Organic Gardening: Grow a Successful Organic Garden

The secret to being a successful organic gardener is to create a healthy, self-sustaining garden. This means a garden with rich plant diversity, healthy soil with plenty of organic matter and plants that are growing in the conditions to which they are suited. Eschewing chemicals means cultivating more tolerance with failure and going with the flow; don’t try to force plants to grow where they are not happy as they will never thrive. Gardening with nature rather than attempting to overcome it is the principle here.

There are many different types of gardens to grow from vegetable seeds and flower seeds gardens to butterfly gardens the list really is endless. With that said the variety of vegetable and flower seeds available from nurseries, garden centers and free seed catalogs all over the country has never been greater than it is today.

It can be overwhelming for the new gardener to plan and organize a garden given the range of choices. You will also in your planning want to determine whether or not your garden will be organic or non-organic. Organic gardening is both attractive and productive with well managed soil nurturing healthy plants without the use of pesticides, it will however take a little more planning on your part.

Starting an Indoor Organic Garden

The first thing you need to do as an organic gardener is to start getting your soil into good heart. Not only does fertile soil grow the best-quality vegetables but, unlike the human consumer, pests prefer the weaker plants. Therefore, nurturing your soil fulfills a dual role of improving the produce for your kitchen and deterring pests from eating it before you do.

Making compost is the best and most environmentally friendly way of improving the soil, but you can’t do that overnight. While you wait for your own compost to rot down, use organic matter to fertilize your soil. Manure from horses, cattle, pigs and poultry is an excellent fertilizer, but you will need to leave it for 3–6 months to ‘clean’ before it can be counted as organic. While the word ‘organic’ is used loosely to mean bulky matter such as manure, it will not have come from an animal fed on an organic diet as truly organic manure will always be used by the producer.

Another alternative is to grow your own manure. The best known of the so-called ‘green manures’ is comfrey, a fast-growing crop which is easily cut down and gathered. When the leaves are subjected to pressure or allowed to rot down a highly nutritious (but evil-smelling) liquid is produced.

Many organic gardeners work on a ‘no-dig’ basis. This means that once you have given your soil an initial deep dig and incorporated organic matter you can then just spread organic manure on the surface once a year and allow rain, worms and insects to do the job of taking it down into the soil. It sounds a soft option, but the success of this system depends upon a very good initial soil structure created by really thorough deep digging and generous application of organic matter, with plenty of extra compost added at least once a year thereafter.

In the absence of herbicides you’ll need to discourage weeds as much as possible to reduce hours of backbreaking work pulling them out. Putting a layer of mulch over the soil keeps moisture in as well as suppressing weeds. Black plastic sheeting is effective but depressing to look at, so you may prefer to use organic manure again, spreading a layer about 7.5cm deep. An excellent mulch that is easy to make and clean to use is leaf mold: just collect autumn leaves in plastic bags, puncture a few holes in the bags here and there to allow air to enter and then leave them for about a year until the leaves have turned into a rich brown humus.

The other major consideration that occupies the mind of the organic gardener is controlling pests. While it’s certainly necessary to keep them in check, remember that they are part of the food chain and many also have a useful role to play. While slug holes down a whole row of lettuces may be infuriating, slugs do have a beneficial side to them – they help to break down garden debris and incorporate it back into the soil. The trick is to keep the upper hand and be relaxed about sharing your produce here and there with the wildlife in your garden.

How to Raise Organic Vegetables : How to Choose Organic Seeds & Plants

Organic gardening is using biology rather than chemistry to cope with bad bugs. There are alternatives to the toxic pesticides and synthetic fertilizers that have been the bedrock of agriculture since World War II. When you don’t rely on chemical for disease and pest control, you become a much better observer, constantly evaluating crops, soils and the forces of Mother Nature. It’s a practice that verges on the artistic.

Farming without chemicals, once considered a fringe movement, impractical and idealistic, has gained ground, moving closer to the mainstream of American agriculture. Even traditional farmers are using fewer chemicals and planting soil-enriching cover crops.

Rodale’s Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening

This book has a lot of information for beginning, as well as experienced gardeners. Very informative from pest control to garden and flower beds, to harvesting and planting just about anything. Great resource book.

While the majority of farmers haven’t totally kicked their chemical dependency, many are using more natural methods, an approach called sustainable farming. It means farming in a way that doesn’t deplete the soil, pollute ground water or destroy the surrounding environment, allowing the land to produce food for generations to come. The organic movement raised critical issues about how we farm. The evolution has been that more farmers are embracing sustainable agriculture.

To plant your organic garden, you can use young plants, hybrid seeds, native seeds or seeds that you’ve harvested by yourself. Learn tips for choosing and planting seeds and young plants in your organic garden in this gardening video lesson.

The following steps are what is required when going organic and can include; improving the soil (with leaf mold, composted bark etc.); adding garden nutrients (with compost); making your own compost; weed control (using some weeds to your advantage); plant choice (selecting seeds from your free seed catalogs that are disease resistant); pest management (always thoroughly checking for pests); disease management (combating naturally).

With your selection of vegetable and flower seeds, garden accessories and flower bulbs it’s a good idea to go organic right from the beginning as your garden is sure to be a work in progress throughout the years.

The Organic Gardener’s Handbook of Natural Pest and Disease Control

This book is a great reference with nice pictures of numerous pests/diseases affecting a variety of plants. Rodale has been the category leader in organic methods for decades, and this thoroughly updated edition features the latest science-based recommendations for battling garden problems. With all-new photos of common and recently introduced pests and plant diseases, you can quickly identify whether you’ve discovered garden friend or foe and what action, if any, you should take.

About Organic

Being organic should be the conscious consumer’s expectation and the conscientious manufacturer’s doctrine. We take the position of under-stating how organic we are, rather than following the industry-wide trend of exaggerating it. Products have to be labelled “organic” on the front if they contain more than 99% certified organic ingredients. Look at back labels where list all of the ingredients and state which ones are organic and which are not. The consumer should not be misled by adding long lists of botanical ingredients that are present only in minute “blessing” quantities.

Unfortunately companies that typically claim organic status often do so without it being truly backed up by what they actually use in their products. They may call themselves organic by name, but not use organic ingredients, or perhaps only one or two. Most companies claim to be organic and go by the previous guidelines which were to be at least 70% organic to be able to claim it as an organic product. Neither water nor salt can be included in the percentage of ingredients that counts towards being organic. Since most shampoos and creams are mainly water, the only way to call them organic is to use an organic hydrosol instead of water (this is the left over water after the processing of organic essential oils). Unfortunately the true definition of a hydrosol is a little bit clouded by typical industry practices.