All posts by realorganicgardener

General Gardening Wisdom, Organic Gardening, Plant Care

Expert Gardeners Share 7 Tips For Greater Yields

 

Expert gardeners share these 7 secrets for better produce and much higher yields throughout the season.

It is no secret that one of the fasted ways of learning, is to learn form an expert.  Read what these experts are saying.

You may think that once you place those seeds in the ground, they will just sprout and give you what fruits they can. This is a common but very basic mistake most first time gardeners make. A better approach or more correct way of thinking is that you still need to take special care for your plants, and they will reward you with even more and better produce.

You can improve the yield capacity of your garden soil by following these 7 great tips, shared by experienced gardeners. Your garden plants will thank you with an awesome crop!

Remember to share this with those closest to you.

Imagine harvesting nearly half a ton of tasty, beautiful, organically grown vegetables from a 15-by-20-foot plot, 100 pounds of tomatoes from just 100 square feet (a 4-by-25-foot bed), or 20 pounds of carrots from just 24 square feet. Yields like these are easier to achieve than you may think. The secret to superproductive gardening is taking the time now to plan strategies that will work for your garden. Here are seven high-yield strategies gleaned from gardeners who have learned to make the most of their garden space.

1. Build Up Your Soil

Expert gardeners agree that building up the soil is the single most important factor in pumping up yields. A deep, organically rich soil encourages the growth of healthy, extensive roots that are able to reach more nutrients and water. ……..

The fastest way to get that deep layer of fertile soil is to make raised beds. Raised beds yield up to four times more than the same amount of space planted in rows. ………..

2. Round Out Your Beds

………A rounded bed that is 5 feet wide across its base, for instance, will give you a 6-foot-wide arc above it—creating a planting surface that’s a foot wider than that of a flat bed. That foot might not seem like much, but multiply it by the length of your bed and you’ll see that it can make a big difference in total planting area……….

3. Space Smartly

……….Avoid planting in square patterns or rows. Instead, stagger the plants by planting in triangles. By doing so, you can fit 10 to 14 percent more plants in each bed.

Just be careful not to space your plants too tightly…………

4. Grow Up

No matter how small your garden, you can grow more by going vertical. ………..

Growing vegetables vertically also saves time. Harvest and maintenance go faster because you can see exactly where the fruits are. And upward-bound plants are less likely to be hit by fungal diseases thanks to the improved air circulation around the foliage…………

5. Mix It Up

Interplanting compatible crops saves space, too. Consider the classic Native American combination, the “three sisters”—corn, beans, and squash. Sturdy cornstalks support the pole beans, while squash grows freely on the ground below, shading out competing weeds. This combination works because the crops are compatible……….

6. Succeed With Successions

Succession planting allows you to grow more than one crop in a given space over the course of a growing season. That way, many gardeners are able to harvest three or even four crops from a single area…………..

7. Stretch Your Season

Adding a few weeks to each end of the growing season can buy you enough time to grow yet another succession crop—say a planting of leaf lettuce, kale, or turnips—or to harvest more end-of-the-season tomatoes.

To get those extra weeks of production, you need to keep the air around your plants warm, even when the weather is cold, by using mulches, cloches, row covers, or coldframes……….

Article Source:  Read the full article in Rodales organic Life
Image Source: Harvest To Table

Organic Gardening

Late Winter Planting: The My(a)stery of Good Timing

 

What to plant in the second half of winter

While August is the last full-summer month (for those areas with four seasons), in the Northern hemisphere, it is the opposite for those in the Southern hemisphere.  Many people think a season is over when it get closer to changing from one to the other, but there is always some crops to consider, even late in a given season. There’s room for a little more this summer for those that are keen to put in the effort.

Read the following article and you will learn which produce is best planted in August (in the Southern Hemisphere).  Learn the best practices of August planting depending on how much North or South you’re situated. For those living on the Northern side of mother earth – remember these to look at these in six months time.  Use your organic garden to its full potential.

In cool climates, the second half of winter is a time of promise. Even if it might not seem like it when the wind is howling and the woodfire is cranking to stave off the chill. Gardening is as much about anticipating the future as it is about embracing the present. ………..

In temperate climates, where Jack Frost can hang around well into October, August is the month to sow “shoulder season” crops. These don’t mind germinating in cold, late winter soil (though if the soil is very wet from winter rains, wait another month before sowing) and they like growing in the gentle warmth that builds as our arc toward the sun gets ever closer………….

