Organic Gardening – Making a Raised Bed

Posted on May 1, 2012 by

Organic Gardening – Making a Raised Bed

If you are aiming for your organic garden to include plants that require good water drainage, it’s extremely frustrating to have to work with soil that just won’t cooperate.  Some plants can adjust to the excess water in an area that doesn’t drain properly. It might even result in even more lush growth for them. However, there are plants that don’t cope, and boggy ground will cause them to bloat and die. You should always try to find out about the drainage that’s needed for every plant you buy.  Make certain that it will be happy in any of the areas where you intend to plant it.

 

So that you will know how much water your chosen plot of soil will retain, dig a hole about ten inches deep.  Fill the hole with water, and then check it after a day when all the water has disappeared.   Then fill it again. If the water from the second filling isn’t gone in 10 hours, your soil has a low saturation point. This means that once water soaks into it, it will retain it for a long time before it dissipates. This level of saturation is unacceptable for almost any plant, and you will need to do something to improve matters if you want your plants to survive.

The method usually used to improve drainage in the garden is to create a raised bed. This will mean making a border for a small bed, and adding sufficient soil and compost to it so as to raise it above the rest of the garden by a minimum of 5 inches. It will surprise you to see how much your water drainage will be improved by this small modification.

If you’re planning to build a raised bed, your working area is either on grass or on soil.  Each of these situations requires to be built slightly differently.

Starting a raised garden in a non grassy area won’t present many problems.  Find find some kind of edging to retain the soil you’ll be adding.  A few two by fours do a good job.  After you’ve created the wall, you must add the right amount of soil and organic manure. Depending on how long you intend to wait before planting, you will want to adjust the ratio to allow for any deterioration that may occur.

If you’re installing a raised bed where grass already exists, you will have slightly more to do. You will need to cut the sod around the perimeter of the garden, and turn it over. This may sound straightforward, but you will need a tool with a very sharp edge to slice the edges of the sod and get under it. Once it is all turned upside down add a layer of straw.  This should discourage the grass from growing back up. On top of the layer of straw, add all the soil and organic manure that a normal garden would need.

You shouldn’t find too many difficulties in planting your plants in the raised bed. It is the same method as your usual planting. you must, however, be sure that the roots don’t extend too far down and reach into the original ground level. The whole point of making the raised bed is to keep the roots away from the soil which saturates easily. Having long roots extending too far will make the whole effort pointless.

When your plants are in your new bed, you’ll notice improvement almost immediately.  The added soil makes for better root development. Simultaneously, evaporation is prevented and decomposition is discouraged. All of these things together make for an ideal environment for the growth of almost any plant.  Don’t be put off by the idea of altering the topography of your garden.  It’s a straightforward process, as you can see, and the results in the long term in your organic garden are very well worth the effort.

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GROWING ORGANIC CARROTS

Posted on April 7, 2012 by

Growing Organic Carrots

Growing carrots in an organic garden is not difficult if you have the right climate and soil. Carrots like loose soil without too much clay, with pH of between 6 and 7. They are happy in cool (but not frosty) weather and they like plenty of water. They grow well in a temperate climate that is not too dry.

If you live in a warm climate, try them at the coolest time of your year, provided of course that the temperature does not dip below freezing, and water them well in dry weather.

Carrots are a root vegetable so you cannot see the actual carrot growing. They have fern-like leaves. They are related to dill and fennel plants, and you will see the similarity in the leaves. If you have not had the satisfaction of growing carrots before, you will know them when they first come up by their feathery leaves that look a little like dill.

 

 

The leaves are edible and very nutritious but they contain a lot of potassium which makes them bitter, so they are best mixed with other vegetables in salads or soups. However, they can produce an allergic skin reaction in some people.

If you decide to grow wild carrots in your organic garden, you should know that the leaves of that plant are toxic. However, regular organic carrot leaves should be fine in small quantities as long as you are not allergic. Carrots were originally cultivated for their leaves, not their roots.

