9 Essential Steps for a Successful Organic Gardening

Organic Gardening

Organic gardening is one of the most talked-about topics on the web right now. It’s especially popular among green consumers who want to preserve the earth for future generations and to create a more sustainable future for our planet. If this sounds like you, this article is for you. The benefits of organic gardening and how to start organic gardening are explained here.

Here, you will learn things that organic gardeners do differently from regular gardeners along with some concrete ideas that you can implement in your garden.

What is Organic Gardening?

In its simplest terms, organic gardening means gardening without the use of synthetic chemicals, pesticides, and fertilizers. When you’re growing your garden, organic gardening focuses on creating a healthy environment for plants to thrive from the very beginning rather than gardening in a more reactive way to negative things that happen in the garden.

Why Does Organic Gardening Matter?

Rising a garden takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of time, money, water, and resources. You’re doing the best you can to ensure that the food that comes from your garden is as full of charming things as it can be. And it is free from insecticides and other substances.

Your garden is also a better place at the end of organic gardening. We’re creating an environment in our gardens and our soil and we’re leaving that environment better than we found it.

Benefits of Organic Gardening

9 Essential Steps for a Successful Organic Gardening

Feed the Soil

The first standard is to focus on the soil, not the plant. Artificial and chemical composts are a quick way to give nutrition right to the plant and that is often a quick fix for problems in the garden.

As an alternative, when you add organic matter and organic fertilizers to the soil. You’re nourishing the soil which will, in turn, feed the plant. It’s a slower process but eventually a better one for the soil and the plants.

Your soil to see if something is needed and if somewhat is needed in your soil. Pick organic amendments like blood meal and bone meal rather than artificial amendments.

Add vermin-composting containers to your beds and let those worms create those beautiful rich worm castings which are garden gold for your soil. Growing cover crops and turning them under into the soil is also a great way to feed your soil.

Prevent From Disease

The second thing that organic gardeners do differently is aim to prevent diseases. Rather than just reactively treat diseases that they see in the garden. Here, are a few ways to help prevent diseases in your garden.

First, choose disease resilient varieties of plants. If a certain disease is a problem for your plants or has been a problem, choose varieties that are disease resistant.

Water your plants in the morning rather than at night and try not to get water on the leaves. Moist leaves and moist plants immediately make plants more vulnerable to certain diseases.

Develop a system of crop rotation in your garden where you are rotating the different families of crops diseases build up in the soil. And if you’re consistently planting that same crop in the same place then you’re more likely to have that disease in your soil.

And finally, if you do get diseases in your garden, dispose of those plants in the trash bin rather than in your compost pile. So, that you’re not continuing to spread those diseases to your garden.

Watering

The next important step is to water the lawn. You need to water the lawn regularly for five to ten minutes a day.

Water helps your grass and plants to grow greener. So, if you need to water be sure to water deep and less frequently to create a healthier and stronger lawn. You can use impact sprinklers for this purpose.

The best time to apply the water is in the early morning. It prevents the water from evaporation. Avoid watering the garden on a windy day.  

Control Weeds

The third thing that organic gardeners do differently is control the weeds. Weeds are the most annoying thing in the garden. Sometimes it’s difficult to get on top of them.

Here are a few things that you can do to prevent weeds without the help of chemicals.

Manually pulling the weeds before they go to seed. The best time to control the weeds is when they are actively growing. You can pull them manually. But it takes a lot of time and effort.

So, what is the best method?

You can make weed killer naturally at home without using synthetic chemicals that could harm your lawn. Here, are some of the useful methods for making natural weed killers at home.

Healthy Plants for Preventing Pests Problems

Organic growers always emphasize having a healthy enough plant that a little bit of pest damage isn’t going to be a big problem.

One of the most significant things that you can do for healthy plants is to water regularly. Constantly watering your garden retains the plants from being stressed out.

Stressed-out plants are certainly more inviting to pests rather than giving your plants numerous shallow irrigation. Emphasis on giving your plants less frequent deep irrigation that encourages the roots to grow deeply and plants with deep roots are better able to tolerate ecological stresses.

Provide suitable nutrition by feeding your soil but don’t over-fertilize. Surplus growth from too much nitrogen makes plants more attractive to pests. Don’t overfeed your plants.

Manage Pests

First, learn the difference between beneficial and unsafe insects. There are many great resources online and in books to discover local pests that are a problem and local beneficial insects.

Learn what all stages of those insects look like. So, that you can learn to identify which are beneficial and which are pests in your garden the second thing to do is to do nothing. Healthy plants can often resist a little bit of pest damage without dangerous effects. Don’t be too fast to respond and treat even with organic methods. Use barrier methods such as row covers in your garden to prevent damage from pests before they even happen.

Prevent the bugs from getting to those plants in the first place. Sticky traps when used correctly are a very effective method for flying insects. Hand-picking caterpillars and other large bugs and insects is a great job for kids and very effective in the morning when temperatures are cooler and bugs are a little more lethargic.

Check the underneath of leaves that are often a favorite hiding place. Spraying off just with water is often a very effective treatment as well.

Plating at Right Place

The next thing that organic gardeners do differently is select the right plant for the gardens. Planting it at the right place and planting it at the right time.

As gardeners, we often like to section the boundaries of what can grow in our area. But this is often really hectic on plants and when plants are stressed out. They’re more inviting to pests and diseases.

So, when you focus on growing, what grows well in your area and choosing the right part of your yard to grow?

First off pick varieties of plants that grow well in your area. Varieties that don’t need unexpected procedures and you to do a lot of different things to help them be successful. Learn about the different areas of your garden and the different micro-climates in your area.

Do you have an area that gets a little cooler or a little warmer or an area that often has excess moisture or is a little bit drier?

Select varieties of plants that are modified to grow well in those specific areas. And finally, use a planting guide meant for your local area. Plants have a preferred growing temperature that they grow well. When you plant at the favored growing temperature for that plant they’re much more likely to flourish.

Encourage Healthy Ecosystem in the Garden

The other thing that organic gardeners do differently is to practice companion planting and poly-culture practices in the garden.

Poly-culture isn’t row after row of the same crop that would be a monoculture. It’s much easier for pests to find what they’re looking for.

When there’s row after row of their desired crop. When a garden is a host to a wide variety of plants, it more closely mimics nature and increases the garden’s overall health.

Here, are a few ways to implement poly-culture and companion planting practices in your garden. Learn the favored companions for plants in your garden and plant them nearby. If you are rising some of one particular crop instead of planting them all in one location in your garden, scatter them all over your garden.

Inter-plant several different plants with similar growing needs in the same garden bed. Add a wide variety of perennial and annual herbs and flowers to your garden. Those perennial herbs and flowers will attract all kinds of beneficial insects.

Allow your herbs to flower and those will attract beneficial insects and pollinators to your garden. Over time the compound effects of employing organic gardening practices in your garden will continue to grow and build begin where you are.

And implement the practices that seem the most doable and the most reasonable to you. As you implement and use these practices the benefits will continue to grow in your garden.

Cleaning Up

You notice things are growing in the garden. You need to decide to clean up all the expired plants, flowers, and grass. Make sure to dethatch and mower the lawn after some time.  

Conclusion

We hope you’ve found this blog post to be helpful and informative. As always, we want to hear from you. Share your thoughts in the comments below or reach out with any questions. For more information on organic gardening visit our website Lawnscanner.com for a list of resources that can help you get started today.

Reference

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/organic-gardening

https://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/Organic_Gardening

https://www.britannica.com/topic/organic-farming