Maintaining an organic garden is extremely beneficial for your diet. However, there is a fair amount of information that you must learn, including how to choose the proper equipment and tools. There are a multitude of seeds and starter plants available. Here are a few tips and techniques you can use to get started in your own organic garden.
Properly put down your sod. Your soil should be prepared before you lay the sod. Get rid of weeds and tilth the soil finely. Compact the soil gently but firmly to be certain that it is indeed flat. Thoroughly moisten the soil. When laying down sod, create staggered rows with offset joints. Make sure that the sod forms an even, flat surface, and if you have any gaps show between the sod, fill them with a little bit of soil. Your sod should be watered everyday for at least two weeks, then it will root itself and walk on it.
Always allow your plants to adapt gradually to any changes in light conditions, temperatures or soils, if you do not, you might shock them and cause them to die. You need to give them about an hour of sunlight during the first day. Slowly, day after day, you can leave your plants outside for a little longer. By the week’s end, your plants should then be ready for the big move!
The first thing you should do when planning a garden is test the soil. Have a soil report done. It is cost effective and you can make necessary adjustments, based on the report, to your soil so it is correctly enriched to encourage plant growth. Cooperative Extension departments often offer this testing service. It is a worthwhile effort so a garden can be productive on the first year of planting.
If you are horticulture, be wary of stink bugs in your garden, especially in the autumn. Stink bugs are attracted to tomatoes, beans and most fruits. Decrease their presence as much as possible to avoid them wreaking havoc in your garden.
Be sure to weed your garden. Unwanted weeds fight for the same nutrients that more desirable plants do, and they also are unsightly. Try using white vinegar to get rid of weeds. Yes, white vinegar actually kills weeds! If you are too busy to pull weeds by hand, make a white vinegar solution and keep it handy for a quick spray when needed.
When fall has arrived, it is time to plant the edibles for the autumn. Rather than putting standard clay vessels into use when planting crops of lettuce and kale, think about using pumpkins instead. Use some Wilt-Pruf to prevent your pumpkin from decomposing and then you can put your plants right inside. Once you’ve done this, you can plant.
The best way to start a garden is from first principles: seeds. Starting with your own seeds is more environmentally friendly than buying plants from a nursery. Many nurseries use plastic growing pots that are very seldom recycled. Try buying from organic nurseries and farms so your garden is not using anti-environmental products.
If you want the best tasting vegetables, learn about the optimum time to harvest them. Every type of vegetable has a different moment of ripeness. Baby peas, for example have much better flavor if they are harvested early in the ripening process, as does zucchini. Contrarily, tomatoes should be left on the vine until maximum ripeness has occurred. Educate yourself about the best time to harvest your veggies.
Don’t use broad-spectrum pesticidal products anywhere in your horticulture area. If your pesticide has too wide a range of targets, it can kill off useful insects that fight off other pests. Beneficial insects are more susceptible to toxic pesticides than their annoying counterparts, so a broad-spectrum pesticide could kill all of the good bugs first, allowing the population of bad pests to multiply. This can lead to needing even more pesticides to eliminate the problem insects.
Horticulture is an excellent relaxation tactic. You can relax and be at peace in many different ways. Working in the garden is among the simplest. It does however require a small investment of money but has tremendous returns. Growing your own garden brings a feeling of tranquility and joy to you.
Young children will love it if you plant strawberries that bear continually, and organic gardens are the perfect place to do it. Children are thrilled to harvest fruit from their own garden, and doing so often makes them more enthusiastic about helping out with the more hum-drum aspects of tending a garden.
Use an old laundry basket to bring your fresh produce in from the garden. Most laundry baskets are designed with a multitude of holes. This makes them a perfect strainer for washing your vegetables. Rinse the product off whilst it’s in the basket so that any extra water can strain through the laundry basket’s holes.
As you read, an organic garden can be incredibly important to your current and future dietary habits and so is understanding all the different kinds of plants you can grow. Following the advice you have read here is a great first step in starting your own successful organic garden that you can enjoy for years to come.