Organic gardening principles

Organic gardening is more than not using pesticides or chemical fertilizers. Below are some basic practices that should be implemented if one chooses to garden using organic principles.

Simply stated; organic gardening is an environmentally friendly, people, and wildlife friendly style of gardening. Organic gardening methods can be used by everyone to create almost any sized and style of garden, in any location.

Organic gardening gives you a chance to create the garden you want, safe in the knowledge that you are also doing your part to protect the wider environment in which we all must live.

Organic methods are not just for the fruit and vegetable gardens. They can be applied to all areas of the garden, from lawns to flower beds and container plants. Interest is now growing in managing public parks, sports fields, and playgrounds using organic principles.
 Vegetables should be part of everyone’s diet. If you don’t want to spend a little bit more for those organically grown and sold in the supermarket, perhaps you should consider planting your own in the garden. It is very easy to do that even your kids can join in the fun.

Organic vegetable gardening is the “in thing” these days as people have realized that the use of fertilizers and pesticides do more harm than good. Yes it will make the vegetables bigger or enable the farmer to harvest them faster but the chemicals used in making this happen could be detrimental to the health of those who eat it.

But since the early farmers never did that and relied only on sunlight and irrigation, this concept is making a comeback. These will also enable you to this at home since you have access to the three most basic things namely soil, water and sunlight.

What kind of organic vegetables can you plant? Well, just about everything. Some examples of these include broccoli, cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes and a lot more. You just have to know which of them can be planted during the different seasons of the year.
Proper drainage is important for your vegetables. If there isn’t, you can check if it is feasible to grow these using a raise bed.
When you have done your basic research, you can now buy the seeds. These are usually sold in packets so don’t forget to read the instructions before using them.
Planting the seeds for your organic vegetable gardening is the second phase of this operation. The challenging part is making sure nothing happens to it until the time comes that this will be harvested.

Your vegetables may be under attack by pests, weeds and other animals. To prevent this from happening, you need to get a bird, a toad and even other insects to eat them. For weeds, the only thing you can do is pull these one by one from the ground. As for other animals, putting up fences and using animal hair, baby powder or deodorant soaps seems to be a good deterrent.

Mulch is another solution. This can be made from chipped bark, garden compost, leaf moulds and manure. It must be applied at 3 to 4 inches or 8 to 10 cm from the ground in order for it to be effective.

Some organically grown vegetables can also be done indoors. Take for example that tomato that can be grown using an organic container made out of clay, plastic or wood. Just don’t forget to give it some water daily and sunlight so it can grow.
You can place the containers outside during the day and if the weather is too cold, bring them indoors and put them somewhere else like in the western or southern windows of your home.

One more thing you have to remember about growing organic vegetables in such containers is not to use soil but rather a mixture of peat, perlite and vermiculite.
Organic vegetable gardening is challenging but it pays off when you are able to reap what you sow this means additional savings and maybe even a small business if you want to sell whatever excess you have to the local farmers market, or car boot sale