You have many options available to enable you to grow a vivacious and colorful organic garden of your very own. You just need to learn them and use them.
Clay Soil
Clay soil can be a real pain to work with as it often sticks to the end of the shovel. Take the hard work out of using a shovel in clay soil by rubbing a light coat of car or floor wax over the surface with a clean cloth and buff the surface. The wax will enable the clay soil to simply slide off the shovel, and will also prevent the shovel from rusting.
When planting perennials, seek out those that are resistant to slugs. A particularly vulnerable plant can be killed by snails and slugs overnight. These pests are particularly fond of young perennials and those varieties with leaves that are tender, smooth, and thin. Perennials that have tough or hairy leaves are often times unappetizing to snails and slugs. Some varieties of these plants are campanula, helleborus, heuchera, or euphorbia.
Fight pests before you even plant, by getting your soil in shape. Healthier plants are stronger, which in turn can help the plants you grow to become more resistant to disease and bugs that can harm them. To give your garden the best chance of yielding the healthiest plants, start with a high-quality soil that has fewer chemicals which over time will accumulate salts.
Come up with a gardening plan before planting anything. Doing this makes it easier to keep track of where you planted what when you first start to see sprouts. You might end up losing small plants in a large area, because you did not water them.
One natural method of weed removal is called “boiling”. This is a safe way to eliminate weeds, as this will not damage the soil. Make sure to pour only on the weeds and to stay away from healthy vegetation. Boiling water kills weeds by destroying their roots. Weeds won’t be able to survive, never mind grow, with damaged weeds.
Plan your garden to provide some fall color. That doesn’t have to be, however. The fall season is probably the most colorful of the year in terms of foliage. Maple, Beech and Dogwood trees are available in a number of fall colors, varying from bright yellow to rich crimson. Some very good shrubs to choose are barberry, hydrangea, and cotoneaster, which is a member of the rose family.
To draw good insects to your garden, plant heather. Heather is desirable to bees; when heather emerges in early spring, it can be a source of nectar. Because it is usually left alone, heather beds can become a home for spiders, beetles and other insects. Because of this, you should put on a pair of gloves when it’s time to prune the heather.
Using a solution of aspirin and water can prevent certain plant diseases. An aspirin and a half, combined with a couple of gallons of water, will do amazing things for your plants. Spray your plants with the water if they have a disease. Use this method to spray your plants every three weeks.
As your seeds sprout, they require less warmth than before. Take your plants out of the heat once they start to grow. If you have plastic films on your containers, remove them. Check on your seeds periodically to make sure you know when to remove the films.
More Gardening Ideas & Resources
A garden can be grown by anyone, but in order to have a garden that produces the best crops, proper horticulture knowledge is needed. Remember these helpful tips the next time you are working in your garden!
