The Worst Garden Idea?

OrganicGimp — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 03:41:29 +0000

This is a debate like many others: Whether organic gardening is better than using chemicals. There is much debate about taste, and quality when it comes to synthetic or organic gardening, the debate will probably continue forever, but there is a few things to look at. Synthetic gardening, you could say makes things “easier”, but in the long run you have to weigh two things “risk and benefit”, does the benefits of using synthetics outweigh the risks? When I say risks, I include possible pesticide poisoning, the taste of your foods which is very important of course, natural ability to fight off pests and other harmful things like bacteria, among other things. There are studies done by people like yourselves to test these theories. To test the benefits of organic gardening, an organic gardening lover did an experiment, a side by side comparison. Two beds, completely identical to start, one for organic garden fertilizers, and one for synthetic fertilizers. Now for this experiment no pesticides were used in either the organic garden of the synthetic garden, to keep some simplicity. Instead pest were controlled by hand, or with a hose. Spraying down plants with a hose helps by washing the pests of the plants in your organic garden, or any garden, be sure to try and spray under the leaves also, but not with such a blast you will damage your organic garden, or other gardens. So, in the organic garden, only organic fertilizers were used, of course, and in the synthetic garden, a popular known blue synthetic fertilizer was used. Both were planted from the seed of the same stock and quality. It was reported the the non organic garden had an initial burst of growth, but seemed to attract aphids, and ants. The organic garden however, soon caught up and and surpassed the synthetic garden, and seemed to have fewer pest problems! Going back to what I said earlier about having a stronger resistance to pests. Another issue that arose is, the pH in the synthetic bed increased, and had to be adjusted. In the end, the organic garden harvested more quantity, and quality vegetables than the synthetic.

Organic Vegetable Gardening – Soil Preparation

OrganicGimp — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:59:16 +0000

Soil conditioning and preparation is vital to very successful organic gardens. Organic fertilizers and soil conditioning materials are usually slow working in general, you should always mix your soil and organic gardening fertilizers three to four weeks ahead of time. Parts or “clumps”of unrotted organic materials can harm the seedling process, promote soil-borne diseases, and cause damping off to younger plants. Successful organic gardens usually start with an abundant amount of organic matter, and organic fertilizers, including animal manures, plant manures, mixed organic fertilizers and compost. Compost is basically a mix of dead plant material, dead leaves, grass clippings. All of these things provide a great amount of organic nutrients for organic gardening. Not only does adding organic fertilizers to your soil help condition it, it will improve its ability to hold water, and nutrients. Another benefit is to increase the microbiological activity, which in many ways can be very beneficial to plants by breaking down nutrients into more usable forms, and even create nutrients from things otherwise unusable by the plants or vegetables in your organic garden. This is the large reason we want to mix our soil and compost and organic fertilizers for our organic garden weeks early, as it gives time for the microbiological activity to break things down.

Organic Gardening Tips » Organic Compost

The Worst Garden Idea?

Organic Vegetable Gardening – Soil Preparation