Organic Gardening Ideas
Organic gardening is the way of growing vegetables and fruits with the use of things only found in nature. Organic gardening is the exact same as regular gardening except that organic gardening does not use chemicals that may have an adverse affect on your health. Organic gardening is an excellent way to assure that your plants will be free and clear of all pesticides and, if taken care of properly, will be as healthy as possible.
Organic gardening starts with the soil. Gardeners must add organic matter to the soil regularly in order to keep the soil productive. In fact, compost is essential to the healthiness and well being of plants grown organically. Compost can be made from leaves, dead flowers, vegetable scraps, fruit rinds, grass clippings, manure, and many other things. The ideal soil has a dark color, sweet smell, and is full of earthworms. Some soil may need more natural additives than regular compost can give, such as bonemeal, rock phosphates, or greensand.
One thing that makes even gardeners that are very serious about organic gardening reach for pesticides is insects on their plants. The best way to defend plants against insects is to take preventative measures. One thing that can be done is to make sure plants are healthy and not too wet or dry because insects usually attack unhealthy plants and if healthy, they can often outgrow minor insect damage. A variety of plant types is a good idea to keep pests of a particular plant type from taking out the entire garden.
Perhaps the best way to defend against insects is to make your garden enticing to insect predators, such as ladybugs, birds, frogs, and lizards. You can do this by keeping a water source nearby or by growing plants that attract insects who feed on nectar. Other ideas are sticky traps, barriers, and plant collars. There are some household items that prevent against insects too, like insecticidal soaps, garlic, and hot pepper.
To avoid plant disease in organic gardening, choose disease resistant plants and plant them in their prime conditions. Many diseases will spread because of constant moisture and bad air circulation, so the site of your garden and the way it is watered can help ensure against diseases.
Weeds can be an annoying and frustrating part of organic gardening. Organic mulch can act as a weed barrier, but for even better protection put a layer of newspaper, construction paper, or cardboard under the mulch. Corn meal gluten will slow the growth of weeds if spread early in the season before planting, as does solarization. There’s also the old-fashioned art of hoeing and hand pulling that always works.
Organic gardening may take a little more time and care than regular gardening, but after gardeners get the hang of it and figure out all the quirks of their garden, it is definitely worth the extra time.
Watch the video related to organic gardening
Improving your Soil with a Cover Crop, hosted by Marc Kessler of California Organic Flowers. Visit our website at www.californiaorganicflowers.com
Help answer the question about organic gardening
Tags: clone, dig, dirt, dirty, garden, green, House, nitrogen, organic, pest, ph, phosphate, pipe, Plant, play, pvc, scale, sodium, soil, weed
October 1st, 2007 at 1:42 am
Marc is cute!
October 1st, 2007 at 1:54 am
Great video! I am going to plant a cover crop of clover on my lawn rather than grass and mow it and use it as mulch for my veggie garden. Very exciting! Why waste all that space for Kentucky blue grass when I live in Colorado and have to pay extra for water?
October 1st, 2007 at 4:16 am
Thank you! Looking forward to future videos. This was very helpful.
October 1st, 2007 at 1:15 am
organic pest control is multifaceted I have learned from over 15 year managing organic farms
Crop rotation, do not plant your crops in the same spot in the garden develop a 4 to 5 year rotation
Beneficial insects. 95% of the bugs out there are beneficial or neutral. Learn your bugs and avoid all insecticides like the plague as these kill the beneficial insects as much as the pests and when this happens the pest insects will invade the garden long before the beneficial insects come back because the beneficials will wait until there is big population of food.
Row covers are cloths designed to cover crops. these exclude insects and also protect crops from wind, hail and cold.
Soap sprays are sprays made from dish detergent (if you want to be really organic you have to use certified organic soaps and not detergents). I TBL per gallon of soften water will work to control soft bodied insects such as aphids. This does not work on hard bodied insects such as the various beetles. This will harm bees. For this to work well spray all surfaces of the plants every other day for about 6 to 8 weeks.
Companion planting is planting crops that have benficial effects on each other. Planting marigolds is an example of this. i have found this is of very limited use but many people like to think it wirks even if science does not bear this out. The Book carrots Love Tomatoes by Riotte is a good book on the subject.
Good soil management-healthy plants do not attract pest insects, stress plants do. So be sure to feed your soil (it is teeming with life that keeps your plants healthy if they are healthy and in balance) with good compost and stay away from synthetic fertilizers that are not good for the micr-herd in the soil.
I find hand picking pests is very, very effective (and if I can do this in a 3 acre market garden any home gardener can do this on their much smaller plots) as long as it is done daily
October 1st, 2007 at 2:07 am
Yes…it does that. The only way to control mint is to plant it in a large pot buried in the dirt, but with the rim just above the surface. This stops it sending out runners.
