Posted by Admin | Posted in Organic | Posted on 23-03-2012
Tags: Organic gardening
What would happen if you invested a bunch of time and money into your organic garden and it just won’t grow? The more you know, the better your garden will be. Here are a few tips from my neighborhood pro.
Use mulches to insulate the soil and protect against weeds. Use material such as wood chips, leaves, hay and lawn clippings. Protecting your plants with mulch helps them in many ways, including preserving the soil against erosion. You can even look into living mulches, which are plants that serve the same purpose as a mulch.
Earthworms are the organic gardener’s friend. Through their tunneling and their nitrogen-rich castings, they 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 nice and loose. They actually raise good minerals from the garden subsoil up to the topsoil, where plants can get the greatest benefit from them. These worms also break up hard soil and make it usable for your plants.
When you are gardening in a humid environment, water your plants in the early morning. Watering in the evening may cause mildew. Watering in the morning also prohibits fungal growth that can occur in humid climates. Mildew and fungal diseases can spread or lead to poor growth and unhealthy soil.
When planting, make sure you know when the best times are to plant them. Try planting new plants during the late evening or on a cloudy day. These plants have a better chance of surviving if you plant them during cloudy or even rainy days, rather than hot, sunny days.
A great way to calculate the timing for planting is to use a seed-starting chart. Do a little research and fill in the chart in advance. Once you have it, use the chart to plan your planting through the entire season.
Gardening is a terrific way to get some outdoor exercise and relieve stress. There are many healthful benefits you will reap, especially if your gardening efforts reward you with a plentiful harvest of great vegetables.
