How to Start a New Organic Garden

Planting and maintaining an organic garden is a rewarding experience. While many of the steps for making a new organic garden are similar to starting any type of garden, there are a few noticeable differences. For example, there is a lot more work up front, planning and analyzing the site. This work is essential for any organic garden: ideal conditions result in healthier plants, fewer pest and disease problems, and a more care-free garden.

Step One: Goal Setting
Before you ever put shovel to soil, before you buy a single plant or seed, you need to know what your goals are for your new garden. Are you hoping for a pretty planting bed to give your home curb appeal? Maybe you’re planning a vegetable or herb garden, or that flower cutting garden you’ve always dreamed of. What you choose to grow will have a huge impact on selecting the site for your new garden.

Whatever your goals are, it’s important to be realistic. You may dream of long perennial borders `a la Gertrude Jekyll, but it’s best to start with something small and manageable. You can always expand beds later. Keep your hopes for expansion in mind as you consider your site.

Step Two: Site Selection
It is time to spend some time analyzing your yard. Where would be the best place to put a new garden? Keeping your goals in mind, start observing areas of your yard that look like they’ll work. If it’s an herb or vegetable garden you’ve got in mind, you’ll need a site that gets at least six hours of sun per day. You’ll also need to make sure that the site drains well—if it’s like a swamp in the spring and summer, it won’t work for herbs and vegetables, which prefer well-drained soil. If it’s an ornamental bed, consider placing it where you can enjoy it from inside your house as well.

Once you have a site selected, observe it for a day or two. How many hours of sun does it get? Does it get bright morning sun, or hot afternoon sun? What’s the soil like? By doing a few simple tests, you can analyze what kind of soil you have, and figure out ways to improve it.

Step Three: Creating the Bed
Now that you have your perfect site selected, it’s time to start digging. The first step will be deciding on the size and shape of your new garden. This can be done by putting down a garden hose and adjusting it until you get the size and shape you want, which is a good option for beds with curved borders. If you are going with a more formal, geometrical bed, you can use string and stakes to create an outline, or simply measure the size and mark your borders in paint.
Most likely, there is something currently inhabiting the space you’ve chosen for your new garden. Whether it is grass, gravel, or an existing planting, you will need to completely clear the area. This is the hardest part of the entire process, but once it’s done it will make the rest of the process a breeze. There are other methods of making a new garden bed, but if you want your bed to be ready for planting now, digging is the way to go.

Step Four: Amend the Soil
Good soil makes for a good garden. The easiest, best way to amend soil in a new bed is to add compost, and plenty of it. If you make your own, add all you can to your new bed. You can also purchase compost in bulk and have it delivered to your home, or purchase it in bags at home and garden centers.

If you took the extra step of sending your soil samples to your cooperative extension service for testing, follow their recommendations regarding nutrients and acidity.

Step Five: Plant Selection
This is the fun part: your garden is ready for plants. Time to hit the nursery and make your selections. A word of caution: most nurseries carry plants that were conventionally grown using chemical fertilizers and pesticides. They will bring some trace amounts of these chemicals into your garden. Also, plants grown conventionally tend to get almost “addicted” to the chemicals they are raised on, and will show signs of stress when weaned off of these chemicals. They will adjust to chemical-free conditions in time.

It’s getting easier to find organically-grown plants in many home and garden centers. If you are starting your garden early in the season, you can select organic seeds and start your own plants. Organic plants and seeds will always clearly be labeled as such. There are also several good catalogs that sell organic plants.

As far as the plants themselves, be sure to closely inspect any plant before you bring it home. Look for signs of insect or disease problems. Remove the plant from the pot and inspect the root system. Does it look healthy and robust, or is it straggly and weak? If the plant is rootbound, you can still purchase the plant, but you will need to slice the root ball before planting so the roots will start growing out.

Step Six: Planting
When you get your plants home, give them all a good drink of water, even if you plan on planting them immediately. A thoroughly moist root ball will help your plant adjust better to its new surroundings, lessening transplant shock.
To plant your plants, dig a hole just as deep and at least twice as wide as the root ball of your plant. Place the plant in your prepared hole, backfill with the soil you removed, tamp it in, and water it thoroughly.

Once you have all of your plants in, give the entire garden a three inch layer of organic mulch, such as shredded bark, hay, chopped leaves, or grass clippings. This will keep weeds down while retaining soil moisture.

Step Seven: Labeling
Labeling your plants now will ensure that you will remember exactly what you planted. You can do this by installing plant labels near each plant, or by making a map of the garden to keep for future reference. This will help remind you where plants should be emerging in the spring, as well as which cultivars you planted.

There is some work involved in creating a new organic garden, but it will pay off in the years of enjoyment you will gain from it.

