Organic gardening is the alternative to using toxic products such as fertilizers or pesticides on the food you are going to eat and the environment you live in. Also, many organic gardening techniques are quite inexpensive. Below are some great tips to assist you grow to be the organic gardener that you hope to be.
Think about planting everbearing strawberries in your garden, especially if you have small children. Strawberries are a favorite of children due to their sweetness. And since they’re so easy and fun to pick, it’s also a healthy, productive, safe activity that children can assist adults with.
Top all your garden beds with several inches of organic mulch. This will help to inhibit weed growth, helps to lock in moisture, and adds needed nutrients to your organic garden. What’s more, your garden will look professional all year.
Pine can make a great mulch. There are many common acidic plants that prefer acidic soil. If you have these plants in your garden, keep them healthy by using pine needles as mulch. Go ahead and cover the beds you have with needles a couple of inches and while they decompose, they actually disperse some acid into the soil.
Coffee Grounds
Use coffee grounds on your soil. Coffee grounds contain many of the essential nitrogenous nutrients that plants are able to use. Nitrogen is generally a way to make your plants grow bigger, better and faster.
Be sure your new compost pile contains roughly the same proportion of dried and green plants. Green plant mulches include everything from fresh grass clippings, to unwanted vegetables, to recently pulled weeds. Paper and straw are dry plant materials. Don’t include ashes, diseased plants, charcoal meat, or carnivorous animal waste.
If you have problem slugs in your organic garden, get rid of them naturally with a beer trap. Bury a single glass jar with the open mouth level with your soil in the garden. Pour beer into the container to within an inch of the jar lip. The scent of the beer will bait the slugs into the jar and they will become trapped.
Create raised beds with stone, brick or untreated wood. When selecting wood, make certain you pick untreated products that have a natural resistance to rot. Some good woods are locust, cedar and cypress. Avoid using treated wood since they contain chemicals that could disperse into the soil or the crops. If you have built a bed with treated lumber already, use a barrier such as plastic to line the bed.
It is a good idea to get organic garden certification so as to reaffirm your claims that your products really are organic. This can boost sales and tell loyal customers that you’re providing the best to them.
Take the season and weather conditions into account when determining how much water to give your plants. The amount of water you will need will vary according to your climate and even such factors as the part of day and soil type. For instance, if you live in a warm, humid climate watering the leaves can cause leaf fungus. Make sure that your root system is well-watered.
Rotating plots of garden has been done for centuries, and there is good reason for that! When you continuously plant some plants from the same family in the same area every year, disease and fungus is encouraged in these areas. These plant killing phenomena can lay dormant down in the dirt, waiting and willing to strike your next year’s plants. Moving the plants to different areas will prevent these invaders from growing on your plants.
Try growing some organic garlic. Plant individual cloves of garlic in the early spring or fall in moist, well-drained soil. Plant them an inch or two below the soil line with the pointed end facing the sky. Each clove should be around 4 inches from the one beside it. While they are growing and still green, the shoots can be used like scallions or chives. The bulbs of the garlic are ready for harvesting when the very tops of them begin to brown. Allow the skin to harden by letting your bulbs sit out in the sun. You should store your garlic cloves in a cooler area and tie them in some bunches.
By taking advantage of the advice you’ve read in this article, you’ll be able to have a garden free of pesticides and full of healthy produce. You should notice more wildlife present in your garden if you use natural methods.