Home Gardening is the practice of growing and cultivating plants in the space available in and around your home. This involves turning an outside space into a productive and functional area for the family, as well as a home for plants. It involves growing fruit, vegetables and herbs for personal consumption, as well as creating aesthetics to support the ecosystem of birds and insect life through attractive flower beds and vegetation. Home gardening ideas include planting ornamental plants, flowers and foliage, for their overall appearance; useful plants, such as root vegetables, leaf vegetables, fruits, and herbs, are grown for consumption and medicinal use.
As a home gardening tip, we would recommend you water garden plants every day in spring and summer to keep the compost moist. Reduce the frequency of watering in the winter season when plant growth is slower and temperatures are lower. Younger plants and trees need more water than older and more mature ones, to establish strong roots as a thumb rule home gardening beginner tip. Watering the base of your garden plants rather than the tops will minimize fungal diseases. It’s also advisable to water your plants in the morning because plant leaves hold puddles of water through the night and are susceptible to rotting.
Gardening is good for your mind and body
Gardening is a great form of exercise. Besides obvious weight loss benefits gardening has proved to reduce stress, lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol and decrease depression.
Impact the environment
We always hear about the negative impact humans have on the environment, but by gardening we can truly “go green” to benefit the earth and reverse several negative impacts. Plants act as highly effective air cleaners, absorbing carbon dioxide, plus many air pollutants, while releasing clean oxygen and fragrance. A big step towards sustainability, starts from our home garden!
Growing green
Home gardening helps you eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. In this day and age where pesticides and fertilizers are overused consider the comfort you will have when you know exactly what has touched your fruits and veggies and what goes into it! Plus a vegetable garden is a great way to gain responsibility and personal satisfaction. Find Home gardening ideas and tips here and let Suwaso help you go a long way towards creating your own home garden!
Self satisfaction
Gardening and landscaping is truly becoming an art form. Planning, planting and watching your own garden grow can fill a person with satisfaction and pride. Gardening is truly a life-time hobby. The more you learn the more proficient one gets and the possibilities become endless.
A Great way to enjoy family time together!
Getting together as a family to indulge in home gardening teaches one patience and is a very rewarding hobby. It builds positivity, helps create memories and provides joy to see your hardwork and handiwork bear fruits quite literally!
Please keep collecting the necessary materials needed as per the home gardening tips provided here. Grow Bags or pot, Planter box or plant bag, Red Soil, cocopeat, Vermi compost, bio-fertilizers or any plant-based cakes (Neem cake, Pongamia cake, Groundnut cake, Sesame cake, etc), seeds, scissors, water can, sprayer, etc. Set the drip irrigation facility and Equipment Water stopper engaging in the ground floor and beat the whitewater proof paint.
Full sun refers to areas in your home garden that receive at least 6 hours of sunlight daily. Full shade mainly refers to areas in your garden that receive fewer than 4 hours of sunlight each day. Partial shade and partial sun refer to areas of your garden that receives between 4 to 6 hours of sunlight each day.
Also called a roof garden, it is a garden in which vegetables, fruits or flowers are grown on terraces, balconies or roofs of buildings. The kitchen garden, a standard in every Indian household, has now shifted to the roof due to constraints of space, and is called a terrace garden. Increasing pressure on land and escalating costs have also added to its growing popularity. It’s a great way to start home gardening, given the availability of space.
These gardens can be created on almost all kinds of buildings like residential flats, individual houses, commercial hubs, godowns and factories.
Simple water proofing of the roof is enough. Various water proofing products are available in the market that will ensure that the roof is protected, water-resistant and leakage-free.
Containers of all sizes, shapes and material, (plastic, ceramic, metal, wood or mud) can be used. If you are an environment buff, you just need to use your imagination and look up environment friendly options! Your Coke bottles, take-away plastic boxes, old sacks, coconut shells, old broken buckets, dented kitchen pots and pans, just about everything can be recycled and used as containers.
If you are looking for home gardening beginner tips, you can start with something from your kitchen shelf, that is available and used in everyday cooking like coriander (dhaniya), fenugreek (methi), Tomatoes, Spinach (palak) and chilli (mirchi). Once you gain confidence in growing these, you can move onto vegetables of your choice and even grow fruit trees like banana and pomegranate. Almost all vegetables can be grown (creepers, drumstick, lime, Onions).
Some of the benefits to health, aesthetics and environment imparted by Terrace gardens include:
- Reduces indoor temperature by 4-6 degree and can reduce air conditioning cost
- Reduces overall heat absorption of buildings and insulates the building against heat and cold
- Provides the convenience of safe, pesticide-free, healthy green and fresh vegetables
- Cultivates a routine of physical exercise, clean air and being close to nature
- Increases amount of oxygen in the air
- Reduces sound pollution
- Provides a habitat for city-weary birds
Once your garden is established, an hour a day is more than enough to maintain your green area. It is the perfect area to exercise in and improve your fresh air intake.
You can make your own organic manure at home by using your kitchen waste, and even learn how to prepare organic pest repellents for use in your garden.
The other way of establishment is not by sowing seeds but by transplanting seedlings that are grown in nurseries first.
A seedling is a young plant grown from a seed.
Sowing depth of Leafy vegetables and root crops
Usually, leafy vegetables are sown at the depth of 0.5 inches and root vegetables at the depth of 0.5-1 inch. Seeds can be generally sown into the soil by maintaining a planting depth of about 2-3 times the size of the seed.
Plant propagation is the process which grows new plants from a variety of sources: seeds, cuttings, and other plant parts. Plant propagation can also refer to the manmade or natural dispersal of seeds.
Pinching plants is a form of pruning that encourages branching on the plant. This means that when you pinch a plant, you are removing the main stem, forcing the plant to grow two new stems from the leaf nodes below the pinch or cut. Reason for pinching plants is to keep a plant compact. By pinching the plant, you are forcing the plant to focus on re-growing lost stems rather than growing height.
The joining of two separate structures, such as a root and stem or two stems, so that by tissue regeneration they form a union and grow as one plant.
Air layering is a propagation method- a form of layering in which the branch is potted or wrapped in a moist growing medium to promote root growth. A cut is made three-quarters of the way through the stem at an angle of 45 degrees. A toothpick is inserted to keep the cut from sealing itself closed. The cut is wrapped in sphagnum moss that has been soaked in water and wrung out. This is then wrapped in plastic and tied at the top and bottom with ties.
Plants which complete their life cycle in one year or less are called Annuals.