Spring, that exciting time of year when we gardeners start seeing big red tomatoes dancing in our dreams. We’re ready to plant something.
You want to grow great healthy garden crops that will help you shed pounds and be a healthier you, right? One of the keys for success in the garden is to start with the best plants.
You will generally get a better quality plant from a garden center and it will be less likely to have disease or other problems that could spread to other plants in your garden.
There is still the possibility that the garden center plant might not be the healthy specimen that you might expect so you should still check it out before parting with your money.
The first thing you need to do is look at the plant and see whether it looks healthy. Plants are very good at showing any signs of distress so a plant that doesn’t look healthy, generally isn’t.
How to Spot Healthy Plants.
- Good plants should have nice strong, stocky stems. You should avoid plants with leggy weak looking stems.
- Check the conditions of the leaves for insect damage and good color.
- It’s always best to buy plants that have yet to bloom or set fruit, as they will withstand the trauma of transport and transplanting better. If there is no alternative to plants that already have blooms, you should remove all the flowers to give the plant a better chance of survival. Yeah, I know, it hurts because you think those blooms and small fruit give you a head start. They don’t.
- When picking plants to transplant, bigger isn’t better. Go for stocky plants that have a nice proportion between roots and plant mass. Really tall plants tend to be root bound. They will need to grow more roots to support all that foliage, before they can get started in new growth.
If there is anything on the plant that concerns you seek advice or decide against having that plant in your garden. Bringing sick plants into your garden can lead to insect damage and disease spreading to other plants.
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