The Organic Garden

Soil is the key to all gardening success, a well-built garden soil can improve your plants vigor enormously and conversely a poor soil can cause poor production or even crop failures. The garden soil will be the home of your plant through its entire life and should be prepared with care.

Your first step should be to determine the condition of your existing soil. The condition of the soil is the Ph of the soil as well as its water retention and nutrients. You can test the Ph of your soil by purchasing a Ph tester, an inexpensive electronic tool that reads the soils Ph level. You can also contact your local county extension service to submit a sample of your soil. They will test your soil and give you a report on the ph of the soil as well as the various levels of nutrients in your soil.

Identifying the consistency of your soil is even easier. Clay soil is a heavy reddish colored soil that is difficult for some plant roots to thrive. This soil retains water and may cause standing water in heavy rains. Sandy soil is a light soil that is the opposite of clay, it drains quickly and there are many plants that prefer a sandy soil, especially succulents and carnivorous plants. Loam is right in the middle, it is not to heavy and not to light.

Once you've learned some basics about your soil, it time to start amending the soil with a good quality organic material. The first thing you will want to do is loosen the soil in your bed area at least 6 to 12 inches, preferably up to 18 inches deep. The looser the soil is around your plant roots, the easier it is for them to grow deeply, and deep roots mean healthier, better producing plants.

After loosening the soil you will mix in about one to two inches of organic materials including peat moss and organic compost or organic worm castings into the soil, mixing well. Now you have an amended soil that your plants will be very happy to live in.

Now that you have created a nice home for your garden you will need to identify the specific nutritional needs of the individual plants that you chose to plant. In many cases a good all around organic fertilizer will do just fine. However meeting the specific needs of your fruit, vegetable and herb plants will produce higher yields and more flavor. Many gardening supply companies offer premixed fertilizer which meet the specific needs of different plant groups. My recommendations are Tomatoes Alive, for Tomatoes, Eggplants and Peppers and Vegetables Alive for the rest of your vegetables and herbs. Both of these products are from Garden's Alive, which is an online retailer of organic and sustainable gardening supplies.

Keeping a garden journal can be one of the most valueable tools of the home gardener. Recording your sucesses and failures can help you adjust and become more sucessful year after year.

Planning next years garden is a great activity that can keep you busy during those cold and dreary winter months. Use your garden journal to map out what you would like to plant next spring summer and fall. Draw diagrams of your garden and experiment with new layouts.

During the gardening season, record garden information and ask yourself these questions. When did you started your seeds indoors? Should you start them earlier or later next season? What plants transplanted well, and which did not? What varities of plants you planted and how did you like them? Did they produce well, did you enjoy the flavor? Did you have to much of one crop or too little of another?

And don't forget to write down any new ideas that you would like to try for next season or new varities which you would like to grow.