieties are taken. Peas and beans in a pot will not take up much space. Crops grow very quickly, so it is convenient to observe them. For beginner gardeners, legumes are best.

Easy to grow on a window:

• peas;
• beans;
• vegetable beans.

Buy ready-made seedlings

It is easier and often cheaper to buy seedlings than to grow them yourself. There are people/companies that professionally grow seedlings in large greenhouses. Optimal growing conditions are maintained there.

Many gardeners spend time growing seedlings, believing that this is the only way to get healthy, uninfected seedlings. In fact, there is no guarantee that such seedlings will be healthy and will not develop blackleg or other dangerous diseases.

The best solution to the issue is to find a reliable supplier of seedlings, then you can save a lot of time and effort on growing them.

What do you do?

Grow your own seedlings

85.84%

Buy ready-made seedlings

14.16%

Voted: 897

Landscaping planning

Any large-scale work should begin with planning - this also applies to site improvement projects. If you want your site to look like the picture, or its area is so large that your imagination is not enough to find a use for it, you should contact landscape design specialists.

You can cope with the improvement of a summer cottage plot of 6-10 acres on your own. Moreover, no one will understand you better than you, and you are not limited by time, because you can work on your plot forever.

Use the results of scientific and technological progress

Keep your finger on the pulse of scientific and technological progress, which never bypasses agriculture. Along with traditional growing methods, you can use all sorts of progressive advances that simplify the processes of caring for plants.

Among the most popular and effective solutions are a heating cable that warms up the greenhouse soil, artificial lighting, automated watering, automatic temperature control systems and much more.

Sow seeds in autumn

Experienced gardeners know that a large number of garden crops can be sown/planted in the fall.

Advantages of autumn planting:

• In the spring, time is freed up - during this period, gardeners have enough worries related to sowing and planting work.
• Everything that is sown in the fall begins to grow vigorously in the spring, outstripping plants sown/planted after the end of winter. It is possible to obtain earlier harvests.

In the fall, you can sow dill, carrots, cabbage, beets, various flowers for the garden - asters, marigolds, calendula and many others. It is also convenient to plant bulbous crops before winter - garlic and onion sets.

Buy seedlings with closed roots

All seedlings are divided according to the type of roots, into two large groups - with closed and open roots. The first are trees whose roots are in planting containers (containers).

To plant an ordinary seedling with bare roots, you have to dig holes in advance and put fertilizer in them. Not every tree planted in this way takes root.

Advantages of seedlings in containers:

• may wait a long time to board;
• take root well;
• They are easy to plant - a hole is dug according to the size of the pot, the seedling is watered, removed from it and moved to a new place.

Mushrooms

Mushroom mycelium does not like direct sunlight. It will be more comfortable to plant on the northern and northeastern balconies or a closed veranda in a private house.

Boxes, jars, bags, and wood cuts are used for placement. Planting material is sold together with a nutrient mixture or in the form of mycelium. For the latter, a soil mixture is prepared from sawdust of any trees, except conifers, plant residues, and coffee grounds. The substrate is disinfected in boiling water.

The development of mycelium occurs in the dark at 25°C and constant moistening with a spray. After 2 weeks, white threads should appear. This will be a signal for the temperature to drop to 14-15°C. The darkening can be partially removed, but direct sunlight is excluded.

What grows on the windowsill from mushrooms:

• oyster mushrooms;
• honey mushrooms;
• chanterelles;
• Champignon.

Treat trees and shrubs in a timely manner

With trees, in the matter of treatment and prevention, everything is the same as with people - preventing a disease is cheaper and easier than treating it. In addition, not all diseases of garden crops are treatable. If a tree dies, you will have to uproot it, plant a new one, and wait several years for the harvest.

There are prevention methods, simple and effective, that can prevent many diseases. These include preventive spraying, whitewashing of trunks, insulation for the winter, etc.

You can learn more about tree treatment in the following video:

What do you need to know to grow a vegetable garden on a windowsill?

In winter and late autumn, when the shortest daylight hours arrive, plants need additional lighting. The light should be directed not at the plants, but at an angle.

From September to March, when the central heating in the apartment is turned on, you must take care of optimal air humidity.

It is best to buy a humidifier.

However, if you do not have this opportunity, simply place a container full of water next to the windowsill.

If there are pets in the house, especially cats, they should not have access to plants.

Otherwise, you will find an excavated garden bed and trampled plants, because cats really enjoy lying on the grass and getting closer to nature.

Therefore, it is better to keep plants out of reach of pets.

Create optimal conditions for plants

Before planting a plant, find out what growing conditions it requires. How does it relate to light, does it tolerate shading, is it afraid of groundwater and other nuances. The more factors you take into account, the greater the chance that the plant will grow safely without creating problems for its owner.

Taking into account growing conditions is especially important in relation to fruit trees - they do not grow quickly, replanting is treated extremely poorly, so every mistake leads to loss of time, harvest, and the tree itself.

Working in the garden today is not a necessary necessity for many people. It is rather a hobby that allows you to spend your time productively. To make gardening a pleasure, you need to carefully consider the strategy for developing your plot and approach the organization of its maintenance wisely.

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Territory lighting

Lighting the territory of a personal plot emphasizes accent items of garden decor and is the key to the safety of the owners. Spotlights along garden paths using solar energy have become popular. They are easy to maintain, safe and have high performance characteristics.

Hanging garlands on tree branches in the barbecue area and vertical yard floor lamps are often used. The decorative lighting of the alpine slide with spotlights of varying power is impressive. Such mixed lighting of the area in the evening creates a festive and cozy atmosphere.