Gardening is a surprisingly complicated subject at times. If you decide to go the natural route, you may have to know about things like the pH balance of soil and natural bug-fighting concoctions. Growing organic can be a little on the difficult side for a rookie. Learn more about organic gardening by reading the helpful tips below.
Your children will enjoy being involved with your organic gardening endeavors. A garden can provide a wonderful learning experience for children, and will give you an opportunity to bond with them while you produce healthy food.
If sustainability and organic gardening are appealing to you, leave a portion of the property you own undeveloped to give wildlife a place to thrive. This is a great natural way to allow the insects and animals found in nature to assist with the growth of your garden.
It is easy to quickly prepare your perennial garden ground. Use a spade to dig into the turf, turn the turf over, then spread the area with approximately three inches of wood chips. Let the area sit for a fortnight, then turn the earth and set up your new perennial bed.
You should add a two to three inch layer of organic mulch to your flower bed. A thick layer of mulch will prevent weeds, reduce watering needs and fertilize your garden. It will also increase the visual appeal of the flower beds.
You need to make sure you are very efficient when working in your organic garden. Do not waste your time looking for tools. Prepare all of your tools prior to working in the garden, and then put them away neatly when finished. Wear pants with several pockets or use a tool belt.
Plastic bags are great to cover gardening shoes when they get muddy. This way, you can maintain your momentum and head right back to your garden so that you can finish what you were doing.
Pine is a surprisingly good source of mulch. Some plants have a naturally high acidic level, and therefore like acidic soil. If this is the case, use pine needles to mulch your beds. Cover your beds with two inches of needles; acid will be dispersed into the soil as they decompose.
Stay on top of your organic gardening to-do list, and don’t let the work pile up. If you’re too busy to do all those little things each day, there are some small steps you can take to not have all that work build up on you. Even if you’re just taking the dog for a walk, bend down and pick a few weeds.
Laundry Basket
Use an old laundry basket to collect your produce. The basket strains the produce as well as stores it while you are going through your garden. If you hose off your produce in the laundry basket, the water will leave the basket through the holes in the sides.
Is there a natural way to kill weeds? To control the growth of weeds, all you need is last week’s Sunday paper. The main thing that a weed needs to thrive is sunlight. By placing newspaper over them, they will not get light and suffocate. Newspapers tend to break down into compost nicely. You can cover the newspapers with mulch to make them look more attractive if you like!
It is a great idea to help your garden by ruffling seedlings, either with cardboard or with your own hands, a couple of times each day. However odd this may sound, research shows that this touching encourages seedlings to grow better than they would without touching.
Now, you shouldn’t get your hopes up and believe that a few tips are going to turn you into an instant professional gardener. However, these tips are a great starting point if you do plan to grow organically. As you implement these tips and hone your skills, you’ll be a professional green-thumb-holder in no time.
Originally posted 2014-04-12 16:50:55.