Provided you have the right conditions, growing carrots is pretty simple. You will find that you can buy many different varieties. They are not all long and thin, and they are not all orange. Heirloom varieties may be purple, for example. Remember to look for organic seeds if you want organic carrots to grow from them.

Stubby or round carrots exist, and can be great for growing carrots in containers where you do not have the depth that long carrots would need. Carrots also do well in raised beds.

Carrots will mature in about 2 months from planting the seeds, but this varies according to the variety, so go by what you see on your seed packet. In temperate climates, plant in the spring. You can start before the last frosts provided that the ground is soft and loose enough to be worked.

If you are growing carrots for your own kitchen, you can plant them in succession, planting one short row per week throughout the spring. This way you will have fresh carrots every week instead of having them all ready at the same time.

You will need to thin your plants when they are a couple of inches tall. Thin them so that all of your growing carrots are at least a half inch apart. One inch is better.

Do not harvest them early, thinking that you will get sweet-tasting baby carrots that way. Baby carrots are a special variety. If you harvest regular carrots early, they will be bitter.

Be sure to rotate your carrots around the garden, as you do with other plants. This will prevent pests such as carrot rust from becoming established.

If you follow all of these tips, you should have no trouble growing carrots in your organic garden.

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Grow Up with Vertical Gardening!

Posted on March 2, 2012 by

by Gary Bunn

Sometimes you just don’t have the space in your garden to plant everything that you want. If you are limited to a container garden or to a small backyard garden, you’re probably limited when planting vegetables. However, there is another way! Vertical gardening is a great option for those with less space!

Vertical gardening is a way of growing plants up instead of out in order to conserve space. Even if you have lots of space in the garden, vertical gardening will help to keep plants up off of the ground, and will make the garden space look more clean and organized. Through the use of trellises, stakes and fencing, you can give your plants space to grow that you would not normally have. There are various plants that are well suited to this type of gardening.

 

Many supports for vertical gardening can easily be made, or purchased in the garden center. Also, keep an eye out for materials at auctions and yard sales. A chain link fence is a good place for vining plants like peas and beans. If you already have one in your yard, place the garden close to it to make better use of the space. You can easily construct a support for cucumbers by using wooden stakes or poles, and some baling twine. Place the poles about a foot apart, and string the twine back and forth in a zigzag fashion across the stakes. Staking cucumbers allows the fruit to stay off of the ground preventing rot. Ripe cucumbers are also much easier to see in this configuration.

Even fruits like cantaloupe and small melons can be grown vertically. The plants will vine on a fence or trellis. In order to support the weight of the melons, make a sling for each with old nylons tied to the fence. The nylons will cradle the fruit until they are ready to harvest.

Tomatoes can grow trailing on the ground, but should be placed in a tomato cage for support. Many people already do this without thinking of it being vertical gardening, but it is. Tomatoes will easily get bruised and will rot if they are allowed to grow on the ground.

Any of these methods can easily be used when container gardens are being grown. Stakes, cages and other types of support can be placed inside or outside of the container in order to allow plants to grow vertically.

If you are struggling with fitting in everything that you want to grow, vertical gardening is for you. In theory, you can grow all of your vegetables in half the space. While some vegetables are not suited to this type of gardening, there are many that are, and this method will make things easy on your plants and on you.

Gary is the Editor of the PlasticGreenhouseSite, with all you need to know about buying your [http://www.plasticgreenhousesite.com]Plastic Greenhouse! Find out the benefits and advantages of growing your own fruit and vegetables at home! [http://EzineArticles.com/?Grow-Up-With-Vertical-Gardening!&id=5038230] Grow Up With Vertical Gardening!

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ORGANIC GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS

Posted on February 6, 2012 by

Finding information on gardening for beginners may not be easy to do.   However this might be a place to help you, particularly if your aim is to set up and garden organically.  There’s no reason not to try it – it’s just as simple as any other way and has so many benefits.

Just think -  if you are able to grow herbs and vegetables in your garden,  you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that no  poisonous pesticides have been used anywhere near them. You can enjoy your own home grown food and not worry about what unpleasant things might have happened to it.

