Organic gardening is similar to regular gardening, with the exception that you don’t use any synthetic fertilizers or pesticides.
This can make it more difficult to control disease, weeds and insects if you are used to using chemical products. Organic gardening also requires more of your attention because you must keep an eye out on the soil and what the plants need.
If you want to do organic gardening, you must start with the soil. Organic gardeners add organic matter to the soil on a regular basis to keep the soil rich and productive. Compost, the organic gardener’s fertilizer of choice, is essential to maintaining the health and growth of the plants in the garden. Compost is made from fallen leaves, deadheaded flowers, scraps of vegetables, fruit rinds and peelings, lawn clippings, manure of chickens, cows, sheep, goats, horses or rabbits, and many other things. Good soil has a dark rich color, it smells sweet, and you won’t be able to move more than a few inches without finding earthworms. It is true that some soils need more additives than normal compost can provide. If this is the case with your garden you can purchase natural additives like bone meal, greensand and rock phosphates. By performing a simple pH test on your soil, you can find out what nutrients your soil needs.
Pests can be a problem for new organic gardeners. Actually seeing insects on their plants is enough to make even die-hard organic gardeners want to reach for pesticides. The best way to defend your plants against the insect hordes is to take preventative measures. Watering regularly is a great way to boost your defenses. Make sure that your plants are not too wet or too dry - insects attack unhealthy plants first. If they do attack a healthy plant, the plant has more resources to overcome minor insect damage. Planting several different varieties of plants together can help keep insect pests that prefer a particular plant species from overrunning the entire garden.
An extremely effective method to defend your garden from insects is to make it a haven for insect predators like birds, frogs, lizards and predatory insects like ladybugs and praying mantis. To attract these predators, keep a water source near your garden, or grow plants that attract nectar-feeding insects. You can also use barriers, plant collars and sticky traps to fight these pests. Simple household items like garlic, hot pepper and insecticidal soaps are effective too. If you find yourself facing a pest problem, try searching online for more information. Veteran organic gardeners may be willing to share their best homemade remedies with newbie gardeners like you.
Plant disease is another problem facing organic gardeners. The best way to avoid plant disease is to choose plant varieties that are disease resistant. Keeping plants as healthy as possible is important, as they can then stand up to the beginnings of disease better. Disease will spread due to constant moisture and lack of air circulation, so consider how you water your garden and where your garden is situated. It can make the difference between a healthy garden and a disease-ridden one.
Weeds are annoying and frustrating – there’s no way around it. You can use organic mulch as a weed barrier, or you can layer newspaper, cardboard or construction paper beneath the mulch for even better control. If you spread corn meal gluten around early in the season, this can also help to slow weeds. If all else fails, grab your hoe for quick weed destruction. There’s always old-fashioned weed pulling. Persistence is your best defense and prevention. Mulch your garden well and pull and hoe the rest. In a few seasons, you may have beaten them back for good.
Organic gardening is a wonderful way to grow healthy plants that are free of pesticides and fertilizers. You’ll find that organic gardening is a bit more work than spraying on chemicals at the first sign of a problem, but when you take a bite out of a fresh tomato grown in your garden, you’ll see that the results are well worth the effort.
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