Do you want to make your garden the best it can be? Do you want to learn more about how to conserve as much as possible, while cultivating a thriving garden?
The Peoples' Garden at USDA was conceptualized to help Americans learn more about all things gardening -- and this summer, we're putting on weekly Healthy Garden Workshops to help everyone learn the ins and outs of a great garden.
July 3 Kickoff Workshop
At the July 3 Healthy Garden Workshop, “Watering Your Lawn and Garden,” USDA experts offered a few of the scientific tricks to ensure that your plants and lawn get enough water, but not too much as well as how much water plants “drink” from the soil every week.
For example:
- It helps to create a weekly watering plan, and to monitor the rainfall in your lawn/garden and subtract that amount of water from your weekly watering plan.
- Plants use approximately one inch of water from the soil each week during the summer growing season. Therefore, this amount needs to be replenished for plants to continue to grow and thrive. Depending on where we live, nature takes care of this for us by providing rain and we supplement with additional water as needed. Watering is a delicate balance for gardens. Too little water causes plants to wilt and die. Too much water means the plant cannot breathe; this can cause rotting and make the plant susceptible diseases.
And that's just a sample. For more information about these tips, and to learn more about gardening, visit the the Peoples' Garden page.
Upcoming Events
At tomorrow's Healthy Garden Workshop, you can learn about gardening in containers and window boxes (especially helpful for Americans living in cities and urban areas). The workshop will include discussion on finding the right container for the job, getting good soil, and nursing the container garden over time. Next week, on July 24, we'll show you techniques for weeding and removing invasive plants.
At both of these activities, a "Sprouts" workshop for kids will focus on a series of activities for children that demonstrate how the food system works, from farm to fork.
If you can't make a workshop, consider a garden tour -- they're held every Tuesday and Thursday at 1 p.m. at the Garden. You can also always follow ongoing updates from the Peoples' Garden project on Twitter. or visit the Peoples' Garden page online.
