Organic Vegetable Gardening

Organic SEO

2009-09-23T18:28:00.000-07:00

Is Organic SEO relevant to an organic gardening website? One would think that all organic subjects would be natural enough to link together. This post is just an experiment to see if I can link to a friends website which is called Organic Search Optimization. Us Organic folks need to stick together.

If you have an Organic Related website or blog let me know.

Organic Lawn Care

2009-09-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

Your lawn does not have to be a chemical dumping ground to have a beautiful, lush appearance. A few simple organic lawn care tips can do wonders for both your lawn and the environment. Regular Lawn Maintenance can save time, water, and money.

One overlooked way to improve water usage of your lawn is simply to raise the level of your mower blade. Instead of mowing as low as your mower will go, raise your blade a bit-or a lot and shade the ground to help with water evaporation. Mowing your grass is not the same as the Limbo; you do not need to go as low as you can.

When you do need to water your lawn, water deep. Give those roots a reason to explore the depths of your soil. That will not only help with water conservation but your little grassy roots might find some nutrients down there in the parts of the ground that haven’t seen any roots but dandelions and Queen Anne’s Lace.

Make your lawn a cannibal, get a mulching mower and feed the grass clippings to the lawn when you mow. Instead of throwing away bags and bags of free fertilizer use it. Grass clipping decay fast and will not harm your lawn, ignore any old wives tales about thatch, it is not caused by grass clippings.

Don’t be so quick to kill off those weeds that you think are invading your lawn. Clover is a good source of nitrogen and those deep rooted weeds bring up nutrients and when you chop their leaves up with the mulching mower you’re feeding your lawn.

If you are wondering why I’m talking about organic lawn care in my organic vegetable gardening blog wonder no more I shall enlighten you. Lawns keep the kids, dogs, and neighbors OUT of my vegetable garden. If you simply have one large vegetable garden you’ve become a farm and I do not give farming tips because I know nothing about driving a tractor. If you’d let me borrow your tractor for a few days I could learn though.

Back to my tips here, even though I said that weeds are not such a bad thing earlier most people would rather not have them in their lawn. Personally they do not bother me as much as they bother the poor guy across the street who I suspect gets all my weed babies.

Mowing high will kill most weeds. It will not kill them outright but if you mow them when they are setting seed they will not have a chance to make babies which would colonize your yard. The trick here is to convince the weeds that your yard is a safe place to propagate, then to chop them down just when they have decided to do their bird’s and bee’s thing, which I will not go into detail about because this is a family blog. Not some smutty plant p*rn site.

The leaves of autumn are almost here, beautiful reds, golds, and yellows ready to fall onto your lawn and make it look…icky. Again your lawn mower is your friend, just mow up with your mulching mower and let them decay and again feed your lawn. Leaves decay pretty fast on their own and even faster when you give them a helping hand with the aid of a mulching mower.

Ok that’s it for the organic lawn care, to be quite honest I could care less about my lawn but the neighbors get a bit cranky when I forget to mow it for 6 weeks so I’ve had to compromise a bit.

Organic Vegetable Soil

2009-08-25T19:44:00.005-07:00

When first leaning about Organic Vegetable Soil you should start at the beginning organic vegetable soil. I realize the concept of unnatural dirt may be strange but once you put nonorganic materials and chemicals into your soil you have changed it. It is no longer natural.

The soil that you have if left alone will revert to a natural state but we can give it a helping hand. The natural way for soil to evolve is for leaves, plant matter, and animal dropping to accumulate and become organic mulch which in turn becomes Organic Compost. Hurray for nature. Sorry I get carried away sometimes. The most important thing in your Home Vegetable Gardening is the soil.

If you allow nature to do its job in your soil the good bugs will eat the bad bugs and if you plant a variety of vegetable plants the pests you do get will be too distracted by the variety available to do much damage.

As much as we’d like to go completely organic we simply do not have enough time to wait 10, 20, or 100 years for nature to give us great organic soil. We are going to speed things along by adding some material that will quickly decompose and feed the worms.

Adding shredded paper, whether it is junk mail, paper sacks from the grocery store, or newspapers to the soil will give it a good head start. Make sure you do not get any plastic into your shredded mix, and do not worry about the inks in the paper. Most ink used nowadays is soy based but if you are not sure just call the company or publisher and ask what type of ink they use.

Organic Weed Control is another issue, I’ll be touching on it here but a more complete description is available if you follow the link.

There are a number of things you can use to both control weeds and improve your soil organically. Cardboard can be laid flat as an organic weed suppressant, as can layers of newspapers, or organic mulch. All of these things will breakdown quickly and naturally and improve your soil dramatically.

As an alternative to organic composting you can just pull weeds and let them dry in the sun and toss them into your garden, they’ll also get eaten by worms. Growing a cover crop even if it is not a full crop but the occasional plant that you are just growing to till in at the end of the season also works very well.

If you have trees or neighbors that throw those away just gather them up and put them into a pile to age for a year or so and that can also be added to your vegetable garden. If you know of a stable or other place that keeps grazing animals and if they do not give their animals nonorganic food or drugs you can also age their manure for 2 years and add that to the garden as well. Another thing if you have trees and not quite enough sunlight in all areas would be to try some shade loving ornamental plants such as Hosta Sieboldiana Elegans.

