Vacation-Proof Your Kitchen Garden
Wondering what to do with your kitchen garden when you’re on vacation?
If you’ve got a summer getaway planned, you might be stumped on how to maintain your plants while you’re out of town. If you can find a garden-sitter, by all means, do it! You can share the gift of gardening, and allow a neighbor or friend to enjoy any fruits of their labor and take home some harvests.
However, if you’re in a pickle and can’t find anyone to tend to your garden while you are out of town, I’ve got a few tips & tricks you can utilize to keep your garden healthy and thriving.
How to Vacation-Proof Your Garden
Check the forecast before you leave!
This will help inform you what steps you need to take to prepare your garden. Pay attention to rainfall amounts, and cloudy vs. sunny days.
Watering
One option is adding drip irrigation with a timer. While this will ensure your plants are hydrated exactly when you want, the downside is that you will have to leave your water on while you are out of town.
The easiest option is to water your garden really deep prior to leaving for vacation and then use leaf mulch to lock in the moisture.
Or, you could use olla irrigation. Ollas are clay vessels you fill with water and place in your garden that slowly disperse water. You can read more about them here, or explore other DIY watering systems (Pinterest is a great resource for this!).
Sun Exposure
Is your garden in pots? Move them to a partly shaded area and place them in a plastic kiddie pool with several inches of water in it to allow the plants to pull hydration as needed. You can also position a patio umbrella over potted plants.
Add a shade cloth over garden beds to cut the sun if you are in the height of summer.
Garden Pests
Before you leave, inspect for pests to assess the situation. If you don’t see any pests, use Arber’s bioprotectant to be proactive since you won’t be able to maintain as frequently as normal (use code katiemoglesby15 for 15% off Arber).
Harvest heavily before you leave. Any ripe produce that is left in the garden is sure to attract pests, and it will put a burden on the plant itself. No one wants to come home to rotting veggies!
Add a hummingbird feeder to your garden. Besides the joy of seeing these guys zipping around your garden, they eat aphids, gnats, and flies, keeping pests away from your plants.
One of my favorite parts of gardening is that you never stop learning, either through trial and error or from learning from a fellow gardener. So, have you experimented with any other tricks or hacks for keeping your garden healthy while you’re out of town? Share them with me in the comments!
Interested in more garden how-tos?
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