Posts Tagged ‘organic gardening’

Gardening is a wonderful and relaxing hobby enjoyed by many all over the world. People who enjoy gardening often feel a deep-rooted sense of calm and tranquility, and they also forge a stronger connection with nature.

There are many types and forms of gardening. Organic gardening is a unique method of gardening and allows the gardener to really bond with Mother Nature. Organic gardening really gets down to the basics of growing fruits and vegetables, using only what Mother Nature provides. Container gardening is another way of gardening and allows many people who do not have their own garden to still enjoy gardening using pots and containers.

Container gardening is a great way to decorate and accentuate your house and your outdoor area. Plant containers such as clay urns, metal pans, terra cotta pots, wine tubs, wood boxes, bath tubs, glass bowls, wire baskets, sisal rope planters, cement hollows etc. all work well. You want to be sure to have an assortment of beautiful flowers and plants of varying heights as well as shapes and textures when planning your garden.

Organic gardening requires much more attention and involvement in the whole process. When you grow the plants organically, you do not add any artificial or chemical substances to the soil to avoid their negative health consequences. In organic gardening natural compost is needed to fertilize the soil. Natural compost is derived from plant, fruit or kitchen waste and contains no harmful chemical pesticides in it.
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This method of vegetable gardening is what I prefer. As you might have guessed, it doesn’t involve digging. This method is particularly suited to older people or people with physical disabilities. But I just prefer it because I think it’s better for the soil.

When soil is turned over it destroys the soil structure. When you create a no-dig plot you are not disturbing the topsoil at all, this means that the soil microbes, worms and creatures can continue doing what they do best in your garden.

For the best results in your garden, you want to aim for no compaction of the soil. Water, air and nutrients travel through the soil by pathways made by worms and plant roots. When soil is compacted these pathways are destroyed.

By designing you plots to be no more than say 1.25metres (4 feet) across (and however long you want) you can avoid having to stand in it. If you start with a small bed, (1.25m x 2.5m / 4’ x 8’) you can plan it so that you can expand when you are ready.

No matter what your location, no dig vegetable gardens are a great option for you. It means that it doesn’t matter what sort of soil you are starting out with as the layering of materials over the surface will continue to feed and condition your soil. Eventually you will end up with dark, nutrient rich soil.

A No Dig garden bed is made on top of the ground. It can be built over existing garden beds, lawns and even hard or rocky ground – even concrete. It should be situated in an area that receives at least six hours sun (preferably morning sun) a day and that has good drainage.
When preparing the plot it is not necessary to pull up lawn or an existing garden, you will be ‘smothering’ what is already there.
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Unwanted insects in your garden are just that: unwanted. Unwanted insects may eat and destroy your crops, something shared by any farmer or home gardener. Organic gardening is a means of controlling unwanted insects naturally, without the use of dangerous pesticides. There are many ways to control garden unwanted insects naturally that are also cheap, easy and good for the earth.

Protect your organic soil and beneficial insects
While pesticides may eliminate the pest, they most often cause more harm than good. Unfortunately, many home and commercial gardeners are unaware of alternatives to pesticides. That’s because s are a big part of our culture. Reaching for a quick fix—albeit a dangerous fix—is a deep seeded and detrimental habit.

Yet apart from damaging the soil and being a health hazard to people—including our children—pesticides present a major problem. They eradicate species indiscriminately, causing helpful garden co-habitants to disappear along with the harmful ones.

An organic garden with beneficial insects
Indeed, the fact remains that not all insects are unwanted insects. Any kindergartner can tell you that bees help flowers. He or she could also tell you that a ladybug is good luck. Read the rest of this entry »

Companion plantings of some kind have been practiced throughout agricultural history. Some of the earliest written documents on gardening discuss these relationships. Early settlers discovered American First Nations people were using an interplanting scheme of corn-bean-squash that balanced the requirements of each crop for light, water, and nutrients. In the 1800’s, hemp (cannabis) was often planted around a cabbage field to keep away the white cabbage butterflies in Holland. In many parts of the world today, subsistence farmers and organic gardeners grow two or more crops simultaneously in a given area to achieve a certain benefit.

Companion planting is the practice of locating particular plants near one another because they enhance plant growth, discourage pests and diseases, or have some other beneficial effect. When selecting your companion plants consider more than which pests are deterred. Think about what each plant adds or takes away from the soil and what effect the proximity of strong herbs may have on the flavour of your vegetables. Avoid placing two heavy feeders or two shallow rooted plant types near each other.
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8:59 PM 4/28/2006

As we drove by the plush residential homes, some recently covered with a fresh coating of paint and with the variously landscaped yards displaying their beautiful spired shrubs, flowering gardens and well watered green lawns, it could not be helped but to notice the evenly placed lawn bags filled to the brim with yard waste, just waiting to be carried away by the scheduled garbage pickup. So much labor must have gone into neatly and
carefully packing each one of them so they wouldn’t be torn open by a stiff twig or two. Each fall and spring a similar scene is reenacted by most of us who seasonally do our traditional yard cleanup.

Having been a fairly devout organic gardener in the 1980′s and traditionally would save every bit of waste clippings from our yard that would then go into a 4×4 foot by 4 feet high loosely constructed wooden bin for later processing and churning into a fine mulch, it was difficult to see virtually truckloads of “Organic Gold Plant Food” just waiting to
be carted away to some landfill, or just possibly be used for fuel in some local utility supplier’s furnace. It is beyond my understanding how this “fuel” for plants can be placed on the discard list.
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