Any legume, beans and peas, can be grown for their nitrogen fixing abilities. A natural fertilizer if there ever was one.

Building organic soil is not difficult it just takes a little ingenuity.

Current Top 10 Google Sites in a Search for "organic vegetable soil"

My opinion on this one is it is WAY to long and dry. Integrated Production Systems, OK, I left out half the title the things long as anything. My Organic Gardening Compost post, have no idea why it's ranking for Organic Vegetable Soil, I'll take it where I can get it though.
My Organic Weed Control -She Told Me snippet, again no idea but apparently nothing ever ranks for what I target.
Vegetable Garden by Beth is another She Told Me snippet.
Spring Vegetable Gardening interesting, he grows mushrooms.
How can organic vegetable growers increase soil organic matter without overloading the soil with nutrients? This title is waaaaay to long. It is mainly just some links.
Blog Posts on Vegetable Gardeningat Blog Top Sites.
How to Determine Soil Type and Fix It its the old ball of soil water squeeze thing.
How to Grow Vegetables from Seed a new to gardening blog, this one could actually be interesting.

Organic Weed Control

2009-08-25T19:44:00.003-07:00

Killing Weeds the Easy Way

Weeds are weeds because we do not want them around. Organic Weed Control is not dependant on herbicides. The easiest way to get rid of weeds is not to have them show up to begin with. If you are starting a new garden, the time is right to eliminate them.

In a new garden all that is needed is some cardboard or newspaper just put those down for a year or so before you start planting. The weeds will try to go up but will find a barrier; they’ll try to go around the barrier but will not be able to if you covered the whole area with your weed blocker.

If your garden is semi weed free but has plants you can still use newspaper and then put your mulch on top of it. It is just not quite as good a weed blocker if there are gaps in the paper. Still works pretty good though.

If you have already planted and suddenly notice there are 3x the weeds as there are plants you are going to have to get a little creative. Pull them. If you have good soil the weeds will come up without too much trouble. If you do not have good soil you will need to fix it.

I have explained how to create organic vegetable soil, it might be wise to revisit that little bit of wisdom and then fix the problem.

When redoing a weed infested mess of a garden, the first thing to do is remove all the plants you want to keep. Sorry but you should’ve done it right the first time. Make sure all the weeds in the rootballs of the plants you want to keep are removed and then put them in another area until they can be replanted.

The easiest thing at this point would be to do the newspaper cardboard thing at this point but if you do not have that long to wait, pulling the weeds would work but that will take time as well and new weeds will sprout that would need to be taken care of also. Pouring boiling hot water on plants can kill them, ask any lobster… well only the dead ones know about boiling hot water but you get the picture. Shoot I hope no one reading this is a vegetarian, if so I’m sorry about all those lobsters. Plants hate vinegar you could spray them with that until they die. It might take a few applications but they will die eventually.

I’m suddenly feeling very bloodthirsty and need a salad.

The main thing to remember is to not let those weeds take over in the first place. Catch them when they are little bitty seedlings and rip them out. Annual weeds can be ignored if you do not let them go to seed. Once a weed goes to seed they are going to be around for awhile.

Setting aside a few minutes every day to wander through the garden to pull weeds is not that hard. There is no need to spend hours weeding, a few minutes every day will accomplish the same thing as one 5 hour day. It’s also a lot easier to do regularly.

Starting a weed prevention routine is best done at the beginning of the garden planning process, who am I kidding I never do anything the best way. I learn best the hard way, by screwing up and then having to fix my mistakes.

Get one of those dandelion prying tools and use that for most stubborn weeds. It’s a long metal slightly forked thing with a handle. Not sure what the official term is for it. I just call it my pokey thing. That thing has done more stuff than I’m sure the owner’s manual would approve of, if it had an owner’s manual.

I was using it earlier today to try and change the direction of the water flow from one of my downspouts. I’ve been complaining for the longest time about this one section of my garden being too wet, it just occurred to me today to fool with the paving stone that the downspout water hits. I’m slow but I’m not impossible.

I also have this bad habit of trying to identify weeds before killing them. By the time I figure out what they are they have gone to seed and I discover they are an extremely invasive plant and I spend the next 2 years trying to get rid of them.

The problem is I have this recurring fantasy that someday a native weed will show up, hasn’t happed yet but it could. That could cause issues too though, if it is a native weed would I be able to go on a weeding frenzy or would I have to leave it alone so that it could start a colony? If it ever happens I’ll let everyone know.

Organic weed control is safe but if you try to identify all of them first it is not always effective.

Organic Growing

2009-08-25T19:44:00.001-07:00

Organic Growing Healthy Living

Whether you just starting out with your vegetable garden think about going Organic. Growing vegetables or any plants isn't difficult whether your going the chemical route or the organic route.

Almost all first gardens are crap that is just the way it goes. My first garden was this huge weed infested mess way out in the back of a large lot. I was a teenager and my grandpa let me borrow his tiller. I harvested a lot of vegetables out of that plot. No compost, no fertilizer, no weeding, and no watering I just planted the seeds in rows and waited.

