Growing your own organic garden of fruits and vegetables is a great way to know what your food contains and where it comes from. While gardening without the use of pesticides and herbicides can seem like it might be hard to do, if you have the right information, it can actually be very easy and rewarding.
Remember, there is no set scientifically agreed upon definition of what “organic” consistently means, so companies can label practically anything organic.To make sure you are doing organic gardening, define what organic means to you and make sure your seeds, plants, and supplies fit your criteria. Know what it means to you, then read labels to make sure you buy things consistent with your beliefs.
With that said, here are some tips to easily create your own organic garden in the backyard of your new home.
Timing is important
When starting your organic garden, make sure you have the right timing when sowing your seeds. If your timing is off when planting a particular plant, you will have very disappointing results.
Choose your plants wisely
When starting your organic garden, don’t forget to plant companion plants. Companion plants are like very friendly neighbors. They can enrich the soil and keep pests away from your other plants. By planting them together, you can avoid the use of harmful pesticides or artificial fertilizer products.
Planting an insectary garden beside your vegetable garden is a natural and effective way to rid your vegetable garden of harmful insects. With the right variety of plants, this garden spot will attract beneficial insects that will kill and eat the harmful ones that eat your vegetables. The insectary can be a separate garden or several small plantings interspersed among the vegetables.
No space, no problem
If you don’t have the space to have an actual garden in the ground, it’s perfectly acceptable to have an organic garden in containers. There are only a few root vegetables like asparagus that won’t grow well in containers, so feel free to explore. Containers are perfect to grow organic tomatoes, green beans, green onions and many other organic vegetables.
Check the soil & fertilizer
Fertilize your soil with organic compost. Organic gardeners tend to fertilize their soil twice in one season: once prior to planting, and then again in the middle of a growth cycle. The best fertilizer to use is an organic compost, as it releases nutrients slowly unlike chemical fertilizers, which release nutrients in one go and then lose their effect.
Regulate how often you revitalize your soil based on your planting season. During a very long season, it might require you to fertilize the ground more than once. It’s important to give your plants the proper nutrients to grow, and remember that as plants grow the nutrients within the soil slowly diminish. Having the correct amount at the correct time will promote your harvest to grow to its maximum size.
When raising an organic garden, sometimes a solution to resolving bad soil is to raise your garden bed. Building a garden bed or roost above the regular soil, can allow you to put your own fertilized soil within the bed without the risk of the soil becoming diluted or mixed in with the surrounding area.
Save those coffee grounds!
If you have plants that love acid in your organic garden, especially tomato plants, then coffee grounds make great mulch. It’s simple to scatter the coffee grounds around your plants and then sit back and let the high levels of nitrogen help your acid-loving plants grow to great heights all summer long.
Water them correctly
When watering plants like tomatoes in your organic garden, you should always water them on the soil instead of the leaves. When you water the soil, the water goes down into the roots. The roots are the parts of the plant that need water and other nutrients. If you water the leaves, the water will not be able to get into the roots.
To conserve water, be sure to mulch your garden with at least 3 inches of organic material. It not only saves water, but also adds nutrients and humus to the soil and discourages weeds. It also gives your garden a nice appearance.
As you can see, growing your own garden, free from the chemicals that other foods contain, is not only easy to do, but you will have a wonderful, healthy crop of food that you can eat yourself, or share with family and friends.