A novice gardener? You could be making these mistakes

NEWCOMER gardeners who are sowing and planting during lockdown may be digging themselves into a hole of horticultural mistakes. Grow-your-own veg YouTube expert Charles Dowding, who has become a ‘go to’ source for advice, attracting 30,000 new YouTube subscribers and more than two million views of his ‘how to’ videos in the last three weeks, says he is seeing a raft of common mistakes.

As an advocate of ‘no dig’ gardening, he says there is no need to dig or double dig beds before planting because you damage structure and waste your time.

“During the lockdown, gardening is booming but we’re still early in the season,” he warns.

Here, he lists common mistakes and how gardeners can resolve them.

SOWING TOO EARLY

Don’t believe everything you read on social media as so-called ‘experts’ may give the wrong advice, he suggests. Sowing carrots in January is unlikely to produce a rich harvest, he says, and he doesn’t sow runner beans until May.

Despite the recent warm stretch, at this time of year in Scotland frosts can still bite and cold winds are common. They can can kill off tender plants. Carefully read the backs of seed packets, which should tell you when to sow. Veg particularly vulnerable to frost include courgette, squash, runner and French beans and sweetcorn.

OVER-WATERING

People often over-water, especially at seedling stage, when there’s less need for new moisture. Little roots can easily be flooded, then die from lack of air. A simple tip is to lift your seed trays – a well-watered one will feel heavier than one needing water – but make sure it’s not too weighty. You’ll quickly learn how to judge what needs water and what doesn’t.

LOOSENING SOIL

Some gardeners believe that plants need soil that has been loosened, by digging or rotavator, to spread their roots. Dowding says firm soil is better and has its own natural, healthy structure of drainage and aeration.

If you put a good compost mulch of at least 2 inches on your beds, without digging it in, it should provide all the nutrients your plants require and you don’t even have to plant a new shrub or other specimen with compost, he reckons.

SPACING PLANTS OR SEEDS TOO FAR APART

This can result in a massive under-use of space in your garden, as well as extra work to maintain the unused space, which is often colonised by weeds. As a starting point, space about one third closer than recommended and you’ll be surprised how many extra plants you can grow, he advises. Veg which are regularly planted too far apart include onions, lettuce and beetroot, he says.

OVER-FEEDING PLANTS

Feed soil life instead with a mulch of compost on top of the soil and leave it undisturbed, he suggests. Plant food is then available through biological interactions, such as the work of naturally-occurring mycorrhizal fungi, but if you overfeed plants you cause an imbalance in growth and potentially encourage more leaf, less fruit and more aphids.

USE OF SLUG PELLETS

These are poison to hedgehogs and other soil organisms and are especially unnecessary when you practise ‘no dig’, he says.