Common Gardening Mistakes Beginners Make

Gardening Mistakes: New Gardeners Tend To Make the Same Dozen Or So Gardening Mistakes, And Some Established Gardeners Make The Same Ones. Here Are The Top Gardening Mistakes & How To Avoid Them

We all make mistakes in life, and that is also true in the garden. Most mistakes don’t matter that much, all it means is that our plants don’t grow and we have to start again. It’s frustrating but there’s no real harm. We can learn from it and not make the same gardening mistakes again.

And I’ll let you into a secret. I frequently make mistakes in my garden. In a sense, it’s understandable as the garden is a dynamic environment. Things keep changing. From the rain and temperature to the type of plants we grow, change is inevitable. But armed with a bit of common sense AND a few tips on how to make the best of our garden we can avoid most mistakes and have a fertile, healthy garden that grows beautiful flowers and tasty crops.

Starting Seeds Too Early – Gardening Mistakes Number One!

Gardeners are a keen bunch of people. always wanting to get started and get ahead of the seasons. But often it’s either mistake or unnecessary .. sometimes both. 

For example gardeners often start their unheated greenhouse tomatoes in January or February. I’m always pleased to see gardeners keen to grow crops, but these tomatoes can’t be planted in an unheated greenhouse until it’s warm enough. So they are left to languish on a windowsill, getting bigger and bigger, until they can be planted. In a few cases, if you’ve loads of space and big enough pots that’s OK, but in many cases it creates no end of problems that start with leggy plants and can even include blossom end rot. 

It’s the same with sweetcorn. It’s May 5th as I write this and I’m seeing people ask if its OK to transplant their sweetcorn. The photos they post sometimes show plants that are 30 cms (one foot) high or even more. As I walked this morning local farmers are ploughing their fields and preparing to sow their maize (its the name species as sweetcorn) and never sow before May 7th here in the south. They sometimes wait until June and still get a very good crop.

Farmers are professionals are growing sweetcorn/maize and know what they are doing. People tell me I shouldn’t compare sweetcorn with farmers maize as gardeners want early crops. But I can tell you from experience that sweetcorn varieties mature much faster than maize and there plenty of time to sow sweetcorn later than most gardeners do and still harvest late summer. 

Of course if you want to sow early and nurture plants before transplanting there’s no law against it. But it creates extra work and the crops aren’t going to be better. In fact other than maybe a few days earlier the early grown crops often produce a smaller yield of cobs. 

Part of the art of gardening is to learn patience. Patience in my experience means sowing at optimum times and not creating too much work. 

The Buying Old Seed Mistake

Lots of people make this mistake. I nearly made it myself this morning! 

I was in a hardware shop and they had a seed display from a well know seed company. On it was something that caught my eye and I picked up the seed packet. It was just what I wanted to sow this month.

Then I turned the seed pack over and noticed it was packed in 2019. It’s was then late 2021 so the seed was packed years ago. Of course some seeds keep for years and years. Other have a short storage life … and this was one of them!

If we buy direct from the seed company the seed is likely to be fresh enough for us to sow. And seed companies keep their seed in the right conditions, especially temperature. But once it’s in a garden centre, hardware store, or wherever, they lose control of it. It can be stored or displayed in direct sunlight in a warm shop. Or allowed to freeze in a colder area (don’t forget some garden centres have their shop area in greenhouses where temperatures wildly fluctuate. 

When buying seeds check the date printed on the pack and store them correctly.

  There’s a guide on how long seed can be kept on my article entitled What is a seed?

Sheeting / Closing Down For Winter

I’m not sure why this mistake has been perpetuated so widely in the UK.  Having looked at all my old garden books none of the authors have suggested sheeting down or closing down a garden for winter. BUT many American books and sites do.  And I’m guessing that people today do their research online and don’t realise that what works in one area will be disastrous in other areas. 

The weather in the northern states is very different to here in the UK. So what might be appropriate to them certainly isn’t here. For example, as well as insisting plots should be covered in plastic one website also suggested that Brussel Sprouts be covered in a thick layer hay to protect them from winter weather. I used to grow Brussels commercially and it’s the most bizarre idea I’ve ever heard. They are a very hardy crop, the cold improves their flavour and they cope very well with the cold. Some of the best Brussels I’ve ever sent to market was after a thaw following 4 foot of snow. 

So just doing what the Americans recommend doesn’t make any sense to me. 

