How do I start an organic vegetable garden?
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 at
2:46 pm
I have never done this before. I want to start in May. I live in Northen Canada. What should be my first few steps?
Tagged with: Garden • Organic • start • Vegetable
Filed under: Organic Foods
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find a coop and ask them if they have seeds or books about it
Put some seeds in the dirt. That’s a good place to start.
How to Start an Organic Garden
Get going with organic gardening right from the first shovelful you dig. Amend your soil, mulch your beds, and learn to exclude and deter pests organically to get your garden started right.
Steps:
1. Pick a spot for your garden that gets at least half a day of sunshine and has easy access to water. Be sure it drains well, or else plan to build a raised bed garden.
2. Clear the area of all weeds – mow, pull and dig them out. Till the area and rake out the debris. Then wait until it sprouts and clear again to prevent weed problems later.
3. Test your soil and build it with organic matters. Then add compost, bone meal or rock phosphate, and greensand to supply nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Add lime or sulphur to adjust the soil’s pH only if directed by soil-test results.
4. Till or dig in fertilizers and two kinds of organic matter. Add an inch of sharp sand if your soil is clay, then rake your soil into beds or rows. Let your organic garden mellow its nutrients for at least a month before planting.
5. Choose an organic mulch to blanket your garden. Pick a material like ground bark that will decompose over a season or two, and dig it in as it breaks down.
6. Start a compost pile and recycle leaves, grass clippings, coffee grounds, eggshells and kitchen waste into excellent organic fertilizer. Pile up leaves alone in the back of the bed to make leaf mold – use it for mulch once it’s broken down to a dark brown material.
7. Plant your organic garden for success – rely on plants with good local track records. Look for disease resistance bred into vegetables especially.
8. Practice smart gardening – walk the garden every day with hoe in hand to scratch out weeds as they sprout. Look for insects and diseases, and control them at the earliest stages for best effect.
Tips:
Interpret soil-test results with this formula: to apply a recommendation of 3 pounds of an element (say phosphorus) over 1000 square feet, divide the number of pounds you need (3) by the percent of that nutrient in the fertilizer. (The percentage will be on the label; for example, bone meal is 20 percent phosphorus.) Three divided by 20 percent equals 15 pounds per 1000 square feet.
you should get some organic seeds at you’re local plant dealer if you have one and they will help you out on picking it out.
Firstly you need to buy organic soil …. ie TOTALLY non polluted with chemicals, that is, fertilizers, weed killers, bug killers, road grime etc etc.
Next you need to be away from any fields that use chemical sprays, 1/2 mile to 1 mile is good
Next you need to have Organic seeds, NOT those produced using chemical fertilizers, DNA Modified etc.
Then you need to use CLEAN water to water, preferably rainwater from storage butts if you have it.
And you also need natural organic fertilizers, and organic weedkillers
You may look at organic bug repellant as well, Pyrethrum is good (Marigolds) or buy some ladybirds etc to eat aphids
Enjoy the fruits of your labour
You may want to look at some UK sites where they are heavy into Organic horticulture
You can’t be truly organic unless the garden spot has been chemical free for about 5 years, but you can do your best anyway to not add any further chemicals to the ground.
First thing is get the dirt turned over, add about 4″ deep clean compost and maybe some granite sand. Till together well.
Get a book on companion planting, you have NO idea how much it helps to know that carrots like being near tomatoes and onions hate beans. Be willing to pick off worms as you see them. Resist the urge to have plants that are magazine perfect, and just pick off leaves that look sickly (dispose of in trash not on garden floor). Plant marigolds around the perimeter, also helps control pests. Use more compost to cover ground to help keep weeds down. Pull up or hoe down the weeds that do appear.
Rodale books, the parent company of Organic Gardening, has a lot of books on organic gardening, and a very good book on gardening in cold climates. You might want to look at a few. Organic gardening is not complicated, and does NOT require that you buy seeds from an organic supplier. However, to be certified as an ‘Organic’ garden, you have to adhere to certain requirements. again, “Organic Gardening” by Rodale Books, will tell you what you wish to know.
Good luck.