Arid/semi arid, warm temperate and marginal subtropical areas aren’t as prone to late season frosts. This is a boon for growing potatoes, because it means you can get an August jump start on planting these frost sensitive staples…………

If garden space is limited, try no-dig spuds. You can use a wire cage, a purpose made potato growing bag (available online and from nurseries), or simply throw some seed spuds on compost enriched ground and cover them with enough straw to exclude light. …………

Other crops to plant now in warm climates include bush beans, basil, tomato, beetroot, cucumbers, watermelons, zucchini, okra, lettuce, and corn. For something different, try planting a flour or popcorn variety. These heirloom types are more drought tolerant than hybrid sweetcorn and with just a little supplemental moisture, do well in hot, dry spring weather.

Article Source: www.organicgardener.com.au
Image Source:  Money Crashers

General Gardening Wisdom

Efficient Gardening – How To Stop Wasting Time

 

Daily tasks quickly pile up, but just like weeds, you need to take control of them before they take control over you

Like many people you have probably come to a point where you have to handle so many tasks, that managing your garden becomes more of a burden than a pleasure. To turn the scales to your side once more, you can implement 5 very easy to do things.

You will see how quickly they can be put to action. It will open up more free time in your daily schedule, and you will once again look at gardening as a relaxing and fun experience, the way it is meant to be. But let’s not waste more of your time, and get into it right away.

Can you really grow your own food with a full-time job and a normal urban lifestyle? The answer is yes. The key is efficiency, organization, and perseverance.

The work of gardening can be intense. Like emails, dusting and dishes, it often feels like the moment you’ve completed your tasks, they start to pile up all over again. Weeds start growing back. There are always more seeds to plant. More crops to harvest. Pests to trouble-shoot. It’s never truly “done.” ……….

While I wish I lived at my garden, in many ways I’m grateful for the constraints. They’ve taught me that the more focused and organized I am, the more easily I can enter a flow-state of pure relaxation and really enjoy being in the garden.

I rely on the five habits below.

……….

  1. Designate one day per week as your “gardening day.”
    Many tasks, like sowing seeds, pruning tomatoes and weeding, are well-suited to batching together in a weekly schedule. Once you’re in ‘garden mode’, it’s easier to get everything done.
  2. Have a garden plan.
    By knowing when to plant seeds and where you’re putting them, you can maximize space and make quick decisions. Even a rough sketch of where each crop is going can really take your garden to the next level.

3.Enlist the help of friends and family.
My parents are my gardening partners, watering, gathering supplies and handling various tasks between my visits. Friends often come by to help in exchange for a share of produce. ……….

  1. Multitask… but not in the way you’re thinking.
    ……….  I count my gardening hours against exercise, grocery shopping and chill-out time.

5.Use a checklist.
My biggest game-changer has been to create a garden checklist with my main recurring tasks, in a specific order that maximizes efficiency. This essentially ‘automates’ my garden days so that I don’t have to worry about forgetting anything.  ………..

Read the full article in Vancouver Observer

Article Source: Vancouver Observer
Image Source:  Money Crashers

General Gardening Wisdom, Plant Care

GMO Cross-Contamination – Cross it Out of The Equation

 

Here is the powerful secret of avoiding cross-pollination and still yielding organic corn crops no matter how close you are to GMO crops

For many organic farmers it is unfortunate to be in the vicinity of GM crops. The risk of the organic crops to be cross-contaminated with the GM crops is very high, and seemingly almost unavoidable. But don’t despair. There’s a solution to this problem. It is actually very simple and easy, and requires almost nothing special from you.

As you read the following article you will learn how to outsmart the GM corn crops, the pollination itself and take full control of how your corn crops will grow. It does sound like magic, but the solution is amazingly simple and even intuitive. Read the article and thank us later.

Remember to spread the word by sharing …

Enjoying your organic corn harvest about now? Corn is usually a July or August crop. At House in the Woods Farm, we plant our corn early. We harvested our corn in late June and were offering it to CSA customers for Independence Day weekend.

We grow our own organic corn because we want organic corn. I wouldn’t want all my efforts at organic corn tainted by a genetically modified variety. It’s an issue for those of us surrounded by GMO feed corn crops in particular. Cross-pollination with feed corn will take the sweet right out of your sweet corn.

We are beating the likelihood of GMO cross-pollination by being the early corn. It is a simple solution to a complicated problem. Be the early corn! …………

………..We start the seedlings in trays about the second week of April and plant them out in early May. Our seedlings have a jump start ahead of weeds since they are transplanted a few inches tall. ………….

