Anyone can enjoy the relaxation and fruitful benefits of cultivating their own organic garden. However, for a beginner, the whole gardening experience can be a very intimidating thing to enter into. Are you interested in cultivating green gardens and earning that green thumb? Reviewing the advice that follows would be a good place to begin!
Preparing the soil for your perennial garden is easy. You just need to use your garden spade for slicing underneath the turf, then flip it, and finally spread about three or four inch deep piles of wood chips. Let the area sit for a couple weeks, then begin digging into it and planting your new perennials.
Use about two to three inches of organic material as mulch in all of your flower beds. Not only will you be adding nutrients, but weeds will be less likely to grow and moisture will be retained more easily. It will also increase the visual appeal of the flower beds.
When you are doing work in your garden, be efficient. Do not waste your time looking for tools. Get all of your tools together before you go into your garden, then place them in a safe spot when you are finished with them. If needed, purchase a tool belt or heavy duty pants with plenty of pockets.
Plastic bags can be kept on hand and reused to slip over your dirty gardening shoes. This keeps your flow going, so you can get back out to the garden quickly and finish your work.
Don’t let all the little chores in your organic garden build up. Even if you are too busy to tend to your gardens needs every day, you can try little things that will prevent you from having a lot of work when you return to your garden. Even if you’re just taking the dog for a walk, bend down and pick a few weeds.
Laundry Basket
Use a laundry basket to help you collect produce from your garden. The laundry basket will function as a makeshift strainer for the fruits and vegetables. The produce can be rinsed off as it sits in the laundry basket, and extra water will drain out through the sides.
Your compost pile should contain green plants and dried ones in equal amounts. When you pull weeds from your garden, throw them in the compost. The same goes for vegetable trimmings and grass clippings. These are considered green materials. Dried plant material includes straw, sawdust, shredded paper, cardboard, and dried and cut-up woody material. Don’t include ashes, diseased plants, charcoal meat, or carnivorous animal waste.
Build raised beds with untreated stone, brick or wood. When selecting wood, make certain you pick untreated products that have a natural resistance to rot. Some good choices include locust, cypress, and cedar. In a vegetable garden, never use treated wood, as the chemicals can leach out into the soil and food crops. If you’re using treated lumber, line it with a barrier, or some plastic.
It is a good idea to get organic garden certification so as to reaffirm your claims that your products really are organic. This will increase sales and shows your customers they’ve been buying from the best.
An organic garden is a benefit to you and everyone else who consumes the food that grows there. Chemical giants claim miracles, but those miracle crops come at a price to whoever eats the produce.
Tomato Seedlings
To get a good start, look below the surface! Make sure that the root system is healthy when you buy tomato seedlings and that the starts are healthy looking as well. These starts can stay on the tomato seedlings for a long time, and the seedling won’t start to grow until these starts have gone.
When you mulch your garden beds with organic material, make sure it’s about three inches deep. Your garden will look more professional, have fewer weeds, and benefit from the moisture control and additional nutrients.
Making beds is one of the most important skills you need to acquire. To begin this process, cut under the turf and leave a space open. Once it is sliced, flip the turf up exposing the soil underneath. Now cover this exposed area with wood chips, about 3 or 4 inches. Leave it to settle for a couple of weeks and then you will be able to plant within it.
Native Plants
Here is a great way to make organic gardening fun and easy. You want to plan your landscaping around native flowers, bushes and grasses. Native plants will thrive in your soil type and climate, without the need for inorganic fertilizers or pesticides. Compost your yard trimmings and kitchen waste, then use it to fertilize native plants and to help them conserve moisture.
There are a lot of different plants that you could grow in an organic garden. Mulch is the friend of plants that need acidity to thrive. You can mulch these plants with pine needles in the fall. When the needles begin to decompose, their natural acid will begin to deposit into the soil.
To mulch, trees and flowers, use a minimum of three inches of organic material. This strategy is highly effective because it benefits both your wallet and your planet. Water conservation is a major environmental concern that accompanies other, non-organic gardening practices. You’ll discover it could also look really good.
An important tip for organic gardeners is to raise crops that are expensive to purchase. Buy what crops you personally like in large quantity. By growing plants whose fruits or vegetables cost a bit at the market, you can save money. Plant foods you love, enjoy the results and save money.
Now that you have read this article, you know why organic gardening is such a fun activity. Growing a garden the right way is a rewarding and relaxing experience. Using the advice you have read in this article, you can learn to garden organically like a pro.