Easy Herb Gardening for Beginners

Herbs, actually, are among the easiest plants to grow.  It’s a very good idea to plant some herbs when you are beginning your gardening.  They will do well in a sunny spot in the garden, or grown in containers outside, and you can even grow herbs on an indoor windowsill.   Most herbs are small enough to do this, and you won’t need to grow an awful lot of them since only small quantities are used in cooking. How rewarding it will be to taste your own home grown organic herbs in the food prepared in your kitchen!

First of all you will need to prepare your earth by digging it by hand or using a machine. If you are working on land that is overgrown and not previously used as a garden you will probably need to hire a machine. Otherwise, start in a small way by digging a manageable area.

Planting is the next thing. It’s important to choose the right plants for the season. At most times of the year there is  something that should be planted. Select those plants whose colours or fruits you will enjoy, and don’t plant them too closely together.

If your house already had a garden when you took over, the first thing is try to identify all the plants that are already there.  Draw an outline plan of your garden and write down all of the names and positions of the plants.   If you don’t recognise some, look up some pictures of popular garden plants and also common weeds. Then it’s time for you pull out anything that is clearly a weed.

In your first year in your new garden, it may be an idea to wait and see what comes up.  Don’t get carried away with uprooting everything that comes up – wait until it is at least big enough for you to identify it properly. If the land has been a garden in the past there may be some self-seeding annuals in the earth that will be a valuable asset to you.

You may decide to simply avoid using chemical pesticides and fertilizers.  In this case, technically your garden will not be strictly organic. To achieve this, you would need to use organic seeds too. You can find these at many online providers of organic gardening supplies.

You will find that gardening is a fascinating activity. It helps you to keep fit, beautifies your surroundings and brings you feelings of harmony with the natural world around you.  Gardening for beginners, doing it the organic way, could become your most rewarding hobby.

 

News note:  Farmscape, at the Jonathan Club, Los Angeles, is growing a variety of vegetables and fruit in raised beds on the rooftop garden.   Organic gardening methods are used and this shows that food cultivation can happen almost anywhere.

More about this: http://laist.com/2012/01/31/from_rooftop_to_fork.php#photo-1

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Preparing Organic Soil for Your Garden

Posted on December 31, 2011 by

Gardeners want earth that looks good, feels crumbly and smells pleasant.

This is a characteristic of fertile soil, with good structure where the sand, silt, clay, and humus are bound together in good proportions.

However, even if you start out with poor soil you can transform it into great garden soil.

How to Prepare Organic Soil

First look at the amount of organic matter, or decomposed plant material in the soil.  Different areas have different natural levels. The best organic matter for adding to your garden soil is compost.

You may not have any compost of your own, and if not, it’s important to start working on this right away.

 

 

When composting you need to recycle natural matter such as kitchen scraps, vegetable peelings, egg shells, coffee grounds, leaves, grass clippings etc. These will supply nutrients and fibre to the soil which are of great importance.

When digging in your garden, work in some loose topsoil along with natural organic matter into the earth.

Horse or cow manure work very well for this. You may be fortunate enough to be able to buy dung from a local farmer but if not, garden centres usually stock natural additives which you can use instead.

The organic material which you work into the soil will create a moisture-holding humus with a structure which allows good drainage.

As you dig, remove any weeds and roots, shaking off any excess earth. Once you have your plot prepared, let it settle for a few days before the planting begins.

 

 

 

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Organic Vegetable Gardening Tips

Posted on December 5, 2011 by

Here are some organic vegetable gardening tips, which I hope will be of interest, to help both experienced and new gardeners.

It’s not surprising that interest in organic gardening is on the rise, when you see the publicity about the dangers of pesticides in food. If you have a garden, of whatever size, you have the opportunity to grow your own vegetables. And why not try organic gardening?

Organic food, grown at home is hardly any more expensive than the regular variety. Of course, you’ll need to start with organic seeds, to ensure that your crop is not genetically modified and doesn’t have any chemical pesticide residues in the seeds.

