Ask any gardener the secret to growing and they will all give you a different answer, but here is the number one secret to growing great plants. This is of course my own personal belief but it is based on years of gardening experience.
Good Soil
Having good soil is an important factor in growing great plants, the soil is where the plants get their nutrients from so of course good soil is a necessary element. This is why every season I add well rotted manure and fresh compost to my soil. Adding compost and / or manure will improve any soil type and this will help to grow great plants but it is not the number one secret.
Regular Watering
Watering your plants regularly and consistantly is a very important contribution to growing great plants, without water all plants will perish but too much water will weaken plants and eventually drown them. So water is important too but it’s not the number one secret.
Plant Food
Over the length of the growing season plants will need a boost and this means feeding them. Whether it’s comfrey tea fertiliser, epsom salts, a chemical plant food or a concoction of your own plants need feeding. However, plant food is not the number one secret to growing great plants.
Sunlight
Without sunlight nothing grows, some plants can grow in shady conditions but all plants need sunlight. They convert sunlight into energy to power the process of combining carbon dioxide with water to make their own food, they use chlorophyll to trap the suns energy. Sunlight is very important but it’s not the secret to growing great plants.
Ambient Temperature
Plants will only grow between certain temperatures, different plants thrive at various temperatures. Lettuce for example, grow best in cool conditions, chillis need more heat to grow. So temperature is important but it’s not the secret to growing great plants.
So I’ve told you the essentials needed to grow great plants but not the number one secret.
The Number One Secret To Growing Great Plants
All of the above are necessary to grow great plants, but the number one secret to growing great plants is… Observation. People say they are green fingered or the opposite, brown thumbed… Not so. It is all about looking closely at the way plants are and reacting to their condition. It’s also about watching and mimicking nature.
brown thumb
The inability or lack of skill in gardening or growing plants, such that they end up dying or fail to grow at all. Derived from “green thumb,” meaning the opposite. I’d love a flowerbed in the back yard, but I have such a brown thumb that the flowers would all die within a week.
The Walk Around
Observation Is
The Number One Secret To Growing Great Plants
So it’s all about looking and watching, and seeing what’s going on. The rest is acting on the observation, watering, checking for insect damage, etc… The key to successful gardening is attention to detail, nature’s detail.
So not so much green fingered as garden eyed. Somehow I don’t think that will phrase will catch on. 🙂
When a flower doesn’t grow you check the environment not the plant.
Alexander Den Heijar
That’s a great quote but for successful gardening you have to check it all. Keep your eyes open that’s my advice.
