Tips to Become An Expert On Organic Gardening

Tips to Become An Expert On Organic Gardening

Lots of people grow organically due to their concerns about the harmful effects of all the different pesticides and commercial fertilizers on the environment and their health. Also, organic gardening is quite cheap on the whole. With the tips here in this article you can quickly become an expert in organic gardening. If little ones live in your home, consider including everbearing strawberries in the garden plot. You will find that they enjoy participating in gardening if they are allowed to pluck the fresh berries and eat them straight from the earth. Consider planting strawberries, especially ones that are everbearing, for your garden if you have small children. Children love to pick their own fruit right out of the garden, and will be more willing to help with the process if they get something out of it. Having a garden of perennials can be an easy and quick process. Take your spade and work up a thin layer of soil. Turn that soil over, then spread a few inches of wood chips on the newly turned area. Let this sit for a couple weeks, next dig into it to plant your new plants. Water infused with aspirin is great for combating plant disease. To add the aspirin to the plant, dissolve about one tablet and a half into approximately two gallons of fresh water. Spray the plants with the aspirin water to assist plants in battling disease. Try spraying your plants with this around every three weeks. To be most efficient in your gardening, always keep your tools close at hand. You can wear an apron or pants that have a lot of pockets, or use a big bucket or can. Make sure your trowel, pruning shears, gloves and other important tools are always handy. This will allow you to make easy work of your gardening up-keep! When you are growing organic plants within the home or an enclosed area, considering how much light the plants will receive must be emphasized. If your windows are small or receive little light due to their positioning, a plant that requires little sunlight will be more comfortable and healthy. Using UV lamps is a great way to grow an organic garden anywhere. Make gardening efficient. Have your tools laid out in an orderly way so you do not have to search for them. In addition to keeping your gardening tools in one location, you should also clean your tools after each use. You can use a tool belt for this purpose, or choose pants that contain several large pockets. Before planting any perennials, you have to make the ground ready. Using a garden spade, dig underneath the turf and flip it. Then, create a layer of wood chips at least three inches deep over the area you just flipped. Let the area sit for a couple weeks, then begin digging into it and planting your new perennials. It never hurts to keep a few bags around the house to protect your floors from dirty gardening shoes. You will be able to go in and out without having to keep taking your shoes on and off. Top all your garden beds with several inches of organic mulch. This fights weeds, retains moisture, and gives your garden valuable nutrients. Mulch will also improve the general appearance of your flower beds. Coffee grounds work great mixed in with your soil. Coffee grounds add many nitrogenous nutrients to the soil that will benefit your plants. Plants need nitrogen in order to thrive, so give it a natural source with coffee grounds, then watch everything come to life much more quickly. Believe it or not, pine makes great mulch. Many types of plants thrive in soil that has high acid levels. If that's the case, the easiest thing to do is use pine needles for beds. Cover the beds with a couple inches of needles and as they decompose, they will disperse acid to the soil. You should always take spacing into account when placing plants in your organic garden. When the garden is bare, it is sometimes hard to envision how much space a mature plant actually needs. You need to take into account the plant's size when it is fully grown, as well as allowing space for air circulation between each plant. Think ahead and give each plant room for expansion, by properly spacing the seeds.

Plant Material

Old laundry baskets are handy tools at harvest time. This laundry basket can be used as a type of strainer for all your produce. You can clean and rinse the harvest when it is the laundry basket and the water will go out of the holes. The compost pile should include equal parts of dried material and green plant material. You can use all types of green material in your compost pile, including cut grass, dead flowers, fruit peels and cores, and much more. Dried plant material, however, can include items such as cardboard, sawdust and shredded paper. Don't include ashes, diseased plants, charcoal meat, or carnivorous animal waste. Be sure your new compost pile contains roughly the same proportion of dried and green plants. You can use all types of green material in your compost pile, including cut grass, dead flowers, fruit peels and cores, and much more. You can add dried plants by throwing straw, shredded paper, woody materials and cardboard on your pile. Avoid using animal manure, charcoal or diseased plants in your compost. In an organic garden, ruffle any seedlings with a piece of cardboard, or even your hand, a couple times each day. It may sound a little odd to do this, but there is actually proven research that shows this helps the plants grow. A good way to plant seeds is in containers. Plant them three times as deep as their overall size. There are exceptions to this rule though, as some seeds need direct sunlight to grow. Example of these kinds of seeds include the petunia and the ageratum. If you do now know how to plant your seed, consult the information that came with the seed when you bought it or check online for helpful information. A raised bed can be built with untreated wood, brick or stone. If using wood, make sure it's naturally rot resistant and untreated. The best varieties include cedar, locust and cypress wood. It is particular important that you don't use treated wood for vegetable beds, as the chemicals and toxins on the wood could leach into the soil and be absorbed by food plants. If you already have treated lumber in use, line it with some plastic and replace the soil near it. In an organic garden, ruffle any seedlings with a piece of cardboard, or even your hand, a couple times each day. While it might sound strange, research has shown that this method can increase the size of your plants. Depending on the season and weather, adjust your watering habits. Depending upon whether it is morning, noon or night, the chemical composition of your local water supply and soil type may determine your water usage needs. Overzealous watering in an already humid climate can lead to leaf fungus. Instead, aim to water the root system only. A beer trap is an effective way of of dealing with any slugs that invade your organic garden. Bury a glass jar in your garden so that its open mouth is level with the top of the soil. Fill that with beer just under an inch from the top of your jar. Slugs are attracted to beer. They will crawl into the jar and be trapped. Ensure your soil is health by adding mulch. The right amount of mulch in a garden also works to protect the soil underneath. It protects roots because it helps the soil stay cooler when it's hot outside. Additionally, moisture will not evaporate from the ground so quick when mulch is applied. As an added bonus, weed growth will be stunted. Organic gardening is a high-risk, high-reward activity compared to normal gardening, but the rewards certainly are sweet. Growing organic is healthier and just overall better for you. Make sure you try your best to grow organic as opposed to adding chemicals to your garden.

Organic Produce

One way to help maintain healthy soil is to incorporate mulch into your landscape. Mulch can help protect your soil. This protective effect is especially important during the summer, as it protects the roots from the effects of the heat. This helps soil keep its moisture by reducing the rate of evaporation. This can also help control any weeds. Using organic produce from organic gardens which are free of pesticides is a great benefit. Although this is better for your health, you do need to check organic produce for infestation of bugs before eating it. A great thing about organic foods produced by organic gardens is their lack of pesticides. This provides benefits for your family, but you ought to double check for pests. Once you start to actually apply what you learned from this article you can start growing a prosperous and healthy organic garden in your own back yard for the future. You can also look forward to a rise in the number of wild visitors you receive in your garden. Rotate your garden annually. Planting the same plants in the same place each year can promote the growth of disease and fungus. Fungus and disease may stay in the soil and then affect your plants the next growing season. If you mix things up, by planting in different spots, you will have enlisted a natural method of keeping fungus and diseases at bay.