How to Have Your Own Organic Garden
If you want to start a garden where you know you will have healthy vegetables and plants, the best garden to choose is an organic garden. Not only are these gardens healthier and better for the environment, but they are also less expensive because you don’t need to buy any kinds of chemicals, pesticide or herbicides. In this type of garden you use nature to your advantage instead of regarding it as the enemy. You don’t need to have a large amount of space because even a few feet of space is sufficient for the garden.
When choosing the site for your garden, think small. You may have a lot of space and may eventually want to have a large garden, but to get started it is important that you start off small. In this way you will be able to learn as you are going and gain the experience you need to expand. With a small garden you will have less work and have to buy fewer materials. A space as small as 4 feet X 4 feet is large enough to furnish the vegetables for a family. You also have to be careful not to plant too much in the garden. Think of the yield you will have from a few kinds of plants rather than try to cram too many plants of different kinds into the small space. You can even have a starter garden by using a window box.
Before you start your planting, you have to think about how you will provide nourishment for the plants. This means you have to start a compost heap. This is where you will throw all the scraps of food instead of sending them out in the trash. Compost is the main ingredient for enriching the soil in organic gardening. Use the things you find in your garden as well, such as fallen leaves, the clippings from the grass when you mow the lawn and weeds.
You do need to have the right kind of soil for organic gardening. You can use the soil in the ground and add the organic material from your compost heap. This soil is better for your garden for several reasons. First, it will nourish the plants without the use of fertilizer that contains chemicals. This will help keep them growing more natural without any growth spurts that will weaken the plants. Since the soil containing the organic material is not compacted as much as that containing chemicals, it is easier for you to pull out any weeds. The soft soil also enables the roots of the plants to penetrate the soil to deeper levels. The water can also get to the roots easier when the soil is soft.
It is important to control the growth of weeds, no matter what kind of garden you have. If you allow them to grow, they will take over the plants and kill them. Any unplanted areas should be mulched to prevent their growth and if you need to, use a hoe to take out any weds you find.
Watch the video related to organic gardening
Video #9 in our Survival Gardening series go over soils and soil improvement techniques. Video #10 will follow shortly. Unless you are keeping a herd of large animals like cows, it’s going to be very hard to keep grow food long term using just what’s “on” the farm or homestead. For a handful of raised beds, half dozen rabbits and similar number of chickens MAY provide enough fertilizer to keep your soil in good shape. But for a serious amount of ground, ie, enough to truly keep a family of 4 …
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September 6th, 2007 at 1:21 am
So glad to have found your video. Square Foot Gardening is something I am planning for the 2009 growing season.
Thanks
September 6th, 2007 at 1:36 am
thats only 87%… what about the other 13% huh?
September 6th, 2007 at 1:51 am
mel bartholomew is going to save the world
September 6th, 2007 at 4:27 am
This guy is no alan chadwick.
Raised bed gardening is great and attractive. I think row planting is best for large plots and more farm scale stuff. Intensive planting requires a lot of water. True the shade of the leaves holds it in the ground but the close planting causes a lot of competition for water among the plants.
September 6th, 2007 at 5:08 am
i chose the old way becasue your optimise space if you do it right but these look very nice
September 6th, 2007 at 12:39 am
This year I have been trying to grow organic vegetables in a square foot garden and homemade earthbox. Some vegetables are more important to buy organic than others, because they tend to have higher levels of pesticides, i.e. spinach, green beans, bell peppers. So, those are what I'm trying to grow, among other things, especially considering the nutrient density of the aforementioned is quite high. Bell peppers seem pretty easy to grow. I'm sure green beans won't be too hard. Here organic spinach and bell peppers at the grocer are quite expensive. A can of organic green beans here is only a dollar. Spinach is a cool weather crop. Honestly, the first year I don't think you will make any significant savings, but if you keep up with your gardening using your same and recycled supplies/soil ammendments/compost (should be free) then it gets cheaper each year you have your garden. You can even save seeds if your plants are heirloom, essentially negating that cost. P.S. My square foot garden cost about $60.
September 6th, 2007 at 1:11 am
Organic gardening is just gardening with out the use of chemicals. Yes, there are alot of products you can buy from nurseries and even Walmart that say they are organic but what they really are is just a waste of money. Do a search on the internet for tips on organic gardening in your area. There is an Organic Gardening Magazine you can subscribe to. The forums on GardenWeb are very helpful also. Jerry Baker is an author of a lot of helpful books for using household ingredients to battle the bugs and other diseases. Amazon.com has his books new and used. He uses dishsoap and alot of of tobacco juice LOL. I have used some of his recipes and they do work.
September 6th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
I love SFG, I live in a city and have limited space so this system is wonderful. We have fruitfull crops year rounds thanks to SFG. The only improvment I ask for is translating SFG to crcular barrel type planters because I have 4 of those and would like to maximize their use as well.
September 6th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
try the oxford farmers market in oxford Ohio. there are several farmers who have vegetable plants. These are not certified organic but they are grown in OMRI approved soil and fed only organic fertilizers so as organic as you can get without the paper
I might have a few peppers, onions, leeks, tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini and other things I grow for may market garden in Eaton, OH. But I really grow only to supply my market garden/CSA and only sell plants if i have extras after planting.
http://www.oxfordfarmersmarket.com
http://www.boulderbeltfarm.com
September 7th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
To get a good organic garden going takes years of soil building. start small as a big garden will get overwhelming come the hot part of summer. I would say a garden no bigger than 10 feet by 20 feet the first growing season.
