Growing your own organic fruits and vegetables is a great way to save money and adopt a healthier diet, but it also requires efforts from you. Additionally, there are a variety of seeds with different planting times to consider. This article contains tips that will ensure you have everything you need to start an organic garden.
Your children can help you with your garden. A garden can be a great learning experience for your children, and it gives you a chance to bond while producing healthy food.
Planting organic strawberries is a great way to encourage your children to get involved. Children love to snap up these sweet juicy fruits for themselves and will be much more willing to eat other foods you’ve planted as well.
Pine can make surprisingly great mulch. A number of plants commonly grown in garden settings do best in an acidic soil. For such plants, pine needles function both as a handy mulch and as a soil amendment to lower the pH. Using several inches of needles to cover your beds provides acid for the soil as they begin to decompose.
Use an aged laundry basket when you want to collect your produce. The laundry basket can be used as a colander for your produce. Rinse off your produce while it’s in the laundry basket, and any excess water will be strained out through the basket’s holes.
Killing weeds the natural way? You can easily control weeds by using layered sheets of newspaper. Weeds require sunlight to continue growing. When you pile up layers of newspapers right on top of the weeds, they will suffocate and die. In time, the newspaper will decompose into the soil. Try adding some mulch on top of it to make appear more attractive.
A useful technique for organic gardening, is to gently disturb your seedlings by using your fingers or a piece of cardboard one or two times daily. Even though it sounds strange, it will help plants get bigger.
A beer trap is an effective way of of dealing with any slugs that invade your organic garden. Take a glass jar and bury it so that the soil is even with its mouth. Fill that with beer just under an inch from the top of your jar. The slugs will be attracted to the beer, and will then become trapped within the jar.
Get your organic garden certified so you can credibly claim that your crops are organic. That way, you will realize greater sales volume and demonstrate the value of your produce to potential and returning customers.
Water demands from plants will depend on the season and the climate in your area. When watering your plants, consider the time you are watering them, the kind of soil you are using and how good the water is. For instance, if you live in a humid climate where it never goes below 30 degrees Celsius, refrain from watering the leaves, as this will inevitably invite leaf fungus. Make sure you give the roots plenty of water.
Acquiring a good understanding of organic gardening is necessary to grow all kinds of healthy fruits and vegetables. Use the tips from above to take a step in the right direction when it comes to organic gardening, and start your family on a healthier path to better living.