Organic gardening will require some extra research and active avoidance of chemicals. If you want to try your hand at organic gardening, then be prepared to learn about concepts like pH balance. If you are inexperienced with gardening, making the switch to organic methods may be a challenge for you. To succeed, you must learn as much as possible about organic gardening principles. For valuable advice, keep reading.
Planting organic strawberries is a great way to encourage your children to get involved. You will find that they enjoy participating in gardening if they are allowed to pluck the fresh berries and eat them straight from the earth.
Have your gardening tools near you to minimize the time spent searching for them. Use a large bucket, or wear rugged pants with several pockets. You should be able to do your garden work quickly if you keep a trowel, gloves, small pruning shears, and other handy devices close to you.
Flower Beds
You should utilize around three inches of mulch that is organic in your flower beds. Mulch will minimize weed growth and maximize nutrients and moisture. In addition, your flower beds will have a beautiful, finished appearance year round.
You should work efficiently, instead of working hard in your garden, to simplify things. Don’t waste your time by looking all over for your tools. Prepare your equipment before you go into the garden and put everything away afterwards. If you use lots of tools, consider using a tool belt or even just some pants that have lots of pockets.
Coffee grounds are a good addition to your soil. Coffee grounds are full of nitrogenous nutrients that growing plants need. Plants need nitrogen in order to thrive, so give it a natural source with coffee grounds, then watch everything come to life much more quickly.
When it’s harvest time, you should utilize a basket that you put laundry in to carry your veggies. The basket strains the produce as well as stores it while you are going through your garden. The basket won’t be affected by the water and it will drain right off as though it were poured into a large sieve.
Keep your compost pile balanced with a combination of dried and green plant mulch. Your green material can be made up of produce waste, used floral arrangements, lawn cuttings, leaves, and other yard waste. Dried material includes straw, shredded paper, and cardboard. You should not use things like meat scraps, charcoal, blighted plants or the manure of meat-eating animals in your compost.
For the best results when growing an organic garden, you should shake your seeds up a little bit. After planted, make sure you agitate the seeds at least twice daily, using your fingers or even a Popsicle stick. That may sound like a silly thing to do, but it’s been proven to help plants grow larger than they would otherwise.
Treated Wood
Create raised beds with stone, brick or untreated wood. Choose wood that is naturally resistant to rot and is untreated. Cypress, locust and cedar are all very good choices. Don’t use treated wood in a garden for vegetables because the chemicals contained in them can leak into the ground. If you have some space treated wood, you can still use it, however, be sure to line it with some type of barrier like plastic sheeting.
More Gardening Ideas & Resources
Now, you shouldn’t get your hopes up and believe that a few tips are going to turn you into an instant professional gardener. However, these tips are a great starting point if you do plan to grow organically. As you implement these tips and hone your skills, you’ll be a professional green-thumb-holder in no time.