Toxic Soil
If you plan on using your yard’s natural soil to start a garden, make sure to test it before you start planting. Particularly in urban areas, contaminated soil can have a dangerous impact on your plants. All soil has the potential to be unsuitable for gardening—some soil may have naturally occurring chemicals or unbalanced pH levels. On the surface, the plants may not seem affected, but if your plants are edible, they can retain the contaminants from the soil and make you and whoever else eats them sick.
If you discover that the ground you intend to grow in is hazardous, don’t worry. Your dreams of gardening aren’t dead yet. You can build a raised garden and use new soil that is certified non-toxic.
Low Nutrients
The soil that you choose to garden in needs to have the proper nutrients for plants to thrive in. Nutrients are plant food, so giving plants soil and water without proper nutrients is like having a home but no food or water. Luckily, it is possible to revive your soil with supplemental nutrients or, again, making a raised garden bed for your plants to live in. You will typically see the effects of low nutrients while the plants grow, so make sure to keep an eye on them.
In a hydroponic garden, you must administer nutrients to the plants directly. Your plants will have no nutrients unless you feed them, so keep this in mind when considering if you want to create a hydroponic garden. Your hydroponic system will be unique to your home, so be sure to administer all the necessary nutrients for the plants you choose to grow in your unique system.
Plant Disease
When considering unique gardening problems and how to solve them, diseases can block you like a brick wall. Diseases in plants are more common than they may seem, but the difficulty lies in how hard it can be to pinpoint where the disease comes from. Watch out for fungal, bacterial, and viral diseases in your plants. Soil problems can lead to disease, while other problems, such as over-watering and common pests, can contaminate your plants. If your plants become contaminated with any kind of disease, you may need to change out the soil and dispose of the diseased plant to prevent it from spreading. Keep plants healthy to help them fight off diseases and, as always, monitor your beloved garden plants carefully.
Here are some other posts on gardening:
How to Set Up an Irrigation System for Container Gardening