When starting organic vegetable gardening for the first time, firstly check your old supplies, such as sprays, fertilisers, etc. and discard anything that is not clearly organic. Now it’s time to plan your garden.

Organic Gardening Tips: Choosing Your Plants

When it comes to choosing what to grow there is no difference between organic and non-organic. Of course, you can plant anything that would suit you and grow well in your soil type and climate. You can check out information from local gardeners or the nearest plant centre to find out which vegetables will do well in your garden, if you have not grown any vegetables before.

Neighbours too might be helpful, especially those whose gardens are probably in a very similar situation to yours in terms of soil and their exposure to sun, frost and wind. You might want to take the opportunity to ask them (very diplomatically) not to spray chemicals toward your garden, too.

Try to have as wide a variety of plants as you have room for. This is good both for variety on your table and for keeping the garden productive. Rotation of plants is important from year to year, for ensuring better harvests and less disease.

Companion plants grow well beside each other, and can protect each other from pests. For example, it’s a great idea to grow garlic around other plants. Of course consider what you and your family like to eat. It’s wonderful to have a garden full of your favorite vegetables … but not so great to have a ton of stuff that’s to nobody’s taste.

Organic Gardening Tips: Managing Your Garden

If possible, when planning your garden, try to keep it close to the house so that you’ll remember to check on it often. This is more important for organic gardens than others which employ pesticides, anti fungals etc. In your organic vegetable garden you’ll need to check for pests and disease regularly, and deal with any problems quickly to prevent them from spreading.

As well, make sure that you can see and reach all of your plants easily. You may need to create pathways into your vegetable beds.

Having a compost heap, as you know, will be very useful so start one right away if you don’t already have one. Compost is an excellent natural and cheap fertiliser. You can add it to the soil a couple of times a year, or after harvesting a particular area of plants.

Following these organic vegetable gardening tips – starting today – will help turn your garden into a wonderful source of fresh home grown vegetables.

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Organic Insecticide For Your Garden

Posted on September 25, 2011 by

If you have a problem with pests in your garden you may wish to try the option of using organic insecticide. Many garden stores nowadays stock organic insecticides. You must be sure, though, that you are buying the correct product which will effectively control the pests which are causing you problems.

Organic gardening involves only killing the insects where necessary, and not eradicating any more insects than you need to. You don’t want to buy the kind of chemical insecticides that kill off practically all the six legged creatures in the garden. Some insects are very useful, such as ladybirds which will feed on your aphid pests. Insects can be beautiful too. Think of butterflies!

In line with this thinking, many gardeners prefer to avoid insecticides and use other methods for controlling pests in the garden.

The best method of controlling soil-based pests is rotating your plants so that the plant they feed on is not grown in the same place year after year. Insects, fortunately, seem to be easily confused, especially those that live in the soil. This stratagem is often enough to prevent them from becoming established and numerous.

However, if you are already considering organic insecticides, it’s probably too late for prevention. You’ll need to find other ways to control pests. The best ways, of course, are those that will target the specific pest that is causing you problems. In this way, you won’t be killing  off beneficial and friendly insects that contribute to the natural food chain in your garden.

 

Garlic repels many garden pests, and so gardeners often plant garlic around their other crops. Red spider mite and the borer beetles that attack fruit trees seem to be particularly repelled by garlic.

A handy and effective way to use garlic is in a spray.  Crush garlic cloves, mix with water and spray the mixture directly onto your plants. This is effective in deterring many of the pests that feed on vegetables and flowers.

Soap solutions are another effective weapon against aphids and other small flies that attack roses and flowering plants. A soap solution spray can also help protect flowers from slugs.

Slugs and snails can be a real headache.  A salt solution sprayed onto plants will often keep off these pests in the same way that garlic repels other pests. You can also try making traps containing beer, although not everyone finds them effective.  Place a shallow container of beer into the ground with the rim  at ground level.  The theory is that slugs easily find the beer, fall in, and as far as we know, they die happy.

