Organic Gardening
Step by Step
organic gardening is ecologically friendly, which means nothing to you unless you understand the "big picture". Organic gardening is, in fact, the use of sustainable agricultural practices. What that means is, you could grow a garden in the same soil over and over, have a perfectly healthy and abundant crop every time, all while doing zero damage to the soil.
Organic vs. Chemical
Chemical fertilizers only focus on providing plants with the food they crave. Organic fertilizers not only benefit the plant, but also three other levels of life...
- large insects (worms, ladybugs)
- beneficial micro-organisms
- beneficial fungus (mycorrhizae)
organic gardening focuses on sustaining life at all levels within the plant and in relation to the plant, realizing all the subtle interactions between the different parts and realizing the benefits that each interaction contributes.
The indoor gardener faithfully believes the sum of all benefits to the plants is greater than that of any chemical fertilizer. It is a faith that will soon be rewarded. Organically grown produce regularly grows larger, more abundant, and better developed.
In addition, organically grown produce has more flavor. It has also been proven that organically grown produce has much more nutritional value than the same chemically fertilized produce. For a better idea of the health benefits, check out my organics, nutrition, and health page.
Organic Hydroponics
What could be better? As I have said before, all the benefits of organic gardening PLUS all the benefits of hydroponic gardening. For details check out organic hydroponics.
Soil Mixes
A good organic soil mix is well balanced and takes advantage of all its components. Enzymes, plant hormones, humic and fulvic acids, trace minerals, and beneficials as well as the primary and secondary nutrients should all be represented. After many years I have settled on a few good organic soil mixes.
Any time I begin a new garden, I use the recipes found there, or a variation of them. If you want to experiment with your own variations, you will need to get a handle on what benefits each of the fertilizer and soil additives brings to the table and how it relates to what your plants needs are. One particularly useful group to any organic gardener are the seaweed fertilizers and additives.
Organic Feeding Tips
Remember, your plants needs change over time. They use more food as they grow larger, and they crave different foods for different stages of development.
When growing in containers, feed your plant by preparing fresh soil and simply transplanting into it. Every couple of weeks, a slightly bigger container with fresh nutrients. The only way to tell how to mix your soil is to learn the exact nutritional requirements of your plant during that stage of its plant life cycle.
Once in fresh soil you can water a plant for up to two weeks with plain water. After that, you will need to figure out a feeding plan, and could probably use some organic feeding tips.
For every problem in an organic garden, there is an organic and natural solution. Natural pest control begins with pest prevention, and this story.
After ten bug free years of indoor gardening, I came home from a short trip and realized I had some bugs. Tiny bugs. They just had to be mites.
I began spraying with neem oil. Again and again, for six weeks I sprayed, until couldn't take it any more. I took a 30x hand-held microscope that I bought from my friend and took a good look. I got on the internet and looked up indoor garden pests. I had thrips.
For six weeks I had been spraying with neem, which seems to take care of all indoor garden pests...except thrips. So, lesson number one- natural pest control starts with positive identification, a lesson I won't soon forget.
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