We love the hybrid variety we tested this year! It is called Luscious. For organic production, we need protection from the worms that can sneak into corn. Luscious features a closed husk that keeps bugs out. I wonder if our early season was too early for the worm too. Luscious is particularly cold tolerant, which is ideal for early planting soil conditions. ………….

Read the full article in Mother Earth News.

Source: Mother Earth news

Image Source: www.motherjones.com

General Gardening Wisdom, Insects & Pests, Plant Care

8 Tips To Fighting Insects and Other Garden’s Invaders

Slugs, ants, ear-worms, mildew and fungus – these are all a frustration to the organic gardener. Learn how to win the battle, organically

Organic gardens tend to attract all sorts of creatures and plant life, but not all of them are beneficial like bees. You as a gardener have probably spent countless hours devising ways of removing these pests and insects from your garden. And to stay on the sustainable side, you don’t want to use any chemicals. 

You will be happy to learn that you don’t need chemicals to finally solve some of the long-lasting battles with ants, slugs and snails, white flies and even fungus and mildew. You will learn 8 easy and quick methods for taking control of your garden once and for all.  

Remember to share with your organic gardening friends.

Ever since gardeners went organic in their vegetable gardens, natural remedies for common garden pests have shot off the roof. Many store depots that concentrates on gardening products went overtime in developing environment friendly, inexpensive, and readily available ingredients that can be made to combat these common and destructive garden problems. In fact, gardeners also went on to experiment on what is the best solution for their own garden problems until they perfected their own formulas on how to  stop and control the different problems that have risen in their area. Today, there are so many ways on how to deal with common garden problems organically. Here are some of them.

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Aphids, spider mites, and white flies are all allergic to liquid soap………… Spray the soap spray solution to the leaves of the plants in your garden. Make sure that both sides of the plants leaves are sprayed with your soap spray solution.

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Great in treating mildew and other plant fungus, milk spray is very easy to do. In a container, add an equal part of milk and water. Mix properly and spray it to the infected plants in your garden. ………..

Believe it or not, snails and slugs are drawn to beer. In a small container, pour in some beer until it is full. Place the container with beer near your garden plants and when the slugs and snails climb into the container to take a sip, then they can no longer climb back up and in turn the slugs and snails will drown in the container.

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In a bowl, mix sugar and borax. If borax in unavailable, you can also use corn mill.  After mixing, sprinkle the ants’ route with the solution. The ants will gather the sugar-borax mixture and bring it back to their nest. Since borax and corn mill are deadly to ants, when the ants consume the mixture, it will kill them.

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Read the full article and all 8 tips in Fresh Organic Gardening

 

Source: Fresh Organic Gardening

Image Source:  www.trendtenreviews.com 

General Gardening Wisdom, Plant Care

What Einstein Said About Bees

 

Learn how to attract bee colonies and improve your garden (and nature’s) ecosystem

We all know that the bee colonies are collapsing on a large scale world-wide. If we don’t act soon and take action, one day we may live without bees. And since bees help plants pollinate and grow fruit, we may suffer the result that the ecosystem will collapse as well.  If Einstein thought it was important to make reference to a world without bees, we better take note and act upon it now.

Every person should take responsibility and see what part they can play.

In the following article you will learn five methods of improving your garden to be bee-friendly and welcoming.  If Einstein thought it was important to make reference to a world without bees, we better take note and act upon it now.

The genius Albert Einstein once said “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live”. If this fact is true, then we should all be panicking right now. There are 4,000 species of bees around the world. And all these bees are in danger. According to statistics that was taken in the past six years, a total of 10 million beehives have collapsed in North America alone. Scientists are now calling this phenomenon as the Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD.  The use of chemical pesticides and insecticides are just some of the reasons of the said beehive collapse…………

So, how can we help in increasing the population of our pollinators? We can do this by attracting them and letting them forage and set up their colonies in our garden………..

Fruit bearing trees in your garden makes for perfect nesting sites for bees. Dead trees and logs can also be used. If you have no trees in your garden, then the post of your fences can be a good substitute………

Pesticides will drive away your pollinator insects instead of attracting them. So, if you want your plants to be visited by bees, then stop using pesticides of any kind unless it is really needed. ………..

