Organic Gardening for Beginners

You won't need much to get started on your Beginner Organic Garden, just a few simple tools which you'll be able to use over again every gardening season. You'll also need a few supplies to get your initial garden plot made.

You'll need a spade with a sharp point. The narrow ones are better for the type of gardening you'll be doing. You'll also need a rake, and a hand trowel. A pair of gardening gloves will save you from blisters and keep your hands from getting too mucky. And a kneeling pad might make you more comfortable, though it's not a necessity. A watering can or hose for watering is also needed.

For laying out your first plot you'll need four wooden stakes and a hammer for them, a measuring tape, some string, some newspaper, and either organic grass clippings or dead leaves. Measure out your plot in a spot that gets full sun for most of the day. A good first plot is 4 feet by 8 to 10 feet. You can always add another plot later, but most beginner gardeners will start more than they can handle. This is a manageable starter bed. Use the stakes and string to mark out the borders. Hint! Water the plot corners prior to hammering the stakes in, if the ground is dry. It'll save you some work. Now, cover the bed with the newspaper, then cover the newspaper with the grass clipping or leaf mulch, and give it all a good soaking so it stays down and doesn't blow away. You might have to throw a couple rocks or boards down until the water soaks through everything. Do this all a week or two before planting. Now, when you plant your prestarted plants, you'll dig your little planting holes with your trowel right through that cover! No turning of the ground is needed, and your mulch is already doing its job.

When your organic compost is ready, you'll be piling it around each plant over top of your mulch. Rain or watering will ensure that your plant roots will get the good stuff.

Make sure to water your plants when you first plant them, and during dry stretches water your garden.

If you think all this is hard, just remember- humans have been cultivating their own food for hundreds of thousands of years, and only in the last 40 or so, have anything other than organic methods been used! You can do this!

With a bit of watering and feeding, and a bit of care in the companion planting, you will be eating wonderfully tasty organic veggies out of your beginner organic garden all summer and fall!

Learning Organic Gardening is a matter of knowing what to do when and where. Planting yellow, red and orange flowers, preferably marigolds and nasturtiums, within sight of your organic garden, but not adjacent to it, will attract the bugs away from your organic veggies. A paper cup sunken into the soil within one inch of the rim and filled with beer will attract all the slugs away from your plants. Freshen the beer occasionally! No insecticides or pesticides are needed to keep your veggies relatively pest free.

Keeping an organic compost bin going will allow you to feed your plants periodically.

Don't forget to pick the suckers off your beautiful tomato plants!