The other thing about sheeting down a plot I that it stops the rain getting in to the soil. Plus it stops the cold (to a certain extent) getting in. Yet frost and cold is a gardeners friend. It kills pests and diseases and some crops need a cold spell to boost them. 

Worse still the soil microfauna is being starved when its sheeted down. Soils need air and moisture to keep the microfauna alive and thriving. 

The best method is to feed the soil by either covering in manure or compost OR by growing plants in the soil. The plants can be a crop for harvest or a green manure. Do this and your soil will thrive, and so will your future crops. 

Spending Too Much Money

It’s a common mistake when people first start gardening.  It doesn’t apply to everyone of course, but many people spend a fortune on tools, equipment and more.  

Before they’ve even sown a single seed they’ve invested in a greenhouse, raised beds, a stainless steel spade, a wheelbarrow, bamboo canes,  a propagator, grow lights, and some fancy boots.  

None of these things are necessary.  Based on my experience the first thing to invest in is learning the basics.  Buy some books, watch some videos, take a course, follow a Facebook group run by someone that really understands how to grow crops. It’s no good investing money in your garden until you know the basics sufficiently well to know what equipment, tools etc you need.  If you get this bit wrong you’ll potentially spend a fortune. 

Of course not everyone gets this bit wrong. Some people don’t have enough cash to splash out on too many pieces of gear. Interestingly they often make better gardeners because they engage their brain rather than open their wallet.

Here’s my best tip on this. Once you know what you want or need look for second hand stuff.  For example I recently decided to increase my greenhouse space.  The obvious way was to knock down what I had and buy a new “glass palace”.  But that option was going to cost me £000’s and the delivery times are 6-12 months.

So I looked for options.  The obvious one was to keep my present greenhouse and add an extension to it …. People do it to houses so why not greenhouses? 

A quick check online found someone a mile away giving away a perfectly good small greenhouse.  The size is perfect as an extension to my existing greenhouse and the cost of the whole exercise will be a few hours of my time  and perhaps 2-3 litres of fuel to collect it.  And better still my present greenhouse remains in full production.

Today I took just over an hour taking the glass out of my new greenhouse. Tomorrow I’ll dismantle the frame and transport it all home. Then I’ll rebuild it at my leisure.

The thing is gardening can be low cost, glass palaces aren’t needed to grow great crops and you don’t really need special boots for gardening! 

 Gardening Mistakes: Not Understanding Research 

Sometimes gardeners read research and totally misunderstand it. In a sense that is understandable, we aren’t all scientists and we aren’t all gardeners. But it pays to check your understanding before putting your understanding of research into practice. That’s what Facebook groups such as How to Dig For Victory are there for, to share knowledge and help one another.

Here’s an example of misunderstood research.

Someone asked a legitimate question in a Facebook group I follow. It was about saving water that had been used for cooking and its potential use in the garden. A lot of people responded and a lot made sensible comment.

But one person started saying how the vitamins and minerals in the vegetables were available in the water they were cooked in and if the plants were watered with it they would absorb the vitamins which they needed for growth.

When they were challenged on this they came back with research evidence to “prove” their case. And indeed the research from Exeter University and Japan does say that vitamin C is essential to plant growth.

But that isn’t the same as saying it will be in the water veg were cooked in and would benefit the plants. Firstly vitamin C is largely destroyed by boiling.  Secondly, if it were in the water there is no evidence in the research to show how the plant would absorb it. Thirdly plants manufacture vitamin A and do not absorb it from the soil. 

So though the research says vitamin C is essential for plant growth the university research doesn’t prove that it is available from boiled water or that the plant will obtain it from soil that has been watered with the water. To think that is does is to totally misunderstand the research.

The same person then announced that soils that are short of minerals are described as as being vitamin deficient. At this stage most of us gave up trying to explain how wrong the person was to add such misleading information to a post. We let the comments we made stand for people to read and hopefully understand. 

Research in to plants, horticulture and gardening is essential but it does need to be interpreted correctly. If it doubt consult with those that understand the context of the research and science behind it. 

Gardening Mistakes: Destroying Soil Structure 

This mistake is the most serious gardening mistake I ever see. It’s the one that tends to persist for years if it’s made so the one you really must avoid at all costs.

The good news is that it’s not difficult to avoid this mistake.

The soil is a living entity.