Plant your bee friendly plants in an area where there is a good access to sunlight. Bees prefer a sunny spot compared to a shaded area in the garden…………

For more information and for a complete list of plants you may consider for your garden, read the full article in Fresh Organic Gardening

Article Source:Fresh Organic Gardening

Source image: Click Here

Compost, General Gardening Wisdom, Organic Gardening

Get Serious About Organic Gardening – Raise Your Own Earthworms

Earthworms an asset?  Find out why serious organic gardeners all raise their own earthworms.

When you find earthworms in your garden, know that you are on the right track.  These little creatures play a very important role to keep your soil fertile.

It is hard to believe but on average, an earthworm produces its weight in nutrient rich castings every day.  Its burrowing creates many channels through the soil, which is great for aeration, drainage and general soil structure.

The following article is full of helpful tips about how to raise your own earthworms.  It also covers what food to feed them as well as what NOT to feed them.

More importantly, find out what action will quickly kill all your earthworms.

The pale red garden earthworm is often called “nature’s plow.” That’s because an earthworm pushes through soft earth with the point of its head. If the soil is hard, the worm eats its way through, forming interconnected burrows, some several feet deep. Burrows loosen the soil, admitting air and water and helping roots grow. A single acre of cultivated land may be home to as many as 500,000 earthworms, each making the soil a better place for plants.

Earthworms In Your Garden
When you add nitrogen-rich compost to your soil, you help worms thrive. However, adding synthetic nitrogen fertilizers may repel earthworms. Worms are very sensitive to physical and chemical changes and will flee the salty conditions that result from an application of chemical fertilizer.

As an earthworm feeds, organic matter passes through its body and is excreted as granular dark castings. You may see these small casting piles in your garden. An earthworm produces its weight in castings daily. Worm castings are a wonderful fertilizer, rich in nutrients otherwise unavailable to plants.

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You can raise earthworms yourself using purchased redworms—a process called vermiculture or earthworm composting. Kept in a cool, dark place, such as a basement, a worm bin provides a composting system for kitchen scraps and a source of rich, fertile worm castings for the garden.

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If you don’t want to pay big bucks for a worm bin, you can make your own from a plastic storage bin, such as a 3 feet by 2 feet by 1 1/2-feet-deep storage bin, a modified garbage can, washtub, or wooden box. Use an awl to punch small holes in the sides of plastic washtubs or garbage cans for aeration. To keep conditions moist but well drained, make a drainage area in the bottom of the bin; use a rigid divider to separate it from the worms’ living quarters. A loose cover keeps flies and light out and worms and moisture in.

Just as with commercial bins, it’s best to fill the bin with soaked coir and newspaper.   …………….

Garden soil may also be added. Make sure the mix is as damp as a wrung-out sponge rather than wet. Then introduce the purchased earthworms to their new home. Use your purchased worms for composting only—most commercially available worms are species that live only in manure or very rich soil and will not survive in average garden soil. One exception is the enriched soil in a greenhouse bed—if the greenhouse stays above freezing, worms will do very well there.

Feed your worms well-chopped vegetable matter mixed with a bit of water. Soft foods are best for the first few days; if food doesn’t disappear in 24 hours, reduce the amount. For faster composting, run the food through a blender, since worms don’t have teeth to tear off large chunks. The population should double in about a month; after 60 days, your bin should be full of rich compost.

Source: Rodales Organic Life
Image Source: Wikipidia/commons

Weed Control

Top Organic Weeding Tips

Find the best organic weeding technique for your garden.

Most gardens do have some degree of weeds.

Don’t attend to them and that “some degree” quickly escalates into a massive problem.

Every gardener should therefore understand what the different weeding methods are and which to apply in every situation.

This is a bit like an army battle plan, are you using an air attack or ground attack or are you sending in specialist forces?

Likewise, the level of thread the enemy posses will determine the strategy to employ.

This short video explains brilliantly how to use an array of weapons, from flamethrowers to more conventional methods.
And by the way – make sure you don’t get confused with what flamethrower to use …

Source: GrowOrganic Peaceful Valley
Image: Same as above & Wikimedia

Weed Control

4 Ways To Take Control Of Garden Weeds

Weeds are by far any gardeners’ enemy number one.  Some weeds are tough and will need more than one form of attack.

You have probably spent quite some time devising ways on getting rid of garden weeds once and for all. It is possible that you have not yet found a reliable long-term solution. Not all weeds will respond in the same way to the same treatment.  This article will introduce you to four different ways to attack even the most stubborn of weeds.

Learn about several purely natural methods, without the use of chemicals or suspicious sprays, and take full control of your own garden.

