Organic gardening is an activity that a lot of households want to do and think about, but never tackle. Perceived complexity or simple lack of familiarity with general gardening practices can be not only intimidating, but daunting as well. However, if you keep reading, you’ll find suggestions that can help simplify organic gardening and even make it fun.
Your children will enjoy being involved with your organic gardening endeavors. Gardens are a wonderful place for kids to learn, and working side by side with them can strengthen the bond that you have.
One way to ensure efficiency while gardening is to keep your tools close by. Use a large bucket, or wear rugged pants with several pockets. Tools you’ll need to garden efficiently include towels, gloves, pruning shears and other plant-specific tools.
Your seeds, once they begin sprouting, don’t need the same amount of warmth as they did before. As they begin growing you can move them farther away from heat sources. You must also take away plastic films from your containers in order to keep the warmth and humidity out. To know when it is time for this, keep a careful eye on your seeds.
When you are growing organic plants within the home or an enclosed area, considering how much light the plants will receive must be emphasized. If you want indoor plants, choose specimens that can grow in relatively dark places. If you have a different type of plant, extra lighting can always help.
Flower Beds
When mulching your flower beds, aim for anywhere between two or three inches of mulch. Mulch discourages weeds and helps retain moisture while adding nutrients to your flower bed. Also, the flower beds will look beautifully maintained at all times.
After your seeds have sprouted, heat lamps are not needed. To ensure that your plants do not suffer shock, start eliminating the use of a heat source. Remove plastic films on containers to prevent warmth and humidity from penetrating them. Keep an eye on your seeds so you will know when this should be done.
You need to make sure you are very efficient when working in your organic garden. Don’t waste thirty minutes looking around for a tool. Get all of your tools together before you go into your garden, then place them in a safe spot when you are finished with them. Even something like a carpenter’s tool belt or some cargo jeans work well to keep tools organized.
Try to keep plastic bags on hand to cover shoes that are muddy. This helps you stay in the zone so that you can continue gardening when you have completed your tasks in the house.
Store a few plastic bags near your garden to slip on over your dirty gardening shoes. This way, you can get in and out quickly, and get back to work in the garden.
Using coffee grounds as part of your soil mixture in your garden is often advised for healthy plants. Coffee grounds are filled with nitrogen, that is a nutrient required by plants. Plants need nitrogen in order to thrive, so give it a natural source with coffee grounds, then watch everything come to life much more quickly.
Laundry Basket
Regularity is the key to keeping your organic garden in order, don’t let your list of chores pile up. Even if you are too busy to tend to your gardens needs every day, you can try little things that will prevent you from having a lot of work when you return to your garden. Take the time to do a little weeding or something else that needs to be done each time you have to be outside keeping an eye on your dog, which for some can be several times a day.
You can use something like a laundry basket to gather all of your produce together when the time comes. An old basket will act like a strainer does. When you put your produce in a basket, you can then rinse it off and let it strain any excess water through the laundry basket holes.
Include both green and dry plant refuse in your compost. Examples of good green material to use for compost include grass clippings, flowers, leaves, and weeds. Paper and straw are dry plant materials. Avoid meat, ashes, charcoal, plants with diseases and manure from carnivores.
Too much water may hurt plants since extra water can keep roots from getting the nutrients they need from the soil. Always check to see if rain is in the forecast before watering your plants. Skip watering your plants for a couple of days if a heavy rainstorm has descended; natural rainwater can be particularly good for your plants as well.
When planting seeds into a container, the depth of your planting should be three times bigger than the seed. However, it is important to understand that some seeds require sunlight and should never be covered. Example of these kinds of seeds include the petunia and the ageratum. The directions for how to handle the seeds will usually be found on the seed’s package. You can also find this information online.
Use alcohol to help control the slugs in your garden by fashioning a beer trap. Bury a canning jar so that the open mouth and the soil top are level. Fill the jar with beer about an inch lower than the top. Slugs are attracted to the beer and become trapped in the container.
Rotate the plants that you grow each year by switching up where you plant them. When plants of the same family are planted in the same spot year after year, it can encourage the growth of fungus and disease. The next year, when you plant the same plants in the same area of your garden, they’ll be exposed to these problems. Change the design of your garden regularly to prevent diseases from spreading.
In order to claim your crops are legitimately organic and be credible, it is important to your customers that you become organic garden certified. This should boost your sales while proving to your customers that they are getting healthy products.
Among the most important features of organic produce is the fact that it has not been exposed to harmful pesticides. However, although this is a much healthier alternative, it is important to check surfaces of organic fruits and vegetables thoroughly to be sure that no unwanted pests are living in or on them.
Want to make organic gardening less complicated? Stick to native plants, grasses, flowers and bushes when you plan out your landscape. Plants that are already pre-programmed to exist peacefully with one another in similar climates and conditions, will prevent the need for a lot of “special measures” that eat up time and money. Actually, native plants coexist beautifully with compost–especially if it contains other native plant matter.
When you remember these suggestions from this article, you will not be as afraid to go about organic gardening. Incorporate the knowledge you have gained here and apply it to your own garden, and soon you will have a kitchen filled with delicious meals.