By Colleen Vanderlinden

Organic Gardening Tips for Flowers and Herbs

The popularity of organic food and gardening has certainly increased over the last few years. Not only does it give you a sense of well being but people love the beauty of wonderful colored flowers and the taste of vegetables they helped create. Organic gardening tips on how to successfully start and care for an organic garden are becoming easier to find as this type of gardening continues to become more popular. Along with being relaxing, it is a very interesting hobby. Anyone can organically produce wonderful fruits, herbs and vegetables and know that they are healthy to eat and pesticide, herbicide and chemical free. There will always be garden pests but instead of using chemicals to deal with this problem, there are many organic gardening tips to get rid of them, similar to the way gardeners did many years ago before the use of pesticides and herbicides.

A good homemade pest deterrent to use in organic gardening is:
In a jar, combine 1 teaspoon dishwashing liquid and 1 cup vegetable oil. Shake vigorously. In an empty spray bottle, combine 2 teaspoons of this mixture and 1 cup water. Use at ten-day intervals (or more often if needed) to rid plants of whiteflies, mites, aphids, scales, and other pests.

Following a few organic gardening tips, you will produce fruits, vegetables and herbs that are healthy, taste wonderful, are less expensive than buying produce at the grocery store and give you the peace of mind knowing exactly how they were grown and what was used on them. Aphids are annoying little insects that often cause a lot of damage in your garden. If you plant marigolds near your vegetable garden, the aphids will quit bothering your plants. If you already have an aphid problem, spray the infected plants with diluted soapy water and then spray them again with clear water. Organic gardening tips you should try are; instead of buying compost for your garden, which could contain chemicals, make your own while you cut down on garbage at the same time. Using your garden and kitchen waste is an excellent and very easy way to make your own compost. In your compost pile use peelings from carrots, potatoes and other vegetables, dead weeds, coffee grounds, egg shells and even the pruning from roses and other plants. The different textures help break down the compost quickly. Compost improves the soil texture, structure and aeration while enriching the soil, which stimulates root development. When choosing plants for your organic garden, make sure you choose ones that are well adapted for your area.

Here are a couple of great organic gardening tips that not only help keep your garden free of weeds but also keep the soil from drying out too quickly. Grass clippings and pine needles mixed or old newspapers make very good mulch, which keeps your garden weed free and the soil moist. Organic gardening tips help you grow healthy organic fruits and vegetable that you, your family and friends will love.

Most important of all, is to enjoy your organic garden and the fruits of your labor. Not only will you have the satisfaction of growing vegetables and herbs organically but you it will also inspire you in your culinary tasks. Here's to a great organic garden and fabulous, healthy meals.Copyright © Mary Hanna, All Rights Reserved.

Some Great Gardening Tips

A garden is the reflection of ones choice for the outdoors and landscaping. Building a garden is a labor of joy but it is not easy to maintain a garden in its perfect state. Most people prefer smaller gardens for their home as it need less maintenance as well as less time, energy and money. Whatever the size, every garden needs special care to make it bloom and blossom round the year. Gardening tips from experts or professionals guide us through this onerous process. Gardening tips are meant to give the gardener all the guidance he needs to make the garden perfect. The tips differ from garden to garden.

Easy gardening tips
Tip #1 - Gardens not only give a pictorial value to the property but also have other benefits like organic food growth if one loves a kitchen garden idea. For such multi-purpose gardens make sure that you do not have plants that attract too many pests and need pesticides which might have adverse effect on the kitchen garden.

Tip #2 -In a small garden or for house plants make sure they get regular attention to curb overgrowth and have regular pest and weed control.

Tip #3 -The water flow and air circulation in the garden should be adequate so that garden remains fresh.

Tip #4 -The garden grasses should be regularly mowed.

Tip #5 -The plants should be selected according to the climate of the place where the garden is situated.

Tip #6 -If the garden gives priority to the wildlife, attention should be given to their food and shelter.

Tip #7 -The vegetable garden needs proper fertilizers whereas the water garden needs proper water planning while a butterfly garden should have proper plants and climate.

Tip #8 -For the patios and the flooring one should also give proper attention to the quality of the bricks.

Tip #9 -The garden furniture for the garden should also be given a proper notice. Appropriate garden furniture gives an aesthetic value to the landscape.

Tip #10 -A garden is that part of a house full of children need to be safe and free from accident zones. Grasses hide uneven ground, and also give a cushion so that the children dont get hurt while playing. Paths and paved areas should also be smooth, level, and firm.

Even an experienced gardener needs to know the updated gardening tips and techniques in order to expand his knowledge. This knowledge combined with his experiences and observations on indoor or outdoor gardening strengthens the garden idea and maintenance plan. Plants are versatile creatures. They want to grow and will grow in simple soil, with very little sunlight, and little cultivation. All one really needs to do it is regularly water them and provide them with occasional shade and sun as required by their genetic design.