Home and Living

Gardening season is here and you are ready to get your hands dirty and your garden blooming. Perhaps you have decided that this year you will plant your own vegetables. Or maybe there is an herb garden in your future. Unfortunately, you are also very conscious about the plights of the vegetable gardener, namely the bugs, weeds, and stunted growth of some vegetables. You figured you would get all the help you need from the gardening chemicals section at your local garden center; however, your reading of the labels has assured you that killing slugs may also equate your killing off the outdoor cat population of your neighborhood, not to mention your child or dog.

While pondering this quandary you realize that your best bet is to stay organic, yet you wonder what exactly an organic gardener is. How do you define “organic”? Does it mean to stay entirely away from chemicals, or is there a golden middle ground.

The quick answer, of course, is to stay away from chemicals altogether. This might sound hard to do if in the past you have been accustomed to reaching for that spray bottle of bug poison or fertilizer when things went out of control, but going organic is actually easier than you think. Here are some tips and tricks that will set you on the course of organic gardening and keep you chemical-free.

• Whereas in the past you might have reached for the blue magic granules to make your plants grow bigger and better, as an organic gardener you no longer have to haul out the foul smelling chemicals. Instead, your options are much more varied. Available at gardening supply stores everywhere are inexpensive bags of humus - simply a fancy name for composted plant matter. This plant material has been broken down into its building components that can now be used to feed growing plants. If you are ambitious and have the space, then you may actually wish to have your compost heap. All you need is a corner in your garden that will be out of the way, and a way to corral the plant matter, and you will be able to put grass clipping, leaves, and even food waste to good use. To further add nutrients to the soil, you are able to purchase manure that will add nitrogen to the soil and increase its fertile nature.
• Quite possibly the biggest are of concern to the organic gardener is the matter of pest control. It is all good and well in theory to think of ways to keep your tomatoes safe and healthy, but once a colony of worms has moved in, it is hard to resist the spray bottle. While old wives’ tales abound, many of them truly are only stories and have very little grounding in the truth. Of course, the most time consuming, but also effective, method of pest control is for you to physically collect them and move them off your plants. This works great with larger species, such as tomato bugs or snails, but may not work so well with aphids. Short of picking off these little pests, you will need someone else to do this work for you. Willing helpers are ladybugs, which love to eat aphids. You can actually purchase ladybugs are the local garden store and locate them in your vegetable patch. Slugs, the age old nemesis of gardeners everywhere, can be controlled by simply allowing nematodes, a fancy word for a special kind of roundworm, to enter the soil. Soon these nematodes will be feasting on the slugs!
• Last but not least is the other bane of the gardener’s existence: weeds! The physical method of weed-pulling is always the best way to get rid of pestering plants, but other precautions can be taken to discourage weed seeds from taking roots. For example, commercially available weed barriers will prevent unwanted plants from growing while also helping your garden to retain moisture.

As you can see, organic gardening does not have to be a mysterious process, but instead can be a very rewarding process that will leave you with a healthy yard, safe to eat vegetables and herbs, and also a healthy and thriving biosphere where animal species will love to come and visit!