Top 5 best plants and gardening practice amid monsoons

Top 5 best plants and gardening practice amid monsoons

Taking care that you're not over or under-watering your plant, looking for stagnant water and removing it, pruning your plants, and checking your plant's water requirements before watering are some simple tips to take care of your plants during monsoons. You can also try planting plants like beetroot, cauliflowers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and okra in this monsoon.

• Why take special care of plants during monsoons
• How to take good care
• 5 best plants to start growing in monsoons

Why you should take special care of your plants during monsoons :

                    Well, this is true, that plants nourish quite well during monsoons. The reason behind this is that they get enough natural water and get rid of the excessive heat that they had been facing during the summers. Plats also absorb moisture from the surroundings which boosts their health.

                    But seen though this is true, your plant could still suffer due to excessive watering in the monsoons. That may not be a serious issue if you're having an open lawn, your plants are in the soil and your lawn is not flooded, but this could bother plant lovers who keep their plants in pots.

                    Pests are another great problem for your plants during monsoons. So you have to make sure to keep the pests away by using chemical or natural pesticides. Pests can be a relatively intense problem for farmers and plant lovers who have their plants in open lawns than that for people who keep their plants indoor and in pots. So you need to plan accordingly.

                   For some of such reasons, gardening in the season of monsoons is a bit of challenge. But read on further to get some quick takeaways which I bet will help you in growing your wished plant in the monsoons.

Are you monsoon ready?
credit : Wikipedia

How to take care of your plants :

                    Below I have mentioned 5 useful tips for plant lovers and further written briefly about those tips. So do read and follow accordingly to ensure the good health of your plant.

1. Watering : Watering is important during monsoons. As your plant will be getting enough water from the rains, you should always check the moistness of the soil of your plant and reconsider your decision before watering. You can do a finger test before watering your plant.

                   You can easily do a finger test by dipping in your finger or any other sharp object into the soil at a depth of 2 or 3 inches at maximum. You also need to be extremely careful as to not damage the roots of your plant while doing this test. If your finger / the sharp object easily penetrates up to that depth, then you can conclude that the soil is moist and you need not water your plant at that time.

                   This is a very random test to predict if your plant need water. This is a random rule of thumb and is successful 95% of the times. There is still a 5% chance of the test predicting wrongly. Take decisions wisely and don't relay completely on this test.

                    Another simple test is just touching the uppermost layer of the soil and see if the soil sticks to your hand. If yes then this shows that the soil is moist and you shouldn't water your plant immediately. But on the other hand, if the soil does not stick to your hand and seems very dry, then you should consider watering. Also, the water requirements of different plants are different, so doing some research on your plant will always be useful.

                    You should check if your soil is well-draining a few days prior to monsoons. The term Soil draining refers to the draining quality of your soil. If the soil is not well-draining then you should add on some home made compost from your kitchen waste to improve the draining capacity. This is very important so that enough water stay collected/absorbed in the soil and the excessive and waste water gets drained. This brings me to the next point.

                    You should also keep an eye on the stagnant water collected ( if any ). If your pot is collecting any stagnant water then you should throw that extra water away from time to time. If you don't do so, then it may harm your plant and also provide a place for breeding of mosquitoes.

2. Pests : Pests can be very serious problem is the monsoons. There are a diverse set of pests who can be a big problem in your plants. So to avoid them you should use chemical / natural pesticides. Though chemical fertilizers do the work more efficiently, it can have side effects on your plant too. So I suggest to use natural pesticides to deal with plant pests.

                    You can make a few natural pesticides yourself at home. You can use black pepper mixed in water and use this solution to spray on your plants and their soils [ I personally use this trick ]. If not possible then you may use Neem leaves. Just soak the leaves in water for 15 mins and then boil it. Later after boiling, separate the water and spray it on your plants. Both of these tricks can be quite useful to get rid of pests.

                    But, don't use these tricks to get rid of earthworms in the soil. These earthworms are quite helpful to the plant so getting rid of them is not a good choice after all.

3. Temperature : You should see to it that your plant also gets sunlight. Just keeping it indoors to protect from pests and not giving enough sunlight is certainly not a good decision. Sunlight is equally important for your plants to make food for themselves.

4. Covering : If you have a terrace garden then you should consider putting some kind of shade above them. The reason behind this is that being on terrace they will be under open sky and can be affected by strong rains and winds. In such cases putting perforated sheets above the plants can be beneficial

                    Another benefit is that there won't be any problem of over watering due to rains. You will have to manually water the plants to ensure that they receive only the amount of water they need. This will also reduce the chances of stagnant water, thus saying that covering your plants with perforated sheets will provide great help. If you'll don't know about terrace gardening then I have a separate article on it for you all. Just click here to read it.

5. Pruning : Pruning means cutting. You should make cuttings of your plant before the monsoon arrives. If you're growing a non-flowering plant, then you should make cuttings just below the sprouting flowers. This way you will restrict the plant to invest its growth in its leaves and roots instead of making more flowers, completing its life cycle and dying.

                On the other hand, if you're having a flowering plant, then you don't really need to make extensive cuttings. You only need to do so if your new flowers on the plant are rotting and dying pretty soon. In such cases, you can make a few cuttings just below the new emerging flower. This will reestablish the plants flowering cycle.

                    Though rotting of the flower pretty soon may have other causes behind it, practicing this can help in regaining the health of the plant.

5 best plants to start growing in monsoons :

Some of the plants grow really well in this season of rain. So if you'll planning to grow some plants this season, then you should start of with these which can withstand the weather and grow really well.

1. Cucumber : Cucumber is a really easy to grow type of plant. You can extract the seeds from the cucumber and place them in water for a day or so. Later plant those seeds in soil. Just dig a few inch deep holes in the soil to place the seeds and then cover it with the remaining soil. Water them twice or thrice in the day and place them in places which recieve mild sunlight. If everything goes normal, then you will have your cucuber growing above the soil in about 5 to 6 days.

2. Okra : Okra is another pant species that you can try growing in the monsoons. You should only take its proper care and keep it in areas which receives good amount of sunlight. As okra grows big and tall, you need to keep sufficient space between two okras. If you have a terrace garden then okra is just the perfect plant to plant in this monsoons.

3. Tomatoes : Tomatoes can be great for growing amid monsoons. The only problem is wilting. In wilting, the plant loses its rigidity of its non woody parts. But if taken proper care, then this problem will not occur. You also need to see that there is no water logging. With these preventive measures you can easily grow tomatoes for your kitchen garden.

                    Any way, if you'll don't know what kitchen gardening is, then subscribe to my blog by clicking on the orange subscribe button on the left. I will soon be releasing a new blog on kitchen gardening. If you subscribe to my blogs then you'll be the first person to be notified about the release of that blog. You can then come back and read that article.

4. Cauliflower : Cauliflowers are vegetables which grow really nice in mild sun and a bit moist climate. Both of these conditions are fairly favored in monsoons. So cauliflowers can be a really good choice of vegetable to grow this monsoon. The only thing you need to keep in mind is that your soil should be well draining so that you plant grows well. Mixing natural compost in the soil, once in a a few weeks and periodically digging the soil to exchange the soil's uppermost layer [ aerating the soil ] will ensure your plant's great health.

5. Beetroot : Beetroots also love moist soil making them really good to be grown in monsoons. Beetroots can be really great to be grown in late May or June start. You have to just give it good water, sunlight, fertile soil and give it some fertilizers once in a while. Then just wait for about 5 to 6 weeks, until then, the plants may have come out of the soil.

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