Best Organic Gardening Tips

Definition of Organic Gardening:
Organic horticulture is the science and art of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, or ornamental plants by following the essential principles of organic agriculture in soil building and conservation, pest management, and heirloom variety preservation.

Thus, organic gardening will bring you many benefits, here are a few of them:

• This type of gardening is environmentally friendly as you won't use chemicals
• No additives; which are known for causing heart diseases, migraines, hyperactivity, ...
• Organic vegetables and fruits are healthy as you won't eat additives or pesticides that are generally used in standard gardening
• Your vegetables and fruits will be tasteful as they're going to be grown naturally (chemicals are knows for taking their flavour away)
• You're going to enjoy eating your personally grown products; which is the most fantastic reward for the work you did in your kitchen garden.

Definition source: Organic Horticulture - Wikipedia

Before beginning an organic gardening activity, you should know how you are going to organize your garden. As a matter of fact, you're only going to use natural products to protect your garden and, therefore it is important to know what you are going to use.

I suggest to study the specificities of the plants as some of them can be grown just to protect others. For example, in an organic garden, marigold is utilized for helping to keep pest away from vegetables, therefore it is suggested to plant some marigold around your vegetable garden.

Before putting the plants in the ground, it is recommended to mark where you're going to plant them so that you can ensure there is enough space between your plants in order to ease their growth.

Make compost from your kitchen waste, this will avoid the use of chemicals, save the environment as well as save you some money!

Once you made decision on the type of plants you're going to grow as well as the area you're going to plant them, time has come to prepare the soil.

In order to make sure it's full of nutrients, you're going to use organic compost. This is the best way to get a successful crop as compost will help your vegetables, herbs, fruits and other greens to grow.

Organic fertilizers that you will use will be made out of kitchen or garden leftovers such as grass, leaves, etc.

Going for gardening with natural products will also allow your children and pets to safely play in the garden and you won't have to worry about their health any more.

No cost garden pesticide:
Mix 1 tbsp liquid dishwashing soap with 1 cup cooking oil; put 3 tbsp of the mixture in 1 quart water.

Now that your garden is ready for the season, time has come to choose your crop. Are you going to grow vegetables? Only fruits? Herbs? Or fruits and veggies? Maybe all of them?

Let's say that you'd want to organically grow strawberries and courgettes in your small vegetable garden. The first step is to look and find an organic nursery where you can buy strawberry and courgette plants that were organically grown (without any chemicals). The nursery should also grow both fruits and vegetables as it is not always the case.

A good alternative might be to ask for some strawberry and courgette plants to your friends who also have a garden.

Depending on the time of the year you start preparing your organic garden, you can avoid this research by purchasing seeds that are safe.

Note: strawberries will grow year after year and only require that you buy plants once; which will ensure you to always get organic strawberries on your table.

Spread some salt around your vegetables, this will help prevent snails from eating your crops.

Another way to organically grow vegetables and plants is to use natural pest-, herb- and fungicides as chemical products harm the environment as well as your health.

Not so long ago I saw a TV document that spoke about the use of chemicals in horticulture and the scientists that were interviewed stated that, while most companies assure their products can be used safely, the ingestion of those chemicals can cause cancer, especially because we're accustomed to eat both vegetables and fruits each day.

Therefore it's recommended to use natural products to prevent predators to harm your crop. For example, lacewing larvae may help to repel aphyds from your vegetables and plants ; baking soda helps to prevent fungal diseases ; horsetail is known for its properties that prevent mildew ; personally I use salt to get rid of snails.

Did you know that pine mulch keeps the moisture in and keep weeds away from growing?

Once your garden is ready, plants, fruits and vegetables are growing organically ; maintenance is the next step.

Make sure you water your plants whenever needed - don't over water, this can be harmful for your crop. A great way to keep your soil moist and slow the weed germination is to use pine mulch.

Clean up your garden from time to time so that your vegetables, plants and/or fruits have room to grow.

As you can see organic gardening isn't hard or demanding at all. If you aren't sure if this is for you, start with a small garden, next year, if you want, you'll grow a bigger one.

I wish you a happy gardening as well as a wonderful harvest.