The garden is a great place to relieve the human stress that
comes from work, traffic,
bills. But garden plants can succumb to stresses, too. And as
with humans, plants’ stress
can come from many sources.

Drought

Water makes up 98.5 percent of the lettuce plant. The Irish
potato has 70 percent
water. If water is lacking, all other things tend to back
up.

All plant processes — use and movement of growth materials,
and even structure — fail
without water. (Plants wilt because water helps hold them up.)
Water is also the plant’s
main cooling mechanism on these hot summer days.

Heat

Heat causes stress by itself in addition to causing water
loss. In high heat, for
instance, cucumbers may have a bitter taste.

I just saw squash, too, that had spongy areas and wasn’t
very tasty. This is caused by
extreme water loss due to heat and by the plant’s being under
heat stress, which makes it
unable to use water properly.

Low Fertility

Plant nutrients are required to provide the essential 17
elements for plant growth.
Without these essential elements, plant-growth compounds can’t
form, and the resulting
nutrient deficiencies shut down plant-growth functions.

The plant doesn’t care whether you give it organic or
inorganic nutrients — it will
call on either to furnish its requirements for growth and
fruiting.

Pests

This may be the No. 1 thing people think about when plant
stress is mentioned. Sure,
insects eat part of the leaf, and the plant must reroute its
functions around that spot.
The same is true of diseases.

All of these cause the plant stress. But the pests most
often overlooked are weeds and
grass. They have probably been around longer than we have and
are astute at devising ways
to get a share of your plants’ nutrients and water.

Grass and other weeds’ root systems are more aggressive than
your tomato plants’ root
systems. They will cause great stress in your garden. How many
times have you seen your
tomato wilted and the grass and weeds doing fine?

Know the signs of plant stress. But better still, use
commonsense gardening practices
and avoid stressing your plants.