And if you have some great battle tactics of your own, we would love to get your feedback.

In early spring, weeds are polite, if enthusiastic, garden companions—but by the middle of summer they take on a whole new persona, growing so fast you can almost see them expand, rudely elbowing and overtaking your garden plants, and even threatening to take over your house if you leave for more than a few hours………..

A prime concern for controlling weed problems in the long term is not allowing them to go to seed! Off with their heads! Mow, string-trim, scythe, or hire goats—just get them cut down to size before any flowers open. One mowing won’t kill weeds with perennial roots, and even some of the annuals will regrow and try to flower again, but mowing is better than nothing, and when you do it periodically the short regrowth becomes a living mulch that helps protects your soil from wind and water…………

If you have any bare soil that gets sunlight and moisture, it will soon be home to sprouting weeds. The easiest way to prevent new weeds from sprouting from the many weed seeds sleeping in your soil is to keep the sun from hitting them and waking them up. Keeping the sun off older plants will also eventfully starve them to death (the more food they have stored underground, the longer the starvation takes—even years in some cases)…………..

So what about all those annoying weeds that pop up in places you can’t mow or mulch, such as in narrow cracks in your sidewalk or patio or intertwined with your perennials’ or shrubs’ roots………

Boiling water. If you have just a few cracks to deal with, just boil water in your tea kettle and pour a scalding stream along the crack to cook the roots. The weeds should be dead by the next day.

Flame-weeding. For larger areas, you may want to consider getting a special propane torch with a long handle called a flamer or a weed torch. No, you aren’t going to burn the weeds (and if they are dry enough to burn you shouldn’t even be thinking of firing up this tool); but waved over short green weeds for just long enough to cook them, a flame weeder is an amazing tool for keeping cracks, and even permanent fence lines, weed free. …………

In the past few decades, an increasing number of commercial products have been developed that kill plants on contact but are pretty much harmless once applied. Unlike the strongest and most notorious synthetic herbicides, these organic sprays are not taken up by the plant and are natural substances that break down rapidly in the environment.

This does NOT, however, mean you can’t hurt yourself with them in concentrated form. Read and follow all label cautions! ………….

 

Source:  Find the full article in www.rodalesorganiclife.com

Image Source: The image is from Petite Garden Center

 

General Gardening Wisdom, Plant Care

Learn A “Shady” Trick To Increase Garden Yields

A Gardener Reveals His Solution to Optimizing Unused Margins

Have you ever wondered what to do with those shady areas in your garden? If you have crops there, you know from experience, that the yield is lower than on the sunny patches.

You will be happy to learn that there is a way to put those shady margins to good use. You can easily transform your garden in such a way so that no area remains unused. If you’re curious how to do that, read the article and learn all the solutions and good practices. You will even learn how to rearrange your garden so you contribute to the eco-system.

Making your home garden productive is an in-depth and gradual process.    ……..

Assessing where the best sun is and where different microclimates lie can begin to help define use areas.  As each exposure and conditions create a different microclimate, you may have three to four distinct areas at your home, each with their own strengths and setbacks — even in a small urban lot. Best to work with the forces of nature to create plant groupings that reflect the microclimate of each area.

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As for a commercial example, if you were to try to grow two acres of carrots on a parcel of land, but only 3/4 of that land is in full sun, you may have trouble with carrot yields in the shadier area.  Would it not make more sense to work with the lay-of-the-land and plant something more shade-loving in that shadier area?

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As for the rest of the property, work with marginal or shady areas by assessing plants that don’t mind the shade. Many greens and culinary herbs originate in meadows and forest under-stories where the light is dappled. Because they do not have the pressure to produce fruiting bodies, greens are able to stay healthy in less than full sun.

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One simple addition that I love is to plant hearty annuals in the basins at the base of each fruit tree. Particularly when using drip irrigation, there is already a water source at each fruit tree. In this way, the secondary understory crop is acting as a green mulch for the fruit tree, reducing weeds as well as slowing evapotranspiration.

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My solution for these marginal margins is to plant native plants and drought-tolerant Mediterranean species………

As for the natives, they can provide insectary zones adjacent to your crops, which will ensure that your food crops get regularly pollinated. Think of these native flower zones as apartment complexes for beneficial insects. It is my great joy to return to a garden I have designed and see resident bee populations able to stay in the vicinity due to year-round pollen on-site.

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Source: Read the full article in Mother Earth News
Image Source: From an article in Money Crashers