Environmentally-conscious gardening requires dedication to following best practices at all times. Sound organic gardening techniques can help you do just that. This will make the fruits and vegetables in your garden healthier and taste better. Use the following tips to create a flourishing and very rewarding organic garden.
Allow your children to actively participate in planting your organic garden. Gardens are terrific teaching tools for kids, and provide great opportunities for interaction, growth, and instruction on healthy living.
Paying attention to spacing is important. Amateur gardeners often make the mistake of failing to leave enough space for fully matured plants. Failure to provide adequate room will restrict growth because it forces plants to compete for valuable nutrients and oxygen. Plan your organic garden while keeping this in mind, and space your seeds accordingly, when planting.
Laundry Basket
Use a laundry basket to help you collect produce from your garden. This will be like a strainer for all your produce. 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? Pile newspapers on top of each other to kill weeds. Weeds require sunlight for growing. The newspaper will block sunlight and weeds won’t be able to grow. Newspaper decompose quickly and integrate into the compost. You can add mulch on top for aesthetic reasons.
Some advise passing your hand gently over your newly planted seedlings each day. This probably sounds like an odd recommendation, but research has shown that this technique encourages more plant growth, than no petting at all.
Untreated Wood
A raised bed can be built with untreated wood, brick or stone. If you choose to use wood to construct your bed, choose a species that is naturally resistant to rot and avoid treated wood entirely. Some great choices to choose from are cedar, locust and cypress. Using untreated wood is especially important for veggie gardens, because chemicals from treated wood could leach into the soil, affecting your food. If you have already used lumber that is treated, you can line it with plastic or another type of barrier.
If you sell your crops and label them organic, you should get an organic garden certified seal. This will result in generating more sales and creating a loyal customer base.
Be careful with the amount of water that you’re giving your plants when gardening. Roots need to draw in nutrients via the soil, and they cannot do this if they’re flooded with water. Only water as necessary when there is no rain in the forecast, or for plants which need extra watering. After reviewing the weather forecast, you can decide whether or not to spend the time and resources watering the garden.
Every year, you should plant different things and in different places. Planting the same family of plants in the same area over and over can cause disease and fungus to start growing. These kind of enemies to plants can stay underground ready for the next year to cause harm to your plants. When you rotate your crops, fungus and disease have less chance to spread.
More Gardening Ideas & Resources
As you’ve read from the above tips, proper organic gardening may really affect the nutrients and freshness of your produce. It may take a ton of work, but it is worth it.
