Make sure you take care of your garden the best you can. Sound organic gardening techniques can help you do just that. While the garden itself is important, your real goal is to grow great tasting produce that is healthy and does no harm to the environment or the consumer. Use this advice to take your organic garden to the next level.
Organic gardening is a safe hobby to share with your children. Helping a garden grow is an excellent learning experience for kids, and it allows your family to spend time together while creating healthy, nutritious foods.
Keep your plants in a warm, moist environment, if possible. Your plants will not grow well if it is too cold. If you are not willing to keep your house that warm during winter, you could always get the organic plants a heat lamp.
If you choose to use organic methods to care for your houseplants, you should bear in mind that certain plants require more sunlight than others. If you’re living in a home that doesn’t receive much sunlight, you should consider growing plants that thrive in environments with low to medium amounts of light. Using UV lamps is a great way to grow an organic garden anywhere.
Prepare the ground for a perennial garden quickly and easily. Turn over the soil in your garden so it will be soft and easy to plant before spreading wood chips around your garden. Allow for at least 10 days to pass, then plant the perennials that you just purchased.
Pine Needles
Pine mulch can be highly effective under the right conditions. Some plants have a naturally high acidic level, and therefore like acidic soil. If you have some of these plants, then pine needles are an easy way to add acid to their bed. Spread a few inches of pine needles on your organic beds so that it will put the acid into your soil.
When it is time to gather your produce, you should use an older laundry basket. Most laundry baskets are designed with a multitude of holes. This makes them a perfect strainer for washing your vegetables. Rinse your produce while it lays in the basket; any excess water strains off through the laundry basket holes.
Do you want to kill weeds without using commercial chemicals? Try using several newspaper layers to control weeds. Weeds cannot grow without light. Newspapers placed atop weeds will starve them from light and they will eventually die. Newsprint also breaks down well, incorporating itself into the compost. If you want it to look better, just add a layer or two of much over top of the newspapers.
Creating a trap with beer can help reduce the number of slugs in your garden. Bury a jar in the garden with it’s mouth open and level to the ground. Next, fill the jar with beer until there is only one inch left below the mouth of the jar. Beer attracts slugs and then they’ll get stuck in the jar.
Use untreated wood, stone, or brick to build a raised bed. If you use wood, be sure that it is untreated and naturally rot resistant. Cypress, locust and cedar usually work best. It is particular important that you don’t use treated wood for vegetable beds, as the chemicals and toxins on the wood could leach into the soil and be absorbed by food plants. If you have used treated lumber, line your beds with plastic.
As you can see from the previous list of tips, organic gardening can really make a difference in the freshness and nutrients of your produce. It takes tons of patience and work, but it’s worth it for a great garden.
