Mulch Matters – What and When to Apply in Your Organic Garden
As we get closer to the end of the gardening season for most of North America, it is time to think about mulch. Depending upon where you live, you might automatically think about one material over another when you think about mulch. In the Southeastern US, pine straw is the mulch of choice for many people. It makes sense, because natural …
Organic Amendments to Add to Your Soil
As an organic gardener, you know that the soil is the most important factor in creating a successful garden. Rich healthy soil means healthy, beautiful blooms and juicy vegetables.
Compost
Compost is made from decayed organic materials such as straw, grass clippings, newspaper, leaves, certain food wastes, spent plants, hay, chipped trees/brush, and farm manures. You can easily make your own compost using a bin, tumbler …
Improving Your Soil with Organic Matter
After moving into a new home in a new or established neighborhood, many gardeners are disappointed to discover their flowering plants struggling for survival due to poor soil. The soil may be full of clay or stones, too acidic, compacted, or lacking in organic matter. Some home-owners may resort to simply adding fertilizer. Don’t do this!
With a little knowledge and a bit of determination you can use soil amendments to improve poor soil conditions. …
Green Versus Brown Compost Materials
Download a Printable Guide for Your Fridge (PDF)Composting in your garden is very easy to do, however, to achieve quick and optimal compost, it should be well balanced with green and brown waste materials.
What are green versus brown materials, and why should you care? Think of compost as a healthy meal for your soil life – those worms and microbes that do the actual work …
The First Organic Gardener
Nature was the first organic gardener, slowly scraping up a thin blanket of rock particles over much of the barren planet, then feeding it with the bodies of tiny, spore-bearing plants and gradually cloaking it in green.
By the mid to late 19th century, chemists decided that they could help gardeners and farmers with new inorganic fertilizers and alike manna from heaven. This seemed to be the answer to the problems …
Growing Tomatoes From Seed
If you don’t want to use tires to start your tomato seeds and you don’t have a greenhouse, then start your seeds indoors.
Tomato seeds ought to be sown 6 to12 weeks before the last expected frost date, most varieties will germinate in 5 to 12 days. For optimal germination, the soil temperature should be between 70 to 75 degrees F. Moisten the soil medium before sowing seed. Sow seeds and cover lightly with vermiculite. …
When Should Compost Be Applied?
The principal factor in determining when to apply compost is its condition.
If the compost is half finished or noticeably fibrous, it could be applied in October or November. By spring, it will have completed its decomposition in the soil itself and be ready to supply growth nutrients to the earliest plantings made.
Otherwise, for soil enrichment, the ideal time of application is a month or so before planting. The closer to …
Grow Your Own Veggies
I have mentioned before the benefit, both financially and healthwise, to grow your own veggies.
There is nothing more satisfying in a garden, than to pull your own carrots, eat your own tomatoes and dig up your own potatoes. The principles of being able to produce good quality vegetables,
relies on good soil. A healthy soil is a living community of tiny organisms that cycle nutrients, which helps plants get those nutrients and overwhelm disease.
Green manures are …
Soil Acid Or Alkaline?
I received a question the other day about soil being acid or alkaline, as it relates to flowers.
Cultivated flowers fall into two groups based upon soil preferance. One group will grow only in acid soil with a pH below 6.5, while the others prefer or will tolerate only alkaline soil, pH 6.5 or above.
Acid lovers are plants that thrive on raw humus, such as their ancestors found in the woods, where
leaves …
Double Digging Your Soil
Double digging, also called “trenching”: remove a spade’s depth of soil over all the area you want to improve and put it aside. Dig organic materials into the next spade’s depth. Mix the same organic materials into the soil you initially removed and put that mixture on top of the deeper mixture.
What you accomplish is aeration of your soil to a depth of approx. 18 inches with the inclusion of organic matter, as well. Deep root …
