The Upside to Gardening Organically

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==== ==== Please check out The Organic Gardening Academy for great tips on Gardening Organically. www.bestorganicgardeningpractices.com ==== ====

Composting is applied microbiology at its most complex, involving the interactions of thousands upon thousands of different species of micro organisms in a highly complex ecosystem. What is Organic fertilizers? When it's time to choose a fertilizer for your organic garden - organic or inorganic - know what's in the bag, and more importantly, what's best for your organic vegetable garden. We have always recommended if possible to make your own. Making organic fertilizer is not difficult. We have over the past 20 year found that a bucket with old tea bags, rain water and nettles makes the best liquid fertilizer. If you want to try your hand at growing your own organic vegetables but have no garden, don't worry. Many people grow organic vegetables successfully using a container. You can keep the container wherever is convenient or move it around if you need to. There are disadvantages to using organic fertilizers in containers. These materials may be difficult to apply in comparison to inorganic fertilizers, depending on the source material used. Organic fertilizers tend to have lower nutrient content compared to inorganic fertilizers, so more material has to be applied in order to get the same nutrient amount. In addition, the slow-release properties can actually have a detrimental effect on the container plants. If the nutrients from organic fertilizers are not released in time, the plants will not receive them for use in their growth cycle. Making compost from garden and household waste is one of the best things any gardener can do. It's easy and costs very little in time or effort. Making compost will help you reduce pollution and cut down that landfill! Your plants will grow healthier and look happier for it and it will save you money on fertilisers too. Our local council in Herefordshire has now given us bins for us to add leaves, grass and other compost matter into, which is then emptied every two weeks once it has reduced to less than half its size. Depending on the size of your chosen container, you can grow whatever you like in it. As long as the pot is big enough, you can choose from herbs, tomatoes, cress, courgettes, lettuce and many other vegetables. Organic seeds and plants should be used for organic gardening to produce a true organic product,


but as long as you don't plan to sell the product, it is up to you. It can be fun to experiment! What are Pests in Organic Gardening? Actually, less than one percent of insect species are pests, and only a few hundred of these are consistently a problem. Any single pesticide does not usually kill all pests and repeat applications are usually necessary. I always had an organic vegetable garden, and I have tried getting rid of these nasty pests with organic spray but it didn't work. Today, we are encouraging people to use another way to control pests. Here are some that entomologists are working with: Natural predators: introducing the types of animals that will naturally gobble up pests. Natural parasites: introducing bacteria, viruses, and insect parasites that will kill pests but won't harm other types of animals. If you are having a problem with pests in your garden, you probably have an imbalance of fauna or an imbalance of soil nutrients. Pest control is much easier in organic container vegetable gardening than in regular gardening. You can see the whole plant and pick off bugs such as caterpillars. You can bring it to a tap to wash the leaves and stem when the plant is in a pot instead of in the garden. You probably won't see cutworms if you are using containers but you might find slugs. Simply sprinkle eggshells on the soil around your produce to get deter them, they hate eggshells. One last word of warning about the use of farmyard manure! Always source the farmyard manure from organic farms, never use unselected organic farms. Most animals for food production undergo many drug treatments to make the meat,safe for us to Eat, these drugs will leach into their bedding material from urine and manure. Farmyard manure is a mixture of the droppings of horses, pigs or cows, including their urine and the litter used for their bedding. Cow manures are wetter, colder and lower in nutrients than horse manure, and decompose more slowly in the soil, which makes them more suitable for sandy soils. Likewise, pig manure is slow acting but long lasting, as it is slow to ferment, this too is a cold manure and therefore unsuitable for the making of hot-beds.

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==== ==== Please check out The Organic Gardening Academy for great tips on Gardening Organically. www.bestorganicgardeningpractices.com ==== ====


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