A common household product for use against many garden pests is boric acid. It’s also called boracic acid, borates or borax. It’s effective, and is used in many commercial pesticides, but it is a naturally occurring mineral a little like salt.

Boric acid as a powder can be used against ants and similar crawling insects including roaches, ticks and fleas, beetles, earwigs and crickets. It also has anti fungal properties so it can be used against fungal diseases on plants, moulds and mildew. Like salt, it can also kill slugs and snails.

Boric acid can be toxic in high quantities. So,for safety reasons, don’t use this organic insecticide on fruit or on plants that children or pets will be likely to handle, eat or lick.

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PLANNING YOUR ORGANIC GARDEN

Posted on August 30, 2011 by

 

Tips on Planning Your Organic Garden

Where to plant your organic vegetable garden?

Your chosen site should :

*receive at least six hours of direct sunlight daily,  
*the soil should drain well
*it should receive adequate air circulation but be protected
from strong winds. (Your house or a hedge can act as shelter from the wind.)

How large a vegetable garden do you want?

Beware of beginning too ambitiously, too large a plot can mean too much work.

A plot 10 feet long, 10 feet wide will allow for tomato plants, lettuce, bush cucumbers, radishes, courgettes, herbs and some flowers.

Draw a garden plan on graph paper, bearing in mind the space requirement for each plant at maturity.

Try laying out your organic garden in blocks instead of rows. This will enable you to plant more.  Blocks with a variety of plants are more diverse than single rows that alternate just two plants.
The diversity of blocks can mean healthier plants.

Make sure you can comfortably reach the middle from each side of the block.

Save your garden plan to use as a reference for rotating crops the following year.  Leaving plants in the same spot each year depletes the soil and encourages disease and soil-borne insect predators. No annual plant should go in the same spot two years running and if possible leave 3 years between putting a plant in the same spot.

Consider planting Clover, Alfalfa, and other such plants to fix
nutrients from the soil, which can be used by other plants,
as well as adding bulk and organic matter to the soil, when
they are dug into the soil.

Choose plants suited to the site. Plants adapted to your climate and conditions need far less attention than those needing special care to remain healthy and productive.

After planning your organic garden for one year, you should really plan for the following  year as well.   Crop rotation is very important for keeping soil healthy,  so decide where you will plant what in the next season.  If you do this in advance it will help you keep an efficient system of crop rotation in place in your organic garden and save guesswork next year.

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Children’s Gardening – The Organic Way

Posted on July 19, 2011 by

Organic Gardening for Children

Introducing children to gardening is an excellent way to teach them about so many of aspects of the world around us, as well as being a lot of fun. Small children can be astonished when a seed they planted suddenly produces a green shoot. Older children can take pride in producing flowers for the home or vegetables for the table.

Children like gardening because it is all “for real“. Many of the things they are used to doing are based in fantasy play or with toys, but with gardening they are dealing with the real natural world. Whether they grow small plants in a pot at their bedroom window, or help mommy, daddy or grandparents planting flowers and vegetables outside, they are seeing the cycle of life and death happening before their eyes.

 

gardening children

We usually prefer to focus on the happy aspects of kids’ gardening, but it is also an easy and kind way to introduce them to the concept of death in nature. They will find that not all of their plants will thrive. Of those that do, some will have to be weeded out. Others may well be hit by pests or disease. All of this needs to be explained to children. They may be disappointed at first but learning to understand how nature works will help them later, when they are faced with the death of loved pets or even family members.

You may find the best way to start children gardening is to take one plant at a time. The favorite plants for little children are ones that sprout easily, grow quickly and have brightly coloured flowers or attractive leaves. Good plants for this are primroses, pansies, geraniums and lamb’s ears. Sunflowers are a great choice for a sunny garden, because they grow to such a size. You can measure their progress each week just like measuring your child’s growth, but even faster. Little children will also recognise sunflowers very easily, because they look just like the typical picture of a flower that they see in cartoons and books.

