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An Enlightening Organic Gardening Guide
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ORGANIC GARDENING Bountiful Benefits Planning & Design Savvy About Soil Crazy Over Composting Seeds & Seedlings Planting Techniques Organic Fertilizers The Pesticide Problem Seasonal Care Gathering the Harvest  This site is brought to you by www.PlanetNatural.com 
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 Ten Ways to Go OrganicProvided by The BBC Organic gardens can be attractive and productive. Well-managed soil nurtures healthy plants and pesticide-free gardens have predators to deal with pests. The ten steps below will help you begin growing organically. 1.) Improving the Soil Whether you have heavy clay or light sand, you can't do much about your soil texture. However, you can do something about the structure and quality, and any improvements you make to the soil will have a direct effect on the health of your plants. Soil conditioners, such as leaf mold, composted bark, homemade or municipal compost, benefit all soils. They can be dug in or simply spread on the surface where the weather and soil-dwellers, such as earthworms, will work them in. Their bulk will improve the drainage of heavy soils and help dry soils to hold on to moisture and nutrients. 2.) Garden Nutrients Gardeners worldwide know the value of home-produced garden compost. It nourishes the soil, supplies it with nutrients and improves its structure, giving plants ideal growing conditions. It also helps combat soil-borne pests and diseases. The time to apply compost is when plants are actively growing, not during late autumn and winter when long wet spells will wash its valuable nutrients deep down into the earth, out of reach of next season's crops. Organic gardeners recycle everything through the compost heap, only discarding badly diseased material. Mature compost looks and smells like good garden soil, but is a phenomenal mixture that is high in nutrients and teeming with the micro-organisms your soil needs to keep it in good condition. If you don't have one already, start your heap off this year - you won't regret it. 3.) Making Compost Compost-making is a year-round activity. The secret to success is to have a good mixture of material. If the heap is too wet, you'll end up with stinking sludge; if it is too dry, composting will be very slow. If you've got a lot of wet stuff, such as kitchen waste or green weeds, mix it with dry material, such as egg boxes and crumpled cardboard. Old envelopes are particularly good for mixing with grass clippings. You can use a container or make a heap directly on the ground. Add to it whenever you like, remembering to avoid very thick layers of anything very wet or very dry. If you have a large quantity of any one material, such as grass clippings or woody prunings, make a separate pile. Wait until you've got the balancing stuff to go with it, then add it to the main heap. If you're energetic you can turn the heap around, mixing it all up occasionally - but you'll get equally good compost by letting nature do the work for you. 4.) Weed Control Organic gardens are not unkempt, but neither are they free of all weeds, since many are very useful. For example, nettles support aphids for early-feeding ladybugs. Thistles provide food, in the forms of nectar and seeds, for many different creatures, and butterflies breed in flowering grasses. Once again, the key is to aim for a balance. If weeds are likely to compete with your plants for nutrients, they should be controlled. So-called organic herbicides don't exist, so other methods must be used: • Keep bare soil covered as weeds will seed in any open space. In ornamental areas, use ground cover plants or a mulch to smother weeds. Mulch around vegetables with leaf-mould or hay. • During winter grow a green manure, such as clover, where you have no crop cover. As well as keeping down weeds, it stores nutrients in its roots. These are returned to the soil when it is uprooted and dug in during spring. • Hoe off weeds as soon as they appear. All the green waste can be added to the compost heap where any minerals and other nutrients they have absorbed during their short growing time will be recycled for the benefit of your garden plants. • On hard surfaces, use a flame-weeder to burst and kill plants' cells. Done regularly, it will keep annual weeds in check and weaken perennial weeds. 5.) Seed and Plant Choice Always buy plants that suit your site and soil, and choose disease-resistant varieties whenever you can. Seed catalogs offer a huge range of plants, both ornamental and edible, that have natural resistance to all sorts of problems. There are even a couple of potato varieties - 'Cara' and 'Remarka' - that are resistant to blight. 6.) Changing Perspectives Organic gardeners want their plants to grow well, but not at any cost. Rather than rely on an arsenal of pesticide sprays to deal with problems, they use other means to achieve success. They also accept and tolerate a certain level of imperfection. 7.) Chemical Issues There are many organic pesticides and fungicides available but these products last only a short time in the environment. If absolutely necessary only use them as a last resort. Chemicals, even organically acceptable ones, can cause more damage than we realize. Contact killers can often hit non-pest species, while treatments designed to combat fungal problems can be washed into the soil, damaging worms and other soil-dwellers. The best technique is to deal with problems early on, thus avoiding the need for chemical treatments. 8.) Pest Management Don't rely on just one method of pest control, as the best results come from using a range of techniques. Traps and barriers, naturally resistant varieties, biological controls and crop rotation are just some of the ways to keep pests at bay. Vigilance is crucial. By checking your plants often, you'll spot problems in the early stages when they are easier to deal with. Often you can allow nature's armory of natural predators to work for you. Also, it pays to take good care of your soil, because healthy soil will produce strong plants that tolerate some pest attack. 9.) Disease Management There are several ways to combat diseases naturally. Always change the position of your vegetable crops each year. By doing this, you'll avoid a build-up of soil-borne problems. Keep plants growing steadily by never letting them go short of water. Dry roots lead to stressed plants that are ready to succumb to any disease. Keeping the soil well-composted will help suppress many diseases as well. 10.) Encourage Wildlife Organic gardens are vital havens for wildlife. Grow a range of plants providing food and shelter and see how quickly the creatures arrive. Aim to attract as wide a range of wildlife as possible, because greater diversity will produce better balance, allowing natural predators to keep pests under control. |
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