Gardening seasons d.e.c.o.d.e.d
In tropical regions, there are typically three main climatic transitions.
🔸 Summer
🔸 Monsoon
🔸 Winter
Spring and Autumn are short-lived in the tropics compared to temperate regions.
For agricultural/gardening purposes, spring is considered the beginning of summer, and Autumn is in the middle of monsoon!
As the weather transits from one season to the other, there are subtle but significant changes that start occurring in the atmosphere both above and below the ground.
The nature’s software programmed in each flora starts switching modes triggered by various weather events like ambient temperature, humidity, soil moisture, sunlight, rain, wind, soil microbiome, etc. Some plants are trying to either finish off their lifecycle or go dormant/to hibernation while others are just getting ready to wake up or be born!!
The pestscape changes as well!! New pests start arriving in your garden from nowhere and pests that haunted the past season vanish!!
A seasoned and prudent gardener has mastered the art of surfing on this weather wave. She can feel the changes in the weather, just like her plants in the garden! Her senses that were feeling/understanding lettuce, broccoli, and coriander in winter switch to Amaranthus, okra, and cucumber in summer even before the weather transits!! Yes, she has to plan for the upcoming season before it occurs to maximize yields with minimal efforts.
You, too, can become a master gardener and turn your thumb green if you follow these three guidelines to manage seasonal transition in your garden effectively!!
1. Grow seasonal!
This is on top of the list for a reason! An expert surfer follows the wave profile and direction, studies the current, and utilizes its energy to stay on course for the longest time possible and enjoy surfing! She would never be able to achieve that by going against the current. Likewise, a master gardener would grow those vegetables that are naturally meant for the season. Unless conducive conditions are not created using technology, growing veggies off season is often futile or demands intense efforts and resources. On the contrary, vegetables of the season germinate well and grow strong naturally without much effort. Moreover, consuming seasonal vegetables nourishes our body at the best!
A common classical mistake a typical gardener does is to sow the seeds of the vegetables that are abundantly available in the market. many fail to figure that for those vegetables, it is the harvest season!! Their seeds were sown just after the previous season!!
That brings us to the next most important aspect – planning ahead!
2. Plan ahead for the season
As already emphasized in the preamble, It is all about timing!! Proper planning for the season ensures:
👉 Seeds are sown at its best time. A small nursery comes quite handy.
👉 No time is wasted as the sapling stage is concurrent.
👉 Growing area utilization is maximized
👉 Plants grow naturally robust (provided well nourished) and immune to pests and diseases, reducing your efforts to ward them off. They also bear well as the flowering happens at its prime time in sync with the season.
👉 And, lastly, you get to enjoy the maximum duration of harvests from the season
A good plan includes:
👉🏻 A sowing chart for the season (see above)
👉🏻 Sowing calendar that considers the plants per sowing and frequency of sowing based on consumption qty. in the kitchen
👉🏻 A nutrition calendar suited for the sowing chart. Define which nutrition (liquid or solid) is applied in what dosage and frequency and how (soil drench or foliar spray) Mark the dates!
👉🏻 Integrated pest management defining preventive routine as well as up on pest/disease occurrence.
👉🏻 Last but not the least, timely harvest. Another common mistake gardeners do is to leave the produce on the plant either because its size is not up to the mark or thinking that it will be fresh to harvest just when needed. I have written a blogpost on harvesting itself. Read this: This harvesting mistake may cost you all your gardening efforts!
3 Execute Well
It is good to dream of having a food garden that regularly supplies your kitchen with chemical free and fresh vegetables, but to follow your dream, you need to act on it!! Irrespective of how well you plan on the paper or Excel sheet, if you do not follow it through in action with discipline, it’s all a waste.
Discipline is the key! Discipline brings consistency, which leads us to the result we desire!
Developing the right perspective is vital to get disciplined. Drive this straight to your head – Gardening is not an event, it is a journey. More precisely, it is a routine. You need to keep doing the same thing over and over again to eternity!! Let this reality sink in.
It helps to get your adrenaline rush by looking at a great yield in a social media post or gardening group motivating you to put all the effort one time to tend to your garden. But, it is the intrinsic motivation that takes you back to the garden every single day.
But how?? – Know your why!
In the first place, why did you choose to grow vegetables chemical free in your garden?? Always be conscious of this purpose and make that your anchor for all gardening activities!
Now you are unstoppable!!
Happy Gardening!
