The healthy food movement has been garnering more support in recent years and as a consequence organic gardens are gaining attention and interest from more people in the Unites States. With more pressure being put on authorities to implement changes in children’s school lunches and to enforce transparent labeling for products, as well as displaying nutritional facts on restaurant menus, it would seem that we are slowly moving towards a healthier future.
After the First Lady had planted a vegetable garden at the White House, many people felt inspired to follow her example and make healthier choices for themselves and their families. However, there are a few things to take into account when starting your vegetable garden and it’s easy to get confused with all the things you need to know before getting to work. Once you decide on the specifics and get some extra organic gardening tips to help you obtain the best results, it will be a lot easier that it seems.
Why and How to Start an Organic Garden
There are many benefits to growing your own fresh produce. Getting some extra nutrients into your diet is only one of them. When you do all the work, you know exactly what goes into the soil, water, and fertilizers that you use, and you can be one hundred percent sure that your vegetables are organic and that they haven’t been sprayed with any toxic pesticides or herbicides during the process.
Not only is it a great way to get some fresh air and exercise, but you can also turn it into a fun activity for yourself and your family or friends. It’s relaxing to work in the garden, and once you taste the first vegetable you grew yourself, you’ll feel great about what you’ve accomplished. Speaking of taste, nothing will ever compare in terms of flavor to organic, home-grown vegetables and fruits. So, all the care and work you put into your garden will reflect in the food that you get from it.
When it comes to getting started on your organic vegetable garden, it’s better to get informed in advance and take a few things into account so that your efforts pay off, and you maximize the potential that your resources have. So, before going on a shopping spree, you should literally do the groundwork. That requires finding out a few things about the soil you will use, the seeds you can plant, and the organic gardening supplies you will need.
The first step in starting an organic garden is testing the soil that you are going to plant everything in. It’s important to find out a few things about your soil in order to know what you need to do to properly grow the vegetables in. Evaluating the quality and the texture of the soil will help you to prepare it for gardening.
Testing the Soil
In order to successfully grow vegetables in your new garden you have to ensure the right conditions for them to thrive. Testing your soil will give you the information you need to know what preparation it requires. Test the quality and the texture of the soil to determine if it has too much sand or too much clay in it.
If it clumps up and water gathers in puddles on top of it during rainfall, or if it becomes very tough and hard when it’s dry, it has a high clay content, and you will need to add organic material to it to make more room for the water and oxygen to seep through it.
However if water runs through it very fast and you find mineral specks inside it, your soil contains a lot of sand, and you will need to add compost or topsoil to it instead. Creating a well-balanced soil is the first step to ensuring a successful crop.
Acidity is another important factor that you need to test the soil for since some plants grow better in more acidic soil while others fair well in alkaline soil. You can use a basic pH testing kit to find out how acidic your soil is and make informed decisions about the plants you want to grow based on the pH level it has. If the pH index is below 7, your soil is more acidic, but if it is above that number, you’re working with an alkaline environment.
In order to make sure that it does not contain any hard metals or harmful chemicals, you should also test it for any toxic substances. This can be tricky to do on your own since there are few reliable home tests available. Also, this is one piece of information you definitely don’t want to get wrong, so the safest thing to do is to hire a professional to perform the test for you.
Landscaping companies or agricultural programs can run extensive tests on your soil to make sure that it doesn’t contain any harmful substances. That is why we recommend you to use such services before planting your vegetables. If you do decide to get some help from a landscape company, make the most out of it and get some extra information while you’re having the soil tested and find out if having multiple beds with different pH levels and soil types can work to your advantage depending on what you want to plant.
Expert advice will go a long way here because different vegetables thrive in varying conditions, so having more than one type of soil could help you grow diverse produce.
Improving the Soil
Once you’ve made sure that your soil has the right acidity and texture, you can focus on supplying it with the right nutrients so that your vegetables can thrive. You should ensure that the soil has a high nutrient content not only before planting your vegetables but also while they are growing since plants draw the nutrients from it to grow. An easy way to keep your organic garden soil full of natural nutrients is to use compost.
Starting a compost pile is easy and very effective: you can purchase or build a compost bin, place it in your yard, and gather biodegradable materials in it, then wait for them to decompose. Be sure not to throw in materials that attract vermin but try to gather things like fruit and vegetable peels, egg shells, grass clippings, and fallen leaves as well as coffee grounds.
