Today we will look into some more tips.

About watering…. You shold water your plants daily if you area is a hotter…if it’s a humid area then it will be okay if you water on consequent days. The best time to water is usually in the morning, because mornings are cool, without strong winds, this also results in less loss of water as evaporation.  Some people say watering in the evening makes your plant bed damp overnight and are likely to be damaged by fungal or bacterial attack…but my experience is watering in the evening also makes your plants more healthy. This may depend upon the place you live if it’s not too hot in your area it would be better watering in the morning, otherwise it will be good decision to water in the evenings too if you area is hot.

Try watering the roots not the greenery…. as they are easily damaged, or if you monetary side is good and you don’t have ample time to water daily a drip system can work great. Nowadays these are easily available in market and you can install it yourself.

If you could harvest rainwater for your plants that would be great.

As we have said before weeding is most important.  Some use wood chips on the mud floor to reduce the growth of weeds, but this can be costly and you would not like to spend too much on your backyard farm.

If your plants are attacked by pests it may be a sign of some other problems also, you should make sure they are getting enough sunlight, air and nutrients.  If you could practice with different types of plants or crops in your garden it would limit the pets to some extent. If there is a pest attack and you farm has only one kind of crop this will be easy for the pets. A diverse farm help prevent pests, by limiting the amount of one type of plant offered to enemies, and boosting biodiversity.

It is also a good procedure to foster natural predators in your farm like frogs, toads, lizards or birds. Beneficial insects can be your best friends. Some type of bugs are very useful in some particular types of vegetables, that we will discuss in coming posts.

There are a lot of organic weapons that disrupts the digestion of caterpillars and other leaf eaters. You can also use horticultural oils, insecticidal soaps, garlic sprays etc. some of them are readily available in the market. Most of them you can make it by yourself. I will give you a brief description about making effective garlic sprays and other organic pesticides which I have used in my farm and proved useful !

About harvesting …when it’s time for harvesting harvest your crop in equal intervals, like tomatoes harvesting makes them to fruit more and some of them give more new sprouts.  During the harvesting time if you see some sick plants just remove them from your farm as they can make harm to others.