Organic Vegetable Gardening
Pest trouble in our organic garden. Need resources to help!?
Every year we spend lots of money to have a large, Organic Vegetable Garden for our family. And, every year pests just eat it up. We do NOT want to put any pesticides on the plants, and prefer to not put ANYTHING on them.
Anybody know of any good resources for organic gardening and pest control?
This would be easier to answer if you mentioned some of the vegetables you have planted, and the kind of damage that’s being done to them. I’ve been growing vegetables organically for over 25 years, and only occasionally do I have insect damage. Mammal (deer, ground squirrels, voles, rats) and bird damage, yes, insect damage, no.
The key is to prepare the soil well and amend it with good compost and/or organic soil amendments to create robust, vigorous plants. Plant vigor is the best pesticide you can get; it allows vegetables to synthesize chemicals to put off insect pests, but still have enough energy for bumper crops. For more information, see
http://www.grow-it-organically.com/how-to-grow-vegetables.html
This page also groups vegetables by family, which gives you the basic information you need for crop rotation. If you plant the same vegetable–or a vegetable from the same family–in the same place year after year, the soil becomes depleted and you will have pest and disease problems. Vegetable crop rotation prevents this build-up of pest insects.
Timely attention early in the season will dramatically reduce damage late in the season. Check the undersides of leaves 2-3 weeks after planting, and smash any egg masses or larvae you see. If you get the first generation of pests, you’ll dent pest numbers enough for beneficial garden insects to control the pest. I get particular satisfaction out of squishing striped cucumber beetles when they’re mating in the afternoon sun, before they’ve laid any eggs.
You can also enhance habitat for beneficial insects, planting herbs and flowers as nectar sources for pollinators and tiny parasitic wasps. For more information, see
http://www.grow-it-organically.com/natural-garden-pest-control.html
Organic Vegetable Gardening
Organic Vegetable Garden Mulch
Using mulch in your organic vegetable garden, or any garden, will provide several benefits. The three primary benefits are it helps conserve water, suppresses weeds and adds organic matter to the soil, all with only a few minutes time spent.
Organic Vegetable Garden Mulch
1. Helps conserve water. The reason mulch helps conserve water is that it shades the soil.
By adding mulch the soil will stay cooler, losing less water to evaporation and staying more evenly moist, which is good for the plants.
2. Suppresses weeds. A good layer of mulch will keep weeds from growing.
Weed seeds need light to germinate, under mulch they will stay shaded, any that happen to land on top of the mulch and germinate will quickly dry out in the sun
A layer of cardboard or several layers of newspaper under a kind of loose mulch, such as grass clippings or straw, will provide a nearly impenetrable barrier for weeds that try to grow through it. A hole will have to be cut in the cardboard or newspaper and your desirable plants planted in the soil, loose mulch can be pulled back around their stems.
3. Adds organic matter to the soil. Mulches will break down over time adding organic matter and valuable nutrients to the soil in your garden bed, black plastic is obviously an exception, it will just turn brittle and break into small pieces after a couple years.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of using organic vegetable garden mulches can be summed up by saying “it makes it easier to grow a garden.” Most things that make my gardening easier I like.
About the Author
If you would like to learn more ways to make your vegetable garden more productive while also making it less work then…
Click http://SecretsOfOrganicGardening.info
Brandon Wilkinson
How do I go about starting an organic vegetable patch? I have no experience in gardening.?
I was wondering how much the cost of setting one up would be and how to go about doing it =) Please help!
Just build a raised bed or find a planter in your yard you can convert. Amend the soil with organic compost and plant away. I would guess at most $100?
Composting is a lot of work, you have to be very dedicated. I’ve been an avid organic gardener for 12 years and have always been able to buy good stuff for cheap. Some places offer it free if you pick it up, but generally I buy a few yards every spring for under $100 delivered. That and Eleanor’s VF11 fertilizer is all you need. Best stuff in the world. Quite simple actually. Easy to use and makes plants strong so you don’t need as many sprays for disease and pests. Just keep it simple, there are so many organic gardening products now it should be easy for you.
http://www.vf-11plantfood.com/
Organic vegetable growing solution – complete greenhouse kit