15 Ways Your Garden Design Is Actually Making Your Food Less Healthy
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Gardening is one of the best ways to control what you put on your plate. But the way you design and care for your garden may be unknowingly sabotaging the health of your homegrown fruits and vegetables.
If you’re curious if your well tilled rows and lush beds could use a tweak, keep reading. Below are some common design oversights that may be harming the health of your garden, and the quality of the food you grow.
Neglecting to Prune
Pruning is a good way to remove dead or diseased parts of plants, to open up better air circulation and better growth. Pruning is not neglected, but it does make diseases and pests spread more easily.
Soil Contamination
Garden design is one of the biggest health risks of soil contamination. Many backyards, even in urban areas, contain traces of lead, pesticides or other toxins from past land uses. Without testing the soil, plants ingest these contaminants and they show up in your food.
Planting Too Close Together
While crowded plants can be beautiful, it’s a paradise for mold and pests because the plants aren’t getting the air circulation they need. Each plant needs enough air, sunlight and nutrients and so proper spacing of the plants is necessary.
Skipping Crop Rotation
If you plant the same crop in the same space year after year, you deplete the nutrients in that spot, which results in stunted growth and lower quality produce. Crop rotation can even help in a small garden to prevent soil nutrient depletion and break up pest cycles to help you have healthier plants and a more balanced harvest.
Ignoring Companion Planting
Not all plants can coexist. For example, tomatoes may interfere with growth of cabbage, leading to a yield and nutritional value problems. But planting garlic with roses, or basil with tomatoes, will repel pests and help your garlic and tomatoes grow faster. Some friendly pairings can surprise you in how much difference they make to garden health.
Use of Chemical Fertilizers
Chemical fertilizers will surely increase growth in the short term, but they will eventually destroy soil’s natural health. Heavy chemicals can strip away beneficial microbes and fungi that plants rely on to get nutrients, and you end up with a nutrient imbalance in your food.
Inadequate Sunlight
Plants that tolerate partial shade will, but not all, and some fruits and vegetables need full sun in order to grow properly and produce the best flavor. Your plants won’t have a full nutrient profile if your garden is in a spot that doesn’t get enough sunlight.
Poor Drainage
If your garden doesn’t drain water properly, your plants may rot their roots or lose their nutrients, which makes them less healthy. Roots will not get the water they need if your beds aren’t raised or if the soil isn’t rich in organic material to keep it aerated without sitting in a soggy mess.
Pesticides Used Indiscriminately
Spraying pesticides across your entire garden might seem like an easy way to protect your plants, but it will kill beneficial insects that help with pollination and control pests. Think about natural or planned pest control.
Neglect of Natural Pollinator Habitats
A healthy, productive garden, especially tomatoes and squash, depend on polinator habitats. Without pollinator friendly flowers or habitats nearby, your garden design will reduce pollination, your harvest will be smaller and less valuable.
Watering from Overhead
It’s convenient, but overhead watering encourages mildew and fungal diseases because it leaves moisture on the leaves. Plants affected produce less nutritious fruit or vegetables, or fewer or weaker fruit or vegetables. Watering at the base of plants instead of foliage keeps foliage dry and drop irrigation helps to keep disease at bay.
Using Synthetic Mulch
Synthetic mulch might keep weeds down, but it might heat up, and not allow your plants to absorb water well. Organic mulches include straw and bark, which break down over time and provide the plant with nutrients as well as keeping the plant cool and well hydrated.
Planting Near Polluted Sources
If you’re gardening near a busy road, car exhaust, or an AC unit, then pollutants can settle on your plants. You can reduce contamination if you plant your garden away from pollution sources, or use fencing or shrubbery as a barrier.
Treated Wood for Garden Beds
Wood treated to make it weather proof can be durable, but the chemicals can leach into the soil, particularly when it rains. These chemicals can get into your plants if you’re growing veggies in raised beds made of treated wood.
Overwatering or Underwatering
One of the biggest reasons plants are not healthy is overwatering or underwatering. Too much water washes soil nutrients so plants are weak and malnourished. Monitoring soil moisture and water as the weather and season change can be a big help for plant health.
Disclaimer: This list is solely the author’s opinion based on research and publicly available information.
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