The only way to get rid of it is careful hand weeding. Wet the soil thoroughly and leave it for several hours to soak in, then start teasing out the plants. Make sure you get it ALL. You may have to do this several times, as it is easy to miss bits, or for pieces to break off. Keep a few pieces for your new confined pot, and put the rest in the trash. Do not try to compost it, as you may not kill it all in the compost heap.
October 1st, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Excellent work! I really appreciate the care and attention to detail in this video.
October 1st, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Organic gardening tips are very useful. I will put these ideas to work in my own yard.
October 1st, 2007 at 8:25 pm
http://www.organicseed.com
October 2nd, 2007 at 1:04 am
try a solution of water (boiled) with one clove of garlic and some powdered cayenne pepper, then add a drop of dishsoap. This can be sprayed on your plants and will keep bugs off for a little while… worth a try.
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:03 am
Thanks, great service you are doing.
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:36 am
Well produced and of high interest to any gardener or average citizen committed to crop growing without the use of dangerous pesticides.
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:05 pm
They took care of our wedding two years ago. They sent beautiful flowers !!
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:07 am
well, let me start 1.you can dig deep enough just to remove the grass. you can do this by a shovel that has a flat blade. dig down about two inches the with of the blade of the shovel then make a long row by cutting on both sides and then roll up the grass into long rolls.
2. hot water will kill grass.
3. black plastice over the place you want the garden. place something heavy over the plastic. in about two weeks the grass should be dead.
4.just till up the ground and rake off the grass clumps. let stand for 2 weeks then till again and rake again. you can start small and enlarge your garden every year. HAPPY GROWING.
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:31 pm
I am sorry, but with humans there is just not a "method" of preventing corruption. We each have individual free choice in how we choose to conduct our lives. Because it is an individual choice, there is no way of regulating life to withstand curruption. Each person must make that moral choice for his/her self. When it is as individual as this corruption will eat away at even the smallest community or family. Each person must decide to behave with the utmost honor and integrety in order for corruption to be eradicated. Until each individual alive makes that choice, corruption will occur and rot set in.
I do not wish to make this a theological question, but it is for me a battle of good against evil. Nature is a reflection of how things could be or should be. Nature reflects how great things could be or how horrid and distasteful things could be. We each must look to our inner selves and make our own decision on which way we wish to go, pure or corrupted. We CAN be pure in behavior. Oou thoughts is where the battle is waged, where temptation waits, where we make our decisions. It is why we have a higher brain function than other animals.
We are here to decide if we wish to be pure of soul or corrupt. We are here to learn love and to find spirituality. We are here to grow and mature, to gain wisdom. Without free will we could not do this. The only way to avoid corruption amoung humans is to take away free will and force compliance to high moral standards. This is why lucifer was cast out and given the role of tempter. His plan was to bring all the souls back by forcing them to not chose corruption. There is no growth in forced compliance. Not room for it. So, we can not stop corruption within the human realm. We must each decide which way we wish to go, pure or corrupt.
Sorry, but there really is not a method unless you force compliance and this would be evil. There would be no reason to be here if we had this forced upon us. If we did not have free will. This is the right plan, the only plan, in which humans can achieve growth.
We come into this world with nothing but our soul. When we leave we take nothing but our soul and that which we have added to it while here.
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:13 am
Do a herb garden. At least it will be useful after the project. Get some seeds and plant them in a planter lined basket. This will look pretty in your kitchen after too.
October 3rd, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Great Job. I thought I knew all about cover crops, but there was so much more that I learned from your informative approach. Thank You.
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Get a product that contains Bacillus thuringiensis (BT) such as Dipel or Thuricide. BT is a naturally occurring bacteria that works well against these pests.
Visit our website for more organic gardening ideas at-
http://www.gardening-at-the-crossroads.com/organic-gardening.html
Good Luck and Happy Gardening from Cathy and Neal!
October 4th, 2007 at 11:14 am
I have been making my living growing produce organically for the past 14 years. For 8 years i was certified organic. I assume you don't care to get certified, you just want to grow pure food.
http://www.idigmygarden.com/forums/ is a great forum to learn the ropes. Organic gardening also has a really good forum and the magazine is an excellent resource http://www.organicgardening.com
It will take many years to get you soil in shape and learn the techniques for successful organic growing so don't expect a great garden for a few years. Start small, no more than a 10' x 10' (3m x 3m) garden the first year or you will get overwhelmed in august when the weather is hot, the insects are out and the weeds are growing high.
Mulch everything with straw (not hay as hay tends to have a lot of weed seeds) and mulch well-at least 6" thick. Straw mulch will keep weeds down, moisture in the soil and blight from happening on plants like tomatoes. It also adds organic matter to your soil.
Have a good hoe, rake, wheelbarrow, trowel and garden fork as your basic garden tools.
Start a compost pile ASAP, compost will be the main thing you will feed to the soil/plants. Compost is the best thing to build healthy soil and organics is all about building healthy soil as any organic grower worth their salt knows soil is alive and healthy soils means healthy pest free plants.
Good luck