As people continue to practice social distancing, gardening continues to grow in popularity. Enjoy lovely blooms and homegrown vegetables this summer with the right gardening strategies.

Tending to a garden can be a bit of a learning curve, but seeing your efforts met with success is a very rewarding experience. As you care for your garden throughout the growing season, these five tips will help ensure healthy plants and flowers.

1. Make sure your garden gets enough sun

Every plant has its own unique sun preferences and requirements. Herbs and leafy crops, for example, can usually tolerate partial shade. However, a good rule of thumb for most vegetable plants is that they need at least six hours of sunlight a day, so try to grow your vegetable garden in a sunny spot. If you have a lot of shade on your property, then consider cutting or trimming back trees and bushes to allow more sunlight at ground level.

2. Be smart about how and when you water

While spring and summer rains can help, most Canadian gardens need supplementary water. Because you will be watering frequently, it is best to have your garden located somewhere a hose can easily reach. Save yourself even more time and effort with a sprinkler or a soaker hose system. The ideal time to water is in the morning when the temperature is cooler and the plants will have more time to soak the moisture in before it evaporates.

3. Supplement your soil with fertilizer

Plants get all of the nutrients they use to grow and thrive from the soil. Quick-growing crops like lettuce and radishes often don’t need supplemental nutrients if you have rich and fertile soil. On the other hand, long-term plants like potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplants will do well with a few nutrient boosts over the season.

A balanced, all-purpose fertilizer with equal parts nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium is usually a good choice. For encouraging flower production, however, you’ll want a mix that is higher in phosphorus. For greener and healthier foliage, look for a higher nitrogen concentration.

4. Take advantage of the benefits of mulch

Mulch is a material that you can spread over the top of the soil which has numerous benefits for your garden. It can be organic, such as straw and wood chips, or inorganic, such as gravel. Mulch is great for suppressing the growth of weeds, and it helps the soil retain more moisture as well. Organic mulches also add more nutrients to the soil as they decompose.

5. Encourage robust growth with regular pruning

Pruning is the process of cutting away damaged, diseased, or dying growth from a plant. This makes room for new growth and allows the plant to direct its energy into making the new growth healthy and robust. Pruning can also help to deter pests, which love to take shelter in overgrown and unhealthy plants. Make sure you have a pair of versatile shears to make quick work of all your pruning tasks.

Keep your garden in top shape all summer long by seeing that it gets the sun, water, food, and care it needs. Learning how to take care of your plants and flowers is part of the fun and, once you have it figured out, gardening will be a relaxing hobby to look forward to every day.