Gardening Like A Pro: Organic Gardening Tips

Gardening Like A Pro: Organic Gardening Tips

Organic gardening is undoubtedly a very enjoyable pastime, despite the effort, patience and skill involved. It's a fun activity that will allow you to enjoy nutritious food that's free of pesticides. However, organic gardening obviously isn't as easy as it might sound. The following hints and tips can help you grow your own organic garden easily and successfully. You should teach your children how to garden alongside you. A garden can be a great learning experience for your children, and it gives you a chance to bond while producing healthy food. Allow your children to actively participate in planting your organic garden. A garden can provide a wonderful learning experience for children, and will give you an opportunity to bond with them while you produce healthy food. If you have a high priority for sustainability in your organic gardening, try leaving a corner of the property undeveloped as a mini wildlife refuge. The kind of birds and insects needed for pollination will be naturally present on your property and help with your organic garden. You can help to prevent your plants from developing diseases with aspirin water. Dissolve one aspirin and a half for 2 gallons of water. Spray the plants with the aspirin solution to help your plants fight disease. Be sure to repeat this process every two or three weeks. For your flower beds, organic material should be used as mulch. Two or three inches should be enough. Mulch will minimize weed growth and maximize nutrients and moisture. Also, the flower beds will look beautifully maintained at all times. If sustainability and organic gardening are appealing to you, leave a portion of the property you own undeveloped to give wildlife a place to thrive. This is a great natural way to allow the insects and animals found in nature to assist with the growth of your garden. Pine mulch can be highly effective under the right conditions. There are some plants that thrive in acidic soil. When you have any plants like this, it's very simple to just collect pine needles to use in your bed. Cover up your beds with a few inches of needles. As they start to decompose, they'll spread out acid onto the ground and soil. You must consider how much light is available when starting your plants indoors. If your dwelling does not enjoy a great deal of natural sunlight, it makes sense to grow only those varieties meant to thrive in such environments. If you already have plants that need full light and the natural light provided is not sufficient, artificial lights can supplement their needs. When planting your organic garden, spacing is an important thing to keep in mind. You can easily underestimate how much space the plants need until they begin to grow. 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. Plot out all of these considerations before putting that first seed in the ground. Use this simple tip to get your perennial garden ready in a flash. Simply use a spade or small shovel to get under the grass or turf and flip it over. Then, using wood chips, cover the area to a depth of three or four inches. Let the area sit for a couple weeks, then begin digging into it and planting your new perennials. An old laundry basket makes a great way to gather your harvest. An old basket will act like a strainer does. Rinse your produce while it lays in the basket; any excess water strains off through the laundry basket holes.

Pine Needles

It is a great idea to help your garden by ruffling seedlings, either with cardboard or with your own hands, a couple of times each day. It sounds weird, but research has shown that handling the seedling like this often will make them grow bigger than seedlings that are ignored. Pine is a surprisingly good source of mulch. There are many types of plants with a high acidity, which means they thrive in acidic soil. There is no better, or easier, way to make your acid-loving plants happy then to use pine needles you already have on your beds. If you spread a few inches of pine needles around your garden beds, when they break down, the acid they contain will leach into the soil. Creating a trap with beer can help reduce the number of slugs in your garden. Take a glass jar and bury it in your garden, making sure that the lip of the jar is even with the soil. Fill it with beer to about one inch below the top of the jar. Slugs are attracted by the beer and won't be able to exit the jar once they enter. Use an aged laundry basket when you want to collect your produce. A benefit of using something like a laundry basket is that it can strain for you, as well as hold a large amount of produce. Rinse your produce while it lays in the basket; any excess water strains off through the laundry basket holes. Brick, stone or untreated wood is great for building raised beds. When selecting wood, make certain you pick untreated products that have a natural resistance to rot. Some great choices to choose from are cedar, locust and cypress. Using untreated wood is especially important for veggie gardens, because chemicals from treated wood could leach into the soil, affecting your food. If you already have treated lumber in use, line it with some plastic and replace the soil near it. Consider solving your weed problem without the use of toxic chemicals. You will need many layers of newspapers. Without exposure to the sun, weeds cannot thrive. The layers of newspaper over the weeds will block out the light and kill them. Newspapers tend to break down into compost nicely. You can add mulch on top for aesthetic reasons. Get your organic garden certified so you can credibly claim that your crops are organic. This should boost your sales while proving to your customers that they are getting healthy products. If you are starting your seedlings out in small containers, you should use a layer of potting soil that is three times as deep as the size of a single seed. Certain seeds are an exception to that rule, since they require sunlight to germinate, so they should be barely covered or not at all. Some examples are petunias and ageratum. If you are not sure whether your seeds need to be exposed to sunlight, resources are usually provided with the seeds or can be found online. Although organic gardening is often much harder than using chemicals, the reward is much greater. While chemical-based gardening products make bold claims, it is hard to dispute that organic gardening consistently produces superior results. Use untreated stone, brick or wood to build raised beds. If you choose wood, it needs to be naturally rot resistant and untreated. Some good choices you might consider are locust, cedar, and cypress. In a vegetable garden, never use treated wood, as the chemicals can leach out into the soil and food crops. If you have built a bed with treated lumber already, use a barrier such as plastic to line the bed. Take the season and weather conditions into account when determining how much water to give your plants. The watering depth and temperature depends mainly on the time you water them and the soil they are planted in. Overzealous watering in an already humid climate can lead to leaf fungus. Water the roots with care. Organic gardening is more difficult than gardening with chemicals, but you will reap a greater reward. Growing your crops organically will offer the best reward for those who eat the foods. Grow your plants in different areas of the garden every year. Planting your garden in the same area every year will allow fungus to grow there as well. These plant killers can be stored in the dirt and attack the plants the next time you plant them. If you change things up on a regular basis by varying your planting locations, you take advantage of a natural methodology to avoid fungus and disease problems. Organic gardening uses nature, hard work and patience to support a great hobby. Luckily, information on the subject is in no short supply. You can learn about the roots of the genre and become a skilled gardener. If you are willing to put in the effort and if you follow the tips, you can become a great organic gardener. You should add mulch to your garden and flowerbed using at least three inches of organic material. This can help you add nourishment to your soil, retain moisture and inhibit weed growth.