Organic Gardening Basics 101
The concepts of organic gardening consist of conservation and preservation of the soil by use of natural methods. They do not use chemical pesticides or fertilizers to condition the soil. Conservation of water and preserving the purity of the ground water is also part of organic gardening. Improving the soil without upseting the natural balance can also be done by use of all natural organic soil methods.
Organic gardening is a revised method that was used before commercial ferilizers, fungicides and insecticides became widely popular. Instead of chemicals that can be deadly to good and bad garden insects in organic gardening you make use of natural predators and let insects such as lady bugs, predatory wasps and praying mantis do the insect control for you. Composting of leaves, kitchen scraps and even grass clippings can be used to improve your soil without adding chemical fertilizers.
In an organic vegetable garden one of the first thing you do is to condition your soil for whatever crop you intend to grow by adding soil nutrients like composting, peat, sand, manures etc and tilling them into the soil. Companion planting is another trick of the organic gardener to help control bugs. Planting green peppers in with your tomatoes will help to control cutworms. Planting marigolds around your vegetable garden will also help to keep the pests from getting to your plants. Many forms of herbs can also deter pests while bringing benificial insects like bees to your garden.
Organic gardening also makes use of natural ways to combat insects. An entire host of ways exist that use everyday ingredients like garlic, cayenne ppeper, cinnamon and even lemon or orange peel to use against insects. Ladies bugs, praying mantis and predatory wasps are established organic garden methods of controlling insect pests.
Mulching is an important step in organic gardening or really any gardening as it helps the plants stay watered and also acts as a shade barrier for their roots as they establish themselves in the garden. Another benefit to mulching is that it can act as a weed barrier and make keeping your garden weed free a lot easier for you and it makes a neat clean walking path to reach your plants but best of all at the end of the season or in between crops the mulch can be tilled under to help improve the soil.
January 25 2009 | Gardening | No Comments »