A Guide to Someone Interested in Organic Gardening
Spring is around the corner, and now is the time to start planning your
garden. Planting a garden can be a very rewarding activity. Not only do
you get off your butt and out of the house, you get some exercise and
you get to appreciate the natural beauty of growing your own food. You
get to witness the various stages of plant growth. At the end, you have
the reward of wonderful tasting food, which is not only better quality
than you can get at the supermarket, but even perhaps better for you.
You know what has gone into your food and you won't have to worry about
toxic chemicals being absorbed into your body.
I am not a typical
green, organic, Prius driving, mantra chanting, granola eater. I drive
an SUV, own guns and use Roundup on pesky weeds in the front yard. I do,
however, advocate organic methods when it comes to growing your own
food.
Benefits can be gained through organic food
gardening. Your food will taste better. You aren't using super high
concentrations of nitrogen to accelerate plant growth beyond natural
ability. Your garden will thrive on an organic diet, as the beneficial
bacteria and insects that complete the ecosystem that nature built, will
not be killed off.
Organic gardens cost much less: when you
have your natural ecosystem in place it requires less maintenance.
You're not always out there putting out chemicals trying to keep things
in balance. You're using compost rather than expensive fertilizers.
These fertilizers are needed more and more as your growing seasons of
non organic gardening depletes natural nutrients, and thus are not sustainable.
The best part about Organic Gardening is that is it healthier. You do
not risk putting pesticides or synthetic fertilizers into your body.
If I have convinced you that organic gardening is the way to go, I
encourage you to do more research on this, and find the best methods
that suite your particular area. The following is a description of what I
do to raise a wonderful, high yield, organic garden.
I have a 25 by 25 foot garden space. Every year, production increases as the soil gets better and better.
I start off this time of year by combing through seed catalogs to see
if there is anything I am interesting in growing that wouldn't be
available at a local nursery. There are thousands of esoteric items not
available as seedlings. I recommend Territorial Seed Company out of
Oregon.
There are many who proclaim a no-till garden is the only
way to go. They argue that not tilling the garden allows your
underground eco-system to fully develop. If you are interested, I
suggest you research. I am too lazy myself to go through this process.
Every winter, in mid February, I use a propane torch to burn the weeds
and remaining plant life away. I also believe this can kill harmful
plant pests, such as insect eggs and various plant diseases.
Once my garden is charred, I throw on my compost and an organic mixture
of fertilizers (mentioned at end of article) and till them in with my
roto-tiller.
For the seeds I am interested in, I try to get them
by February and sprout them six to eight weeks before planting. Here in
Portland, Oregon, I plant mid May, so March 1st is the time for me to plant the seeds. I use grow lights and seed trays with warmers. A greenhouse may be used.
In early May, I select my plants from the nursery. I choose these
instead of seeds because they have such a high success rate. If you pay
good money for large, healthy stock from a reputable nursery, you will
have the best results.
Before planting, I am sure to lay out my
rows of soaker hose. A soaker hose not only uses much less water (up to
70%), it delivers water much deeper into the roots where it is needed.
You will actually find higher production using soaker hoses rather than
broadcast watering, and much lower water bills. Soaker hoses look like
black garden hoses with pores, where the water sweats through.
Be sure to water your garden well, but over watering can cause tomatoes
to crack. During the peak of summer I usually turn the soaker hoses on
every other day for a half hour. If you see your leaves wilt, you will
need to water more.
Corn is a great garden vegetable to grow. It
does take more resources, however. You will need to heavily water corn
nearly every day, and you will need to heavily fertilize. In addition to
your organic mixture in your soil, for corn you will need to apply fish
emulsion, or fish fertilizer weekly for best results.
Home
grown corn is very different from supermarket purchased corn. The sugars
in corn start to break down into starch the second it is harvested. If
you grow your own corn, it is best to get your water boiling for cooking
the corn, and once it has reached the boil, pick your corn. The less
the time the corn spends off the stalk before cooking, the better. You
will be amazed at the quality of your homegrown corn; you'll never want
to buy corn again.
Corn can be hard for the home gardener, often
because home gardeners fail to fertilize or water sufficiently as
mentioned previously. Also, the seed packages will tell you to not soak
the corn kernels before planting. This is because if you were to put a
soaked kernel into a dry ground, it will fail. If you soak the kernels
in water, however, and then plant them after 24 hours of soaking into a
moist soil, you will have a good jump start on the growing. I soak my
kernels, and usually get 12 foot stalks (depending on variety.).
Roma tomatoes are great to grow, as they are easily canned and can be
used year around and made into sauce. There are also many more tomatoes
to experiment with. There are literally hundreds of varieties. Some
great for sandwiches, some great for salsas, and some not only taste
wonderful, but are very unique and beautiful looking. I would encourage
one to try several varieties of heirloom tomatoes, and some hybrids. Did
you know that you can grow black or white tomatoes?
Once you
plant tomatoes put your tomato cages up around the plant if they are
vine type tomatoes. Some tomatoes grow along the ground and a cage will
not make any difference.
Other crops I have huge success with
are beans. I plant bush beans and poll beans along my garden fencing.
Beans are another wonderful addition to your dinner table. A great
characteristic of beans is that they don't take too long to mature and
they produce over a period of several weeks. That means that while you
are waiting all summer for potatoes, at least you'll have am ample
supply of beans. Beans, however, do not like excess fertilizer. While
you would fertilize all your other vegetables with an application of
fish emulsion every two to three weeks, you won't want to apply
supplemental fertilizer to your bean crop at all. Your initial soil
amendments will be enough. If you supply your beans with too much
nitrogen, they will grow really thin and too fast. Beans are nitrogen
fixing, meaning that the roots actually supply nitrogen into the soil.
Carrots are also a great crop to plant. You must be sure that your
soil is very lose with plenty of sand so your carrots can grow.
Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage are known as cold weather crops.
They are best planted later in the summer and harvested in the cool
fall weather. Shade is also a good idea for these crops. Follow all
planting instructions that come with your seeds or plants.
If
you are like me and love garlic, you are already too late. I am sorry to
inform you. Garlic can be started with the same soil preparations as
your vegetable garden, but must be started in the fall, usually around
Halloween and no later than Thanks Giving. Bulb need a cold shock. Once
planted in the fall, garlic bulbs can be harvested in early to mid
summer.
Weeding is a challenge with organic gardening. Since you
will not be using herbicides, you will need to manually pull rogue
weeds. This is necessary, as weeds can choke out your plants, and starve
them of water and nutrients. Weeding can be minimized with the use of
the before mentioned soaker hoses, as water will be very localized.
Mulch can also be used between rows to smother weeds. Otherwise weeds
can be easily contained by constant upkeep. Eliminating small weeds
before they have a chance to grow large roots is much easier.
Organic Fertilizer Mix:
I learned about this mix from an article in Mother Earth News. This
article was titled: "A Better Way to Fertilize Your Garden" by Steve
Solomon. This is the recipe:
4 parts cotton seed meal
¼ part agriculture lime, finely ground
¼ part gypsum
½ part dolomitic lime
1 part bone meal
½ part kelp meal
Mix these thoroughly. You can obtain these at your local farm or feed store. In Portland, I can get all these items at Portland Concentrates. Use 4 quarts mixture per 100 square feet.
Good luck with your organic garden. It can be hard work, but trust me,
it is very rewarding. Once you try gardening, you will probably look
forward to every summer, filled with garden delight.
