Do you prefer organic fruits and vegetables, but balk at the high costs? Do you enjoy doing things yourself rather than paying someone to do a shoddy job? Then why not grow http://finance.yahoo.com/news/local-tree-pros-launches-website-160000974.html/ in your home garden? Read on to find out how to start making your own produce and have fun doing it!
If you want a sustainable garden, leave a part of it undisturbed for wildlife to enjoy. The presence of native flowers, trees and grasses will attract birds and insects. You will be rewarded by an appealing and flourishing landscape.
Indoor plants need an environment that is between 65 and 75 degrees. This is the optimum temperature to ensure strong growth. If you want to save money on gas bills in the winter, you can provide local heating for the plants with a heat lamp instead.
Start your organic garden with a good strategic plan. This helps you know exactly where each plant will go in your garden so that you can maximize the few hours you have to garden each day. As part of your plan, take notes on what plants you will use to replace short-lived crops such as spinach and lettuce.
Embrace earthworms in the organic garden! Earthworms are an organic gardener’s best friend. Through tunneling and their nitrogen-rich castings, they can help to aerate the soil. This improves the amount of oxygen that gets to a plant’s roots, improves water retention capacity, and keeps the soil loose and workable. They actually raise much-needed minerals from the garden’s subsoil to the topsoil, where plants can get the greatest benefit. These worms also break up hardpan soil, which is detrimental to root growth.
Looking for a natural way to kill weeds in your garden? You can easily control weeds by using layered sheets of newspaper. Weeds need sunlight to grow. When you cover weeds with newspaper layers, they suffocate due to lack of light. Old newspapers are a valuable addition to your compost heap. Of course, you may wish to cover the paper with mulch to make it appear more attractive.
Integrate low-growing strawberries into your yard’s landscape. Instead of setting aside fruit plants in a separate area, choose strawberries, such as alpine varieties, to use a ground cover that doubles as a fruit garden. These spreading, low-growing plants look attractive and grow well in areas that have a lot of sun.
Weed control in your organic garden will be more challenging than a conventional garden because you can’t use chemical herbicides. One of the best ways to control weeds without using chemicals is creating ground cover with mulch. Save tree trimmings and grass clippings from elsewhere in your garden and spread them around your plants to a depth of about 3 inches. This should be enough to prevent weeds from germinating and growing.
If you are considering starting an organic garden be sure to join a few blogs online. There are thousands of people who have a great deal of experience in the area that can share with you their tips that they have already put to use and know are effective.
Collecting rainwater is the natural way to supply yourself with water for all your organic gardening needs. You can simply build your own system of rain barrels or buy them ready made. That way, you won’t have to pay for water for your garden or lawn maintenance. Caution is needed! Covers are suggested to cut down on mosquitoes and other pests that can be attracted to standing water.
The best and most natural way to fertilize an organic garden is with compost. Compost can be made from anything that was once alive. Don’t discount the value of your kitchen waste, leaves, grass clippings or anything else that was once alive. By composting it all, you will give invaluable life to your organic garden.
Once a year, you must rotate your garden. Fungus and disease are more likely to affect plants if they stay in the same location for long periods of time, especially if http://www.treesaregood.com/treecare/resources/Pruning_matureTrees.pdf belong to the same family. These plant enemies can become stored in the ground, ready to attack your plants the following year. If you mix things up, by planting in different spots, you will have enlisted a natural method of keeping fungus and diseases at bay.
Apply baking soda and water to your plants regularly. Just mix the two ingredients in a spray bottle and mist the leaves of your plants. This mixture acts as a natural anti-fungal treatment. Harmful pesticides can be avoided if you use a baking soda mixture at least twice a week.
When you are maintaining acid loving plants mulch your soil with pine needles every fall. As the pine needles decompose over the winter months they will deposit their acid into the soil and give your acid loving botanicals what they need to thrive instead of relying on harsh chemical fertilizers.
Organic gardening is not difficult to do if you know the methods. It will take some experimentation to find the right combination of plants, amendments and techniques to use, in order to produce the best results in your garden. Continue to gather ideas from reading and from seasoned organic gardeners. Before long, you will have a beautiful and healthy organic garden.
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