Where to Start With Organic Gardening?
For many organic growers, farming or gardening is a passion. We feel a connection to the Earth and believe it has become a moral duty to protect her and provide for her. Aside from the apparently spiritual affiliation, it's just plain fun to be out in the sun playing in the dirt and watching things grow - something I never dreamed I would be doing until my wife Pamela introduced me to organic gardening as a way to help feed our menagerie of exotic pets and help distract me from my hectic business life.
Those who take up organic gardening often have no idea to where to buy supplies, for example. They don't know what products they need for soil nourishment or pest control. They may not know how much water to supply, or how to go about composting kitchen scraps for their gardens. They need more than a few organic garden tips and ideas. Many will need hand-helding through their first steps in organic gardening.
Imagine growing a beautiful garden or orchids,, or other plants and be the envy of all your neighbours out there :)
Here are a few tips just to get you started in the right direction with organic gardening:
- Firstly, you need to choose what you will grow and decide how much you will need to plant based on your needs or goals in sales. Without knowing what you want to put in your soil, you can't start organic gardening.
- Second, you need to keep the soil healthy. Healthy soil produces healthy plants. Healthy plants, like healthy humans, are better able to withstand disease.
- Use ladybugs. Yes, ladybugs (or ladybirds as they are also called). These beautiful little red insects with shiny black spots control aphids naturally and totally. You can order them from several organic garden places on the Internet. Until they arrive, spray every part of aphid-infested plants with well diluted soapy water and then rinse with clear water.
- You will also need to know how to make compost. Make compost the lazy way, by layering leaves, lawn clippings, and kitchen waste. Then simply leave it until it's ready. Nature's recyclers will take organic matter no matter how it is presented and turn it into rich, nice dark compost.
These were just a few tips that took from Organic Gardening, my "bible" for organic gardening.
An avid organic gardener Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marcia_Gallik |
Growth Control for Efficient Gardening of Vegetables
A good garden aficionado must know that cultivation or weeding is effective for growth control. Weeds are your garden's most persistent and cloying enemy. You need to be able to know how to handle weeds in order to foster growth control for your organic garden. If you let weeds take over, they will completely obliterate your capacity to yield a rich number of vegetables.
They are the number one stealer of nutrients, sunlight and revenue for farmers, so the earlier you try to eliminate them, the better will it be for your gardening. This can eat up your time to such extremes at certain seasons, but monitoring weeds and eliminating them is definitely worth your time and effort.
Weeds are usually much harder to remove when they have matured. So it might require you a keen observing eye to really check out and inspect your garden for the earliest appearances of these culprits. Cultivating your soil regularly in the garden will help eliminate the younger weeds. Once you let those young weeds take hold and be firmly established in the garden, it will become a more herculean task to try to remove them from your garden.
Seasons also affect the appearance of weeds. Warm-season and cool-season weeds proliferate at different times of the year, and it will be your advantage to recognize which weeds are in season so you can more easily expect them in your garden and prepare your anti-weed arsenal more effectively. Some of the weed seeds may also lie in your garden, so make sure that you are able to cultivate your soil properly to remove them as well.
Make sure that your ground remains filled up with the good stuff. If you leave any portion idle or bare, the weeds are more likely to secure that area for their growth. If you are unable to fill the entire area with plant outgrowths, at least have a good cover to keep the weeds from invading your plant territory.
In the case where weeds have already grown when you discovered them, chopping them off from the ground is the most efficient way to remove them. Some of these weeds may cease to be removed, and will not stop even when you cut them down. But repetitive cutting down of those weeds will help eliminate them for good after some time.
The use of herbicides and pesticides is also advised, but it is not entirely necessary when you are able to do good cultivation of your land. The pesticides and herbicides, especially the commercially available ones, may prove to have other harmful effects. It may also pose as a threat to other useful organisms living in your garden. In any case, when you are presented with a huge weed problem, you may use herbicides and pesticides but only sparingly.
Mulching and composting are also good ways to help maintain the soil and ward off the weeds. Ultimately, you will not have to encounter huge problems in weed management if from the start, you are able to keep them from thriving in your garden in the first place.
If you are really consistent in digging up your space, you will have made the most out of your vegetables' garden and have exercised true growth control against weeds that can steal, kill and destroy your organic garden.
The Main Antagonist of Your Organic Gardening Venture
If you are only starting on this hobby or business, however you'd like to put it, you may be wondering about the pests. How are you going to be able to get rid of them without turning to synthetic pesticides. The short and quick answer is that you buy an organic one. There are actually many brands that are available commercially. You just have to ask around what are the types that will work best in your location and with the kinds of greens that you are growing on your garden.
But before you start choosing the right pesticide, you must be fully aware what the problem really is. To do this, you must inspect your garden thoroughly. Take down notes. You can also take pictures if you are not so sure about the kind of pests that are pooling on your garden.
Then you can go to the store and detail to an expert the problems that you are having. This way, you will be given a brand that will best fit and solve the problems that you have on your garden.
The other way that you can do so that you won't have to turn to pesticides, even the organic type, is to do things manually. Yes, this is harder. But just consider this as a challenge that you need to overcome to help yourself become an expert.
If the plants are infested by unnecessary pests, what could be the problem? One root of the problem could be the plants themselves. They may be depressed or stressed. What have you done to them? This type of gardening means that you are to take things personally. You are being one with nature. So this succeed on this, you've got to take things seriously.
What makes a plant depressed? You may not be spending enough time with it. It may sound weird, but talking to your plants or singing to them may help you with the whole process. Throughout your gardening trek, you should be able to familiarize yourself with all the plants in your garden. You have to know how to make your plants healthy, happy and productive.
If you have to pick out the pests manually, then do it. This can be done as long as there are only few that can be found on your garden. You must only resort to the pesticides once the situation becomes uncontrollable.
You can also add some insects and animals that will help you kill the pests. This way, you are still staying in touched with nature and helping in the process of food chain. For example, a lady bug would eat up an aphid banquet. Frogs and lizards can also help you sort your problems with these pests.
Above everything else, whatever problem you may encounter in organic gardening, just think about nature. How are you going to solve things that you will still be able to help nature and be one with it.