Keeping all of this material in the compost bin will help break everything down faster because of the heat that it naturally generates during decomposition, but you can give it a helping hand by turning it over now and then. When everything has broken down, and it looks like regular dirt you can start using it in your garden and spreading it on the soil to help give it some extra nutrients.
Ready-to-use manure and organic garden fertilizer are also good options, and you can find them in regular garden supply stores. If having to improve your topsoil on a regular basis seems like too much work, there are other alternatives that you can opt for such as constructing raised beds and placing organic soil in them since it already contains nutrients and is chemical free.
Container gardening is another great option especially if you have limited space and want to start with a small garden. Containers can be moved around, and you can fill them with organic soil to ensure you’ve got all the basics covered in one go. Container gardening is an ideal solution for smaller vegetables, but large ones can be grown this way as well. Just plan ahead since they are heavier and harder to move.
When using containers for gardening make sure that they are safe and that the materials from which they are made will not leak any chemicals into the soil.
Seeds and Planting
Now that your soil is ready you can start the planting. The best thing to do is to grow vegetables that you like. However, you should also get some information about them first since every plant needs different things to thrive and some require more care than others.
Deciding What to Plant
The climate you live in and the pests in your area will also impact how well your plants grow, so get some information about what to expect when it comes to these factors and about which types of plants grow well in your region to make a better decision on what to plant.
You can get some advice and information on climate conditions, pests, and types of plants that you can grow from your local cooperative extension office. You can also look into planting companion plants which help each other grow when they are placed near one another by enriching the soil, attracting helpful insects and warding off pests.
Finding out more about what plants you can grow will help you organize your garden more efficiently and give it the best chance to be a success.
Organic Garden Seeds and Seedlings
Using organic garden seeds is a lot less expensive than planting seedlings, and it gives you more options. In order to be sure that they will grow, however, you might have to start off some trays of seeds indoors a few weeks before actually planting them.
Then, when it is safe to start planting seeds outside, you can transplant these starter plants into your garden. Seedlings can also be bought directly, but you have to make sure that they are organic before purchasing them so that you don’t accidentally place chemicals and pesticides into your organic soil.
Growing them yourself from seeds takes a bit more effort, and you have to start a few weeks before the planting season. It is the best way, though, to ensure that the organic garden seeds and seedlings that you will work so hard to grow won’t contain any chemicals.
Before planting the seedlings in the garden mark out the spaces where they will be placed and calculate the distance between them: you should leave enough room for each plant to grow, so make sure they are far enough from one another.
When you are transplanting your seedlings from the trays and pots that you started growing them in your actual garden, make sure that the soil in these trays is wet so that you can remove your starter plants gently and you don’t damage them. Make a small hole in your garden soil and place the plant in it, then carefully cover it with soil and fill back the hole.
Lightly watering the soil after planting the seeds will help them adjust to the new environment better, so it might be good to take that extra step as well. You should try to plant the seedlings early in the morning or in the afternoon, so they have more time to adjust to the midday heat and sun start.
In the case of conventional gardens, herbicides are used to get rid of unwanted weeds. However, the chemicals contained in these herbicides are often toxic, so if you want to keep your organic garden safe from dangerous substances you’re going to have to use other methods in order to keep weeds at bay.
You can pull them out by hand and get a good workout in the process. This will require more effort when plants are young but you will have to do it less as they grow. Another great option is to use organic mulch to prevent weeds from setting in. Grass clippings, bark, leaves, and wood chips are all popular choices and using mulch on your garden soil will also supply it with some extra organic material as it starts decomposing.
When it comes to organic garden pest control methods the pesticides used in regular gardens aren’t an option because they are full of toxic chemicals but there are many alternatives that will work great for your garden depending on what pests you are dealing with.
You can use sticky traps to catch small flying insects and place pheromone traps that attract insects to them around your garden. Natural soaps can be used to spray the vegetables to stop insects from eating them, and you can also use Bacillus thuringiensis (BT) as a biological pesticide (it is a form of bacteria that will kill many insects when they eat it).
Installing nets or screens can defend your vegetables from birds and spraying cayenne pepper on the ground will keep away rodents and insects while protecting your vegetables with row covers will stop caterpillars and beetles from eating them. Choose a method of organic gardening pest control that fits your needs and works well for your situation. Just check to make sure that whatever you end up using will not contaminate your vegetables with unwanted chemicals. After you’ve managed to ward off all of the pests that threaten to munch on your plants all that is left is to water your garden and wait for your first harvest of fresh, delicious, and organic vegetables and fruits.