Now is the time to start garden prep by choosing where you want the garden and opening up the sod. smothering the area where you will have the garden is a good first step or you can plow the sod open and till it in next spring. plowing is a lot more effective than tilling for killing grass.
You will also need some tools. Get a couple of hoes, my favourite is the shuffle or stirrup hoe. You can find these at any box store. they are lighter and easier to use than the standard concrete hoe most people think of when they think about hoes. You will also need a wheel barrow or garden cart, a potato fork (looks somewhat like a pitch fork but fatter), a shovel, a spade, a couple of trowels.
You will need seeds. My favourite place to get seeds is Johnny's Selected Seeds in Maine. http://johnnysseeds.com
Start with easy things to grow and pay attention to the fact not everything grows in every season. Lettuce for example is best planted in the spring, it likes cool damp conditions. Tomatoes and peppers like it hot. A good seed catalogue will tell you such information. You will likely want to use seedlings for a lot of things such as tomatoes. Do not buy these at places like Wal-Mart. Go to a local nursery and tell them you are just starting out and you will get a lot of advice. One caveat, most nurseries (and box stores) are NOT organic and do not know much about organic growing so ignore all advice to use chemicals. But you will find healthier seedlings at most local places than box stores.
Good luck
September 7th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
What a tosser. He never invented this. It was being used in France well before he was even thought of!! What a cheek to claim HE invented it. The shame
September 8th, 2007 at 12:05 am
David Will, founder of the Organic Living Club (OLC) in South Texas discussed using barrels to grow produce during our December meeting. You can watch it here:
watch?v=HivTEa6BMx4
or look for it on my YouTube homepage. -OT
September 8th, 2007 at 3:39 am
Getting rich soil organically takes years, you cannot get great soil in one season.
Start a compost heap ASAP. it takes about 9 to 12 months to make good compost (many people say you can do this in 3 to 6 months and this is true if you know what you are doing-there is a lot of skill to making excellent compost)
This fall after the peppers and tomatoes come in grow a cover crop for green manure that will be cut and turned in to the soil next spring. green manures do an incredible amount of good for the soil.
Get a soil test to see what your soil is lacking.
Both peppers and tomatoes like rather low nitrogen and higher potassium and magnesium. Tomatoes love a couple of table spoons of epsom salts per planting hole.
Both appreciate a twice a month foliar feed with kelp or fish emulsion
A great gardening forum with lots of organic growers is http://idigmygarden.com/forums/index.php
September 8th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
We’ve been doing SFG for a couple years now and it is so much better than the old way. Lower costs (especially after getting started), less waste, less water, and a lot less weeding. I spend more time getting my crops ready for the table.
September 8th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
It really actually depends how you go about it. It can be cheaper if you stay a little frugal with your money. The chicken fencing is a one time cost.
You can cut some of the cost for seed by planting extra vegetables for a seed crop the first year and then harvesting the seeds in the fall/winter.
Staying organic won't cost more, it just will take more time. That's why organic foods cost more, the labor cost is higher.
If you want organic fertilizer you can use manuer if you know where to get that or they sell organic fertilizer. Fertilizer can go a long ways.
Make sure your cold weather greenhouse is well insulated, this will save on electricity or propane. You could even buy a windmill to not only power your greenhouse but also collect on extra energy it generates from the electric company.
Buy some cold frames to save room from your green house, for those vegetable such as cabbage, that can stand a little cooler spring.
Preserve or profit from extra food, don't let it go to waste, it's only money you're wasting.
Hope this helps you out.
September 9th, 2007 at 12:28 am
Check out Mother Earth News
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/2008-06-01/No-Dig-Garden-Beds.aspx
They give some really easy ways to start an instant garden for the novice. Garden in a bag and hay bale gardening are among my favorites. (I just posted a question on answers to see how others are doing with their hay bale gardens… I've been doing this for 3 years and love it. Anyway, as the answers start coming in you might want to see what other people think who've done it.)
You can also do the old fashioned tried and true method of tilling up some soil, adding some amendments (compost, manure, etc. which are easy to buy at Walmart, Kmart, local garden stores, etc.)
However, at this stage of the game (assuming you live in the USA) you're probably going to have to buy nursery plants once you've got your garden site prepared. But at this time of the year the prices are going down too. Just make sure you buy good healthy plants that aren't too "leggy."
For your first time you really don't need that much: a hose with a sprinkler attachment is nice, a hoe, a shovel, a little hand trowel, garden gloves, twine, some stakes and you should be off and running. Fertilizer is a good idea, since you want to go organic make sure you buy one that is.
I love gardening! Good Luck!
September 9th, 2007 at 5:42 am
I still think that growing your own garden would be a better idea, not only would you have fresh vegetables, you would know for sure what kind of environment they were grown in, and you would get the added bonus of the exercise that working in your garden can provide!
September 9th, 2007 at 6:32 am
Yes, they are perfectly fine. Like with any vegetable, make sure you wash it thoroughly before eating it.