Children also love to grow something that they can eat. Strawberries are perfect for them because they can forage for them in the garden. Salad vegetables are good too. Anything that needs to be cooked is not as interesting for most children, unless you want to involve them in cooking too.

The best kind of gardening for children, is, of course, organic gardening. You wouldn’t want your children to be exposed to chemical pesticides or fertilizers when they are working with you in the garden. Little ones especially, will touch the earth as well as the plants, and some of what they touch usually gets into their mouths!

Of course, you’ll also want to avoid poisonous plants if you have very small children. You’ll need to research a little because some plants are toxic where you would not expect it. For example, the plants of the nightshade family, which includes potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers and eggplant, often have poison in the leaves even though other parts are edible.

If you don’t have a garden or have no interest in gardening yourself, you still have plenty of options. It’s perfectly possible for children to grow flowers or herbs in containers in the house. They can also become involved in any gardening projects in the community, or when visiting friends and family members.

However, it must be remembered that children involved in organic gardening need to visit the garden as often as possible to maintain interest. They need to understand and to care about what is happening.

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BEST ORGANIC GARDEN FERTILISER

Posted on July 1, 2011 by

Organic Garden Fertiliser – the Benefits

Organic garden fertiliser is a necessity for you if you want to garden organically. Your plants will still need fertiliser even though you are gardening in a natural way. The growing plants will take minerals and vitamins out of the soil,and if similar crops are grown repeatedly in the same place the soil will become ever more depleted.

To harvest the tastiest and best fruit and vegetables and the greatest abundance of flowers from your garden you will need an organic garden fertiliser. If you have the facility to produce it, you can use compost which you produce in your own garden. If this isn’t possible, you have several other choices.

Manure and Guano

Manure or guano is one of the oldest forms of organic fertiliser used in both farming and gardening. If you have access to horses or other large animals you may be able to use their manure on your garden. It will, of course, have the disadvantage of being rather smelly. You should also think about whether the animals have been raised and fed organically. If they haven’t, their manure could contain chemicals and hormones that you would not want in your organic garden.

An alternative natural organic garden fertiliser is bat guano. This is one of the richest and most concentrated fertilisers for the soil that you can find. It contains high quantities of nitrogen and phosphorous, and this is particularly good for flowering plants. Bat guano is also said to be effective in neutralising or removing certain toxins from the soil. This makes it an ideal choice if you are converting a garden that has not been managed in an organic way previously.

Seaweed

Seaweed or kelp is a vegetable-based source of fertiliser for gardens. It is particularly rich in iodine, potassium and other minerals. If it’s used in its pure form, it contains no animal products and could therefore be more suitable for vegans and strict vegetarians than many other products. Seaweed extract is often used to produce organic garden fertiliser. The extract may be mixed with water or with other products to increase its mineral profile.

Seaweed based organic garden fertilizer can help in promoting resistance to disease and will aid healthy root and seed growth in your plants. It is particularly good for leafy plants like tomatoes, bell peppers and corn. It has the advantage of delivering its nutrients in a form that is very easy for plants to absorb.

Worm Castings

Worm castings are earth that has been ingested, partially digested and then excreted by worms as they pass through the soil. They can often be seen left as thin spirals of fine soil on the surface of beds. They make good organic garden fertiliser and are especially beneficial for the roots of plants including root vegetables and also grass lawns.

Worm castings will be formed naturally by the worms in your garden if you have plenty. If your garden is newly established or you want to increase the variety of worm castings, you can buy either the castings or live worms from garden supply stores.

Bone Meal

A number of regular fertilisers will contain bone meal, but you can also find organic garden fertiliser that is based on by-products of animal farming including bone and blood meal. You can either choose a fertiliser that is 100% organic or one that is all natural but is not certified organic. You may decide to choose the all natural option if you consider that your garden has some non-organic aspects anyway, for example from neighbours’ chemical sprays.

To make certain that your garden remains completely organic, you will want to use only 100% organic garden fertiliser.

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