So get rid of the notion that gardening is complicated. People can make it as complicated as they want and things get better as you learn but seeds want to grow and we are just giving them a helping hand.

All the things in my first garden that were skipped, you will get a lot more if you use them but are they absolutely required? Nope. Unless you live in the desert or some other extreme climate, most plants can be grown with minimal fuss.

I’m not suggesting that you ignore taking your garden but don’t get fixated on doing everything “right”, at least at the beginning. Your micro climate is unique, nobody knows exactly what you need to do in your garden, only time and experience of your own will teach you.

You should consider everything you read to be guidelines, not hard and fast rules. You can make your hard and fast rules as you go along, and you will. You will get something so perfect that you will decide that some certain thing that you did caused it to be perfect, and rule 1 will be born.

“I always…” and “I never…” are such absolutes that you need to think twice before doing or not doing them. A gardener in Maine and a gardener in Colorado can give each other advice but what one always does doesn’t really matter to the other. My Vegetable Garden Layout blog can get your started decided what to plant where.

Ok not sure how I went so far off the point, I think I was talking about organic gardening being simple so I’m going to assume that’s what it was and continue from there.

Organic gardening is simple, so simple even I can do it. With the environmental groups becoming the new “IN CROWD” in our society everyone who’s anyone wants to help save the planet and not putting non-organic chemicals in your garden is an easy start.

Personally I’m not crazy about environmentalists I find them to be judgmental and grating but that’s just me. I’m fine with people doing their own thing but I do not like to be preached at by any sect.

All you need to do with your garden to have it be organic is make sure you do not put anything into it that could not have been created by nature. For a few of the thing sold as organic nature would have to have hands but we can be lenient on nature so it doesn’t send us a tornado.

See the bolded phrase there? That pretty much sums up growing organic plants in a lot fewer words and side tracking than I’ve done so far. Some people are strict organic gardeners some people are somewhat organic but you need to decide what is right for you. Although once you label your garden as organic you will become more and more strict with what you can and cannot do, at least I do.

Labeling yourself or your garden can limit it. If you have a “native garden” you start thinking that anything non-native can’t be planted. Whether you are doing perennial flower gardening way down south or trying to grow under glass in Alaska, almost anything is possible if you think it can be done. Ok growing a little storebought cactus in zone 5, outside with no protection with winter temperatures falling to -30 with the windchill, possibly is one thing that can't be done.

My gardens tend to be semi native, mostly organic, and somewhat drought tolerant. The main aspect of my garden is that it is that is is Darwinian. Survival of the fittest, if something cannot live with the minimum of fuss it will probably die.

Life in my garden is harsh and unforgiving but things seem to grow and thrive and only the best plants make it. I’m a little more careful with the food garden; I do like my watermelon so I have to give them extra attention to make sure I have some throughout the year.

Experiment and find out if organic growing in the garden is for you.

Organic Gardening Compost

2009-08-25T19:42:00.004-07:00

Growing plants without organic gardening compost is practically non-organic; today’s goal is to learn how to make organic compost. None of that store bought soil for us; we are going to make our own.

A place to keep the compost while it is cooking is handy that way the wind will not blow it all over the place. You can keep the compost pile in almost anything wire, old pallets, even those paper bags they sell in the garden department at your local garden supply store. It is convenient to have more than one storage device, 3 is ideal.

The first composting container is the holding area, where you are going to put everything you are going to compost until you fill your compost bin. Fill it with what you might ask. Well hold on I’m going to tell you.

In the compost community there are 2 types or organic material they are called Browns and Greens. Compostable Browns are things that are made from trees (this is simplistic but it works for now). Fallen leaves, mulch, paper, and cardboard are all browns. Straw, cornstalks, hay, and sawdust are also browns even though they do not come from trees.

Greens are the juicy things. Compostable Greens includes vegetables, fruits, weeds, grass clipping, egg shells, manure, and so on.

Green compostable material are the fire of the compost, they make it get hot. Brown compostable material is the wood it makes the fire burn longer.

In order for you to end up with Organic Compost you need to deal only with organic material that has not been treated with chemicals or only organic chemicals.

Put any and all compostable items into the first bin until it is full. When your bin is full you are going to transfer everything into the second bin. Transferring the decaying material on the top of bin one to the bottom of bin two until you’ve turned the whole thing over. In theory as you filled the first bin you mixed up the greens and browns or at least mixed them when you moved the waste from one pile to the other if not you’re going to have to do a little mixing as you turn.

If you have your compost mixed well enough and have an equal amount of greens and browns your compost should start heating up. Keep an eye on it and when the heating cycle is over you need to turn it into the third bin. Turn the compost pile about once a week until you can no longer identify much and you have a dark crumbly dirt like substance. Just rotate the pile between compost bin 2 and 3, saving the first for collecting compostable kitchen waste and yard waste.

Now take that nice compost and do something useful with it.

The first bin will hopefully be full and you can start again. Just keep filling and mixing and turning until you are organic gardening compost, ok I’m just being silly never compost meat or dairy products.