Tag: Pesticide

Planting Vegetable Gardens For Beginners

Planting vegetable gardens can be a very rewarding endeavor, not to mention that its good for your body because of all the exercise you will get, and the vegetables that youll get to eat. These days, its really ideal if you can plant your own vegetables to make sure that theyre pesticide free, but a lot of people feel intimidated by the idea of planting vegetable gardens especially in a city.

Vegetable gardens are typically easier to maintain than flower gardens because vegetables are more resilient, especially in different types of weathers. Flowers are typically more delicate to changes in the weather, and dont adapt as easily. Planting vegetable gardens usually demand a lot of space, although some vegetables can also survive in plant boxes. It really depends on what kind of vegetables you will plant, and what you expect out of your vegetable garden.

Planting Styles The more traditional way of planting vegetables is laying them out in straight, organized lines. Some people prefer to plant alternating rows of different types of vegetables so that when one type of vegetable is about to be harvested, the rows in between them have vegetables that are not yet in season. The soil structure quickly becomes ruined because gardeners have to walk between rows, though.

A popular way of planting vegetable these days is planting them in beds rather than the traditional rows. The beds have to be small enough in size so that you can reach into it and pull out the weeds that will grow among your plants. Beds can also be raised a bit higher off the ground so that the heat will be kept inside longer during cold weather. It also makes for a good drainage system around the beds.

Another planting style that is popular is potager which combines vegetables with flowers and herbs and are planted in a way that is aesthetically pleasing.

For people who have constrained living spaces (especially those who live in the city), vegetables and herbs can grow in smaller plant boxes and containers. Vegetables will need a lot of sunlight and open spaces. If you want to reap a lot of vegetables, you should invest in bigger real estate.

Preparing the soil A very important aspect of planting vegetable gardens is preparing the soil. It doesnt matter whether you plan to raise vegetables in a small plot of land or in a plant box. Soil preparation is an essential step. Soil can be categorized as sandy or clay-like, with silt being a fine mixture of both sand and clay. Clay particles in sand help retain water longer as well as make the soil absorb water faster. Sandy particles in soil makes the water flow through it easily and lets the air in so that the roots can breathe.

The best way to go when preparing the soil for your vegetable garden it to make try and make the soil be a good balance of clay, silt, and sand. Ideally, it should be 40% silt, 40% sand, and 20% clay. To test it, you can scoop up soil and form it into a ball using your hand. It should not be too hard as to not crumble when you poke at it, but it should also be sticky enough that it retains its shape even if you dont press it too hard with your hands.

Planting vegetable gardens require a lot of patience. You have to find what works for you, and experiment on getting the right type of soil for the right type of vegetables. All the hard work will be worth it, though, once you experience eating something that grew from a garden that you planted yourself.

Organic Gardening is Perfect for Mother Nature

Organic Gardening is perfect for you and perfect for the environment. With the world’s problem now with global warming, one must wonder and suggest ways of helping find answers to such. Big or small, everybody can have their share in the solution.

Organic farming may be one because it is like recycling what is already available in the environment to be able to produce the greens. The gardener is helping the environment by growing plants and more so, by helping in diminishing waste in a natural way.

Synthetic is Out
With organic gardening, one must rely only on his/her ability and on whatever nature has for them to be able to come up with the crops. This requires more work, patience and long hours and trial and error procedures on the part of the farmers but once they see the results, they won’t feel bad at all.

With organic farming, the gardeners depend on the environment to supplement their crops. For example, composting fallen leaves, clipped grass, animal manures and other resources would create fertilizers. In making compost, one may opt to do it by oneself, periodically checking on the compost to see if it needs more water to it, or more materials should be added on it. Or they may just pile up what others may consider as trash and let nature, the microorganisms, earthworms and the soil itself do the composting naturally.

The latter is easier to do but takes longer period of time and the result will not be as good as the compost done the way that was first discussed. A good compost will serve as the plant’s fertilizer and likewise a pesticide. If you opt to do the latter, make sure to use only the decomposed materials from the pile so as to come up with better use of such with your crops.

Choose Your Plants
In organic gardening, it is best to know first the condition of the environment that you are in. Study the soil and weather before choosing the right produce fit for your site. This way, it will not be as hard maintaining the crops.

Gardening Systems
There are certain terms in organic gardening that has evolved through time because this is being done since the early years.

Rudolf Steiner quoted Biodynamic farming. While a no-till approach for small time production of grains was invented by Masanobu Fukuoka, a Japanese writer and at the same time, a farmer. This he also called the Natural Farming. Other gardening techniques for small scale production are the French Intensive, Biointensive and Small Plot Intensive kinds of farming.

The abovementioned are formal organic farming systems that have specific requirements and techniques.

Gardening Tools
To complete your gardening set-up, you would have to have tools. Now don’t be swept by the oh-so-many fancy gardening tools that are available in the market. Some are just to fancy as to having a real use with what you really need to do.

But to start with your organic experience, you might want to try having some or all of the following. A folding saw with a rubber handle is recommended as long as its blade is replaceable. A Moth-Blocker will be most beneficial, on the other hand, for crops like that cauliflower and broccoli because this will hinder the moths from laying its eggs on the produce. A Row Cover or Shade Fabric can be bought or can be done at home if you know how to do such. This will provide the needed shade for your plants. Of course, you have to invest on a good digging tool because you will need this a lot, just like a hat, which you should also have to protect yourself from the sun’s rays.

With everything ready and with the proper information that you are now equipped with, organic gardening is perfect so you may want to start with it as soon as possible. Mother Nature will surely thank you for doing so.