How to Start an Organic Garden – Your Simple Guide to Organic Vegetable Gardening
If you are one of those who have come to realize the many health benefits of organic food, then you are off for a good start in starting your own organic garden. Learning how to start an organic garden is easy. It does require some techniques and adequate knowledge on the important elements of growing your plants but with a good guide, you can learn it fast and easy.
Here are just the very basic on how to start an organic garden.
Planning your garden
The first step on how to start an organic garden is planning. You need to plan before getting too excited in digging a hole and sowing those seeds right away. Of course, you don’t want to plant something that does not thrive well in your area, given the soil type and the climate. Find out which vegetables grow best in your area. It is also common sense that if you want to grow your own vegetables for consumption, you have to grow different kinds of vegetables that you need.
Preparing the soil
To make more your soil more fertile and to make it easier to grow healthy vegetables, you can start mixing and raking animal manure in the soil before planting, but make sure they are not fresh. Compost is one good organic fertilizer that you can also mix with the soil to restore its natural nutrients and will help you avoid problems on weeds and pests later. You can also make your own compost a number of weeks before starting with your vegetable garden, as it may take weeks or months for it to be suitable for your garden.
You can also make raised beds for your vegetables. Raised beds are excellent as this will help you save time and effort and will also help a lot in growing healthy vegetables in loose, fertile soil.
Sowing your seeds
After loosening the soil, you can then start to plant your seeds but keep in mind that some vegetables may follow different planting techniques. It may be best for some plants to grow in seedbeds first before transplanting them to the ground. If you have climbing vegetables, you may want to set up the trellises or stakes first and keep the spacing and depth of planting in mind. Planting vegetables too closely will not allow them to grow at their best.
You can choose to plant in rows in your raised bed or you can also organize your garden the way you want, but you have to keep in mind the recommended distances of the plants. While sowing, you can also plant an extra seed in the hole just in case the other one would fail germination but make sure you do thinning later on when the seeds start to grow.
Watering
Of course, your new garden needs watering even before the seeds starts to sprout. You have to keep the soil moist for the first few weeks after sowing the seeds. You may need to water it twice a day if the weather is hot just to avoid the surface from drying up.
You may also need to mulch around your plants to keep them moist. If you spot weeds growing along with your vegetables, get rid of them as early as possible to avoid them competing with your vegetables for water and sunlight.
Learning how to start an organic garden is indeed easy. You don’t have to bother yourself with how much fertilizer you have to put, chemicals you have to purchase to get rid of the weeds and pests – a regular visit to your garden can make wonders in driving out pests and diseases in your growing vegetables.
