Many people imagine that organic vegetable gardening is difficult. It's actually easy to begin growing vegetables, fruits and herbs using organic methods. These three tips will get you started to a beautiful organic vegetable garden.
Build Soil by Adding Compost
Compost is often called black gold by gardeners, and for good reason; it's a rich organic source of nitrogen, phosphorous and potash, the three major building blocks of soil, as well as many trace elements. You can purchase compost or make your own.
To make your own compost, simply find a spot in your garden away from the house or use an old trash can. Begin adding kitchen scraps from fruits or vegetables, such as carrot peels, potato skins, browned lettuce leaves, and apple cores. Add some soil from the garden to encourage beneficial bacteria to begin breaking down the plant matter. Add leaves in the fall or grass clippings in the spring and sprinkle with water or allow the rain to soak the compost pile to further encourage bacteria to break down the materials. Turn the compost pile regularly. When you see crumbly black soil under the refuse, that's compost. It can be added to the garden frequently. The more compost you add, the better the vegetables, since they will use the compost to build healthy roots, leaves and flowers. Never add animal waste or animal products. Animal waste may add parasites, and scraps of meat, fish or poultry will only attract vermin to the compost pile.
Animal manures may also be added to the soil as natural compost. Horse manure, cow manure, chicken and goat manure all make good fertilizers for organic gardens. Be sure to let them age, since fresh manure is very high in nitrogen and may burn plant roots. A safe way to incorporate manures is to add them to the compost pile, turn them in, and wait until they crumble down into soil.
If you see worms in your compost pile, don't panic - celebrate! Worms actually eat through all the leaves, grass clippings and apple cores and poo out the rich dark matter gardeners know and love as worm castings, one of the richest fertilizers available. Worms are an organic gardener's best friend, and finding lots of worms in the compost pile or garden is a sign that it's a healthy organic ecosystem.
Use Companion Plants Such as Marigolds to Discourage Insects
Before commercial pesticides, gardeners relied upon nature to teach them how to repel insects. Some plants are both beautiful and useful. Marigolds, for instance, repel many insects. They naturally repel tomato horn worms. Tomato horn worms are several inches long and bright green. They will strip a tomato plant of all of its leaves in a single night. Marigolds planted around tomatoes will naturally repel these voracious bugs.
Basil is also another wonderful companion plant. Many gardeners also plant basil around tomatoes. It is known to repel white flies and other insects.
Numerous other companion plant combinations exist, some tested and some only tested by time. For the organic gardener, harnessing the power of natural to naturally repel insects reduces or eliminates the need for commercial pesticides.
Rotating crops in your vegetable garden also reduces the incidence of insect pests. Some insects lay eggs in the soil which hatch the following season. If you rotate crop groups, such as cruciferous vegetables and squashes in the same bed from year to year, the insects won't be able to find food. You will greatly reduce or eliminate them by making it hard for them to find their next meal.
Neem Oil and Organic Pesticides
Some plants are difficult to grow through preventative organic methods without using some kind of fungicide or pesticide. Roses, for example, often get black spot, mites, and a host of other diseases. When it becomes necessary to use some sort of topical pesticide or fungicide, choose an organic product. Neem oil, for example, is taken from the neem tree, and works wonders to repel pests ranging from black spot to Japanese beetles.
Diatomaceous earth is an excellent organic pesticide if snails or slugs are chewing away the leaves of your vegetable plants. Diatomaceous earth is a powder created from the ground up remains of diatoms, creates with a hard shell. Sprinkle the powder around vegetable plants. Although you can safely handle the powder, and it won't harm animals or birds, the tiny little crushed up shells destroy the soft bodies of slugs. Using beer traps by placing a small pool of beer or a beer bottle tilted sideways to allow slugs to crawl in and drown happily in a puddle of beer also provides organic control methods that won't harm the environment, animals, birds or beneficial insects.
When starting organic vegetable gardening, the amount of information on organic gardening may seem overwhelming. Focus on building your soil and the battle is half won. Harness natural pesticides like marigolds to repel insects. And if invaders threaten, use only organic products like neem oil. Enjoy the fruits of your labors with a clear conscience knowing they are chemical-free organic vegetables.
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