I don’t mean it’s like a cat or dog. It’s not a single living entity. In fact, the soil is mainly made up of inorganic material that is derived from rocks. The rocks break down to form sand, silt, clay and other soil particles. But between these particles are millions of living organisms. The largest are things like rabbits, foxes and badgers that dig holes in the soil and live in it. Then there are moles and mice and earthworms and a host of other smaller living animals and organisms.

The very smallest organisms are the soil bacteria, fungi and viruses. They make up the soil microorganisms and are vital to the plants that grow in the soil.

Soil Spaces, Air and Moisture 

For everything to survive in the soil the gaps between the soil particles have to be able to sustain life. The soil particles tend to hold on to moisture and make it available to the plants and other organisms. And between the soil particles, there are gaps that are filled with air. This air contains the oxygen that most plants must have to survive. Very few organisms survive without air. Those that do are called anaerobes and tend to cause the soil to go sour. Those that need air are called aerobes.

When it rains the water runs into the soil, forces the majority of air out and then drains away. If it doesn’t the soil is waterlogged and few plants survive these conditions for more than a few days. The exceptions are aquatic and marsh plants.

As the water drains in our soils the air is drawn into the soil spaces and this helps replenish the air in the soil.

When we have a good mix of soil particles and organic life in the soil we tend to have a good soil structure that contains enough air spaces, nutrients and moisture.

Poor Soil Structure

Poor soil structure in the garden is most commonly caused by either removal of the topsoil or damage to it by compaction, especially in wet weather.

Too frequently builders and developers remove the topsoil from building plots. This leaves the relatively infertile subsoil exposed. It rarely has good soil structure, especially if it has had heavy machinery on it.

Soil compaction is the second most likely cause of poor soil structure and, as indicated above, can be present in addition to topsoil removal. However, even where the topsoil hasn’t been removed, poor soil structure is possible.

In most cases, poor topsoil structure is the result of smearing or compressing the soil with heavy machinery OR our boots. Just walking on the soil when it is wet can cause a lot of damage. In both cases pour bots or machinery compresses the soil and squeezes the particles together, destroying the air spaces. This excludes the air and prevents water from penetrating the soil.

The above image was taken on a building site and is an example of how bad it gets. Despite the fact that a hedge and beds had been planted in the area due to be grassed was repeatedly walked in during very wet weather. The result is a muddy mess with large puddles and no soil structure. This area was due to be lawned a few days after the photo was taken. I’ve no doubt that if the grass is laid it will not thrive, indeed it might quickly die.

How To Improve Soil Structure 

Firstly don’t compact it. That means no rotavators or feet on the soil when it’s too wet. If you need to harvest crops when it’s wet work from a path or put boards on the soil. Making temporary paths from old scaffolding boards or similar spreads the weight and prevents a lot of damage. 

Grow deep-rooting plants, and/or those with fibrous roots, to try to open up the structure.  These can be as break crops or as main crops depending on your situation. For example, potatoes are sometimes used to break up poor soil. But if you do this don’t expect such large yields as you’d get in soils with good soil structure.   

Add compost to the soil. Ideally as a top dressing and let the worms pull it down. It’ll take time but will eventually improve the soil. If you can adopt a No-Dig regime so much the better. 

Have patience. It takes time to rebuild the soil structure. And by that, I mean years, not weeks! 

Gardening Mistakes: Sowing & Planting Too Early

To every thing (crop) there is a season!

OK, so I’ve slightly misquoted this text. But it’s largely true. For every crop there is a time. An optimum time when you should sow, plant and harvest. Get it right and you’ll be rewarded with abundant crops. Get it wrong and your crops will suffer from all sorts of problems. 

I’m a bit blase about many of the planting and sowing dates because I’ve spent a lifetime learning the rules, where they can be bent and when I can break them. But for most of us, we need to keep to the rules. And that is especially true of sowing and planting dates. 

Different crops can be planted at different times of the year. There is no time of year when we are compelled to start our planting year, though many people start in the spring. I’m writing this section at the end of December. It was the winter solstice a few days ago and technically the days ate getting longer. Though, of course, it’s hard to see the extra daylight each day as its just minutes a day at present and a cloudy day hides it on som many days. But give it a few months and things will start to look better and the plants will begin to notice.

Some plants can be sown in my area now (late December), peas and broad beans are good examples as they are very hardy and will tolerate cold weather. They aren’t so keen on waterlogged soil though, so if yours is waterlogged then don’t sow them in the soil. Your choices are to leave the sowing for now OR to sow in pots or modules ready to plant put later.  The third alternative is to grow them in containers from start to finish. 

The main thing is not to try to dig or work very wet soil. It will give you the soil structure problems I discuss above.

And just because I said Broad Beans can be sown now that isn’t true of fine beans, Borlotti beans, runner beans and most other sorts of beans. Most beans need much more warmth than broad beans. Sow the others now and they’ll die unless you grow them in a heated greenhouse .. and even if you do, your problems have only just started. 

Plants generally need heat and light to grow well. Indeed some also need cold and poor light to “vernalise” them. For example, rhubarb needs a period of cold in winter to stimulate good growth in the spring and summer.  And plants without any light, or very poor light, suffer as well. Give seedlings poor light and they etiolate,  i.e. become drawn or leggy.  That’s not a great way for a seedling to start life. 

But we can turn poor light to advantage. Cover your rhubarb with an upturned bin and it will etiolate the stems ready for an early harvest. Commercial rhubarb growers in the Rhubarb Triangle have exploited this for years and still produce the earliest forced rhubarb in the UK. You can try it as well. 

Regular Advice 

Each month I publish a page about what to sow that month. It’s based on my location in South Devon, just a mile from the sea. Generally speaking, if you live further north, or at a higher altitude, the dates will need adjusting for your location. Your sowing dates will be later than mine .. but you’ll be forewarned in time to act. The reverse is true if you live in a milder part of the country to me. Keep an eye on local experienced gardeners in your area, they’ll know how your local microclimate affects dates. 

Sowing dates are given on seed packets. Of course, they are not specific and the seed companies don’t know where you live and what your local conditions are like. So they are only a rough guide. 

The thing is with seeds that a slightly later sowing will often catch up one that’s too early. The early one tends to have seedlings sitting in cold wet soils that makes them slow to grow away. Whilst the later sowings romp away much quicker. That also means that if you start seeds in modules or seed trays you can get the advantage of earlier sowings by planting them out when conditions are ideal. That way you get the full benefit of the earlier sowings. 

Another tip is to warm the soil up a bit before sowing. A cloche or sheet of plastic over the soil for a week or two before you want to sow both keeps the worse of the rain off and warms the soil. Just don’t overdo it by sheeting down the plot too early so that the soil is bereft of rain and too dry. It’s no good starting early only to find you enter a drought when everyone else still has moist soils. 

Keep an eye out for my next What to sow this month articles. They’ll forewarn you of what to sow next.  

Gardening Mistakes: Planting Too Much Garden

The size of our garden is usually fixed. You can’t just add on an extra acre or two. It’s the same with allotments. And most new gardeners I talk to want more space. 

But having too much space just encourages us to try to grow more than we can cope with and far too many beginners plant too much garden. 

They do it in the belief that you need loads of space and need to grow dozens of different things. You don’t. 

My advice is to start small. Just grow a small plot to begin with. Discover what you can cope with. Until you understand how much digging, planting, weeding and harvesting your plot entails it’s better to start small. 

We’ve all done it I suppose. I certainly have. And I should have known better. One year when I had my commercial place I decided to grow a few extra lettuce and extra celery. By a few extra I mean an extra 100,000 lettuce and an extra 20,000 celery. That was on top of the 150,000 lettuce I’d already decided to grow in the spring. 

To be fair we coped with cutting these crops ad we made a fair return on them. We even kept up with side shooting 8.000 of our 10,000 tomatoes each week. But we never managed to do any of one house one week. And when you get behind they take even longer.  Week two we made an extra effort and managed to sideshoot the first 8,000 and started the last 2,000. But it was getting like a jungle in there and we only got halfway through. By week three that greenhouse was a jungle. Half the plants had side shoots 18 inches long and we struggled to remove them. Sideshoots that long are referred to as walking sticks! And by week four they were a metre long! True walking sticks. 

So, I understand why people try to grow too much. I’ve been there. 

But there’s another way for new gardeners. Start small. Only cultivate a small patch to start with. If it’s small you get fewer weeds and its easier to cope with. That gives you more time to propagate a few more seeds in modules and once they are ready you can pop them into any spaces that appear as you harvest crops. That way there’s never any bare soil and you get fewer weeds. And fewer weeds gives you more time!. 

Of course, some crops don’t need too much labour. It’s why after I finished cutting lettuce in my tunnels I used to then plant with peppers.  Once the peppers are in the ground they just need watering and feeding. And I’d automated that. So the next job was harvesting them once they’d grown a really good crop of fruit. Once picking started we did it once a week. It simplified the amount of labour we needed. 

