I would love to grow my own organic vegetable garden. What kinds of things or products should I use to fertilize and de-bug? Any other tips? Thanks! 🙂
I use chicken manure and cow manure from our farm. I put it on the ground and till the dirt about 10 times before I plant.
I don't use anything to debug or to control weeds. If I see bugs, I pull them off. Once my plants are big enough, I let the chickens control the bugs. I also weed the garden about three times a week.
booksbooksbooks
must reads:
john jeavons':
How to Grow More Vