Tag: Organic Vegetables

Gardening Organic Tomato Made Easy

I bet you have already seen organic vegetables being sold in supermarkets. Nowadays, the area dedicated for organic produce in supermarkets is growing and more. It used to be that people are going organic as a matter of alternative, lifestyle changes, or making a statement. But today, organic food has become more the conventional rather than the alternative. The benefits of organic gardening can never be observed more in the area of commercial agricultural products such as fruits and vegetables. Tomatoes, for example, are becoming bigger, rounder, redder, and fresher through organic gardening than previous cultivation methods. Gardening organic tomato is really not a mystery but rather involves balancing the health of the environment and the plant itself.

When planting tomatoes using organic gardening, it is important to not that healthy tomato plants will be able to repel pests and diseases better. There are a number of ways to make certain that your tomato plants are healthy. For one, you could start by buying plants or seeds from disease free varieties. Local varieties usually have a developed adaptive mechanism which protects them from common pests and diseases.

Tomatoes can be divided into determinates and indeterminates. The first variety will grow to a certain extent and then stops. Unlike the indeterminates variety where the tomato vines continue to grow which is why you need to provide support for the plants when you cultivate these kinds of variety.

Planting tomatoes in the organic way means you need a very healthy soil. Note that healthy soils are rich with fungi, bacteria, and other organisms that are good for your tomato plants. You need to understand that ordinary backyard or front yard soils are not often sufficient to provide tomato plants with the sustenance they need. The key in growing great tomatoes are good quality soil.

This is the reason why other people are tempted to use chemical fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides to augment the poor quality of their current soils. Although using chemical fertilizers do offer quick results, it is not the true way of organic gardening.

Just like any other organic gardening, the use of composts in your tomato gardens is very important. By adding composts, the soil will become healthier and will be able to provide a better source of nutrients for your tomato plants.

Now pests are common occurrences and in your tomato garden one of the most common and most damaging is the Tomato hornworms. These are large caterpillars and mostly found in the Northern parts of America. They can cause a lot of damage not only in tomatoes but in eggplants, pepper, tobacco and potatoes when they are left to themselves.

If you notice any Tomato homworms in your garden, you should start with pest control as son as possible. The most basic and remains one of the most effective in dealing with pests is to get down and handpick the caterpillars from the plants leaves or stem.

Another option would be to release in your garden natural predators and in the case of Tomato homworms, lady beetles or lacewings are effective friendly insects. These insects will attach the eggs of the homworms destroying them from the source.

Gardening organic tomato can be very easy, all you need a simple guide, a sample pamphlet maybe or a brochure. Just remember that organic gardening will require special care and attention.

Partial Shade: Its Vital Role in Organic Vegetable Gardening

Why does partial shade play an important role in organic vegetable gardening? And how can such shade be done? And is it really vital for your produce to grow?

For gardeners, they know that shade plays an important role in what they are doing as much as the sun. This is especially true if one is into organic gardening of vegetables. The exposure to sun and its need to be in shade still depends upon what plant you want as produce. But learning all about the plant and its needs first will lead a gardener for a better output.

Being one with nature, being in touched with your produce, is the main responsibility of an organic farmer, in the first place. So before you might want to delve into this, you must first be ready to be patient and hardworking because of the holistic approach being used in such type of gardening, everything depends on the farmer, they have no one to turn to except for themselves and the natural environment.

Organic Horticulture
The word horticulture comes from two Latin words, hortus that means garden plant and cultura or culture. It is both an art and science of planting and producing vegetables, flowers, fruits and even ornamental plants.

Horticulture has five parts of study; floriculture for floral plants, landscape horticulture for landscape ornaments, pomology for fruits, postharvest physiology is about keeping the harvested produce fresh and how to prevent these from rotting quickly.

The fifth area of study for horticulture is olericulture, which you might be interested in if you are into vegetable gardening because this tackles the process from producing the crops to marketing such.

Partial Shade
You may know that a plant needs soil, sun and water to be able to survive. But you must also be aware that it needs shade, especially the vegetables because not only one must protect it as a plant but must also care for it to produce a good harvest.

In organic vegetable gardening, by exposing the plants to a range of 30 to 50 percent of shade can actually lower the leaves’ temperature by about 10 percent or even more. For the northern and coastal climates, 30 percent shade is recommendable while 47 to 50 percent in hot and summer-like places.

By doing what’s stated above, vegetables like lettuce, arugula, mustard greens and mesclun mix would produce better qualities.

The shade also lessens the temperature of the soil by three to six degrees Fahrenheit. This will benefit vegetables such as cabbages, mustard greens, broccoli, chard, radishes, turnips and spinach that grow in the soil. It is because these produce will germinate better when the soil temperature is below 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Shade Tent
You can also provide your plants with handmade tents. This will be most beneficial if you have a large produce and you can’t attend to each plant one-by-one, placing cloth as shade at top of each one.

To do a shade tent, you would need sturdy plastic tubing that are about 1/2 or 3/4-inch in diameter. Cut this tubing into 6-foot in length, just enough for it to arch a foot length above your crops. For each arch that you’ve made, place a bamboo or rebar stakes, each one at about 18 inches. Put these in the ground at the sides of the plants’ bed until about 10 inches of each of the stakes is visible. Now you can bow your tubing by sliding its ends at the stakes.

With the foundation ready, you can now place a shade cloth over the arches for it to cover the plants’ bed. Make sure to clip the cloth at the tubing so that it will remain in place.

Remember, if partial shade is not readily available when you are into organic vegetable gardening, make one by just doing the abovementioned procedure.