Of course, I could have grown a lot of chillis instead of peppers. But chillis are small and it takes ages to pick a tunnel of chillis whilst peppers take a fraction of the time. And we had 6-7 tunnels of peppers most years. 

It’s all about the amount of time we have to cope with what we are growing. For me, it was a full-time job with very long hours. But most gardeners have limited time they can put into growing crops. And I had three tractors and lots of equipment. It’s certainly easier than using a spade and fork. 

And that brings me to the last point in this section. Why dig when you can go down the No-Dig route. No Dig has been shown to produce better yields and doesn’t entail so much hard labour. 

Gardening is meant to be a pleasurable pastime. Hard labour is what they used to give convicts. So are you into gardening for pleasure or for hard labour? 

Gardening Mistakes: Not Giving Seeds, Seedlings and Young Plants Enough Warmth 

Each spring I see social media posts from people struggling to get seeds to germinate. They say things like, “I sowed tomatoes in my unheated greenhouse over a month ago and they still haven’t germinated.”.

Sadly, in cold weather, tomatoes and many other warmth-loving plants aren’t going to germinate until they get some warmth.

Other posts say things like “I potted up my tomatoes and put them in the greenhouse four weeks ago but they haven’t grown. Have I got faulty compost?”

In this case, it’s not the compost that’s at fault. It’s the cold.  The fact the tomatoes are still alive is actually a miracle as they really need warmth to grow. 

The thing is all the warmth-loving crops need a lot of warmth. When I grew commercially I germinated tomato seed in seed trays in a propagator set at 21C.  They will germinate below, or above, this temperature, but below 18C they will be much slower.  And if it goes above around 25C germination will again slow down, and go much above this and the seed will die. 

Filling Drainage Holes In Pots 

Google “filling holes in flower pots”, “effective ways to seal a drain hole in a clay pot”, or similar, and you’ll get millions of pieces of advice on these topics. I’m not joking, there are millions of pages of advice on filling and sealing drainage holes in pots. And most of them are totally ill-informed and unnecessary.

Let’s get back to basics on this one. They are called drainage holes for a reason. Pots need drainage. They need drainage because most plants can’t tolerate waterlogged soil. They need oxygen at the roots to enable respiration. One of the functions of compost is to allow gaseous exchange.  Different plants need different amounts of freedom from waterlogging/gaseous exchange, for example, poinsettias need more than hostas. 

The only ones that don’t need freedom from waterlogging are aquatic plants. They sit in water and thrive. So that’s the only time when sealing the hole in a pot makes sense. 

Improving Pot Drainage 

Pots and containers have normally been designed with holes in them to aid drainage. Sometimes, in plastic pots, the holes are pre-formed but need punching out. If so, unless you are growing aquatics, do it. Punch them out. Not doing so is one of the worse Gardening Mistakes I ever see. 

In the old days, we were often advised to add a “crock” to the bottom of the pot to allow better drainage.  There’s nothing wrong with doing this. But it really isn’t needed if you have adequate drainage holes. Old clay pots only had one hole and that could get blocked, but modern pots have multiple drainage holes so this is no longer a problem.

Today, just add your compost to the pot, gently firm it and that’s it. There’s no need to add a pot liner of any sort. Once the compost is firmed and watered it isn’t going to all run out of multiple small drainage holes! 

No Plastic, Polystyrene or Other Rubbish Needed 

I often see people saying that we should add a weed-suppressing membrane, plastic liner or even polystyrene to the pot. It really isn’t necessary. In fact, it could cause a lot of problems. Firstly slugs love to sit between the plastic liner and pot. Slug hotels of this sort are bad news.

Secondly, where the pot sits on the soil it’s good if the plant is in contact with the soil as it allows soil fungi to enter the pot. This can improve plant growth immeasurably. 

As for part filling the pot or container with polystyrene, it’s total madness. The reason often given is to decrease the weight of the pot or to save on compost. 

If this is the objective there’s an easier way. Use a smaller pot! 

Adding polystyrene to pots gives us long term issues. If we want to recycle the compost through the compost bin, or just use it to mulch the garden, how do we handle all the little pieces of polystyrene? They are a nightmare.

Allowing Weeds to Swamp Crops

50 years ago my father brought home some scrap guttering.

He then laid them down each side of row crops and they directed light showers towards the roots.

They also stopped weed growth from competing with crops and saved a lot of work. My dad was proud to be a “lazy” gardener who never did more than was necessary to keep us well supplied with food.

I’ve another twist on the gutters. I drill drainage holes in them and grow greenhouse crops in them earlier in the year. These have grown peashoots and mangetout before being put to more good use

Ignoring the Need For Sunshine

Plants need sunlight to photosynthesis.  Without it they die. 

And most fruit and veg need a lot of good strong direct sunlight and as much of it as they can get.

The Gardening Mistake many gardeners make is to ignore the need for plenty of sunlight. Hence I see questions such as what’s the best way to shade my greenhouse, or what veg are best for under tress on the north side of the house. Another favourite is the assertion that lettuce need shade. 

Greenhouse Shading 

Greenhouses generally don’t need shading. If it gets too hot in a greenhouse or tunnel then increase the ventilation and/or douse the floor with water. Both will decrease the temperature. Shading will decrease the temperature of course, but it will also decrease the rate of growth and can cause serious physiological problems.

The only time I would shade a greenhouse is if it were being used to grow specialist crops that usually grow in shaded situations.  So, some orchids or other plants that grow in forests, or other places where they get a lot of shade from tall trees need shade. But these are exceptions.

Woodland Shade

Though I’ve said plants need lots of sunlight some do manage to grow with less than others. An example would be woodland primroses, bluebells and foxgloves. They thrive in these shadier situations, but there is a proviso there is a minimum levels of light without which they cannot grow. So bluebells and primroses are spring flowers and by the time the trees are getting decked out with a canopy of leaves the plants that grow on the woodland floor are flowered and setting seed. Once the light decreases due to the shade cast by tree leaves they enter a period of slow growth and even die back for the rest of the year. 

These woodland plants take what light they can get in spring and then senescence . 

Lettuce and sunlight 

If it is true that lettuce need shade then the half a million I used to grow each year must have suffered. We either grew them under greenhouses where we used to clean the glass to improve light transmission (if you think window cleaning is hard work, try cleaning half an acre of glass) or we grew them in the middle of a field in full sunlight. 

Of course they did very well in these conditions as lettuce want as much light as they can get. They don’t get scorched or sunburnt by sunshine, they thrive in it. 

Vegetables to Grow Under Trees or in the Shade

As for the veg to grow under trees on the north side of a house. There are no fruit or veg I’d recommend. under trees the conditions are not only shaded but its often drier and they will also have to fight for nourishment. 

As few plants are less intolerant of these conditions than others, but few will thrive under a tree in mid summer. True, it depends on the density of the canopy, but few plants will thrive in these conditions.

Etiolation 

Some years ago I moved in to a house with a nice looking greenhouse that was slightly shaded by neighbours trees. As an experiment I planted a few tomatoes. As a retired commercial tomato grower I know a few growing tricks. But these tomatoes FAILED. They flowered but were etiolated (leggy ) plants and the flowers failed to pollinate. Rather than the 6-7 pound of fruit each plant should have given we had as few ounces. Admittedly they were tasty. But it was a waste of time. The lack of light defeated me. Don’t let it defeat you as well.  

Taking Geographically Incorrect Advice – It’s Another of Those Gardening Mistakes

I recently read the advice someone gave about tomato diseases. They thought it correct as it came from an American university. It was recent and aimed at gardeners.  You can read it by following this link. BUT don’t waste your time. 

The information it contains is aimed at gardeners in South Carolina and, despite years of commercial tomato growing, many of the diseases they discuss I’ve never heard of.

The thing is we don’t get the same diseases here  ….  the advice is total rubbish.

So, before basing your gardening on online advice, check the source and ensure it applies to your situation. 

Not Adequately Controlling Temperatures in Tunnels and Greenhouses  

Top Tunnel Tip

The advice they are given often includes solar powered fans, wetting the floor every hour etc. Most of the advice totally ignores the most obvious and basic advice.

The simple way to cool tunnels down is to fully open both ends. Air then flows through. This was all I did on all my 120ft long tunnels.

Tunnel doors need to be full size …. Not these small pedestrian doors … imagine you want to drive a large vehicle into the tunnel!

If you are lucky enough to garden on a slope, run the tunnel up and down the slope. It gives natural air movement. It’s better than any solar powered fan.

More Gardening Mistakes 

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be adding a dozen or more Gardening Mistakes I see every day. Keep watching to learn more. 

For more information on the terminology used here, see our Gardening Dictionary 

Feel Free to pass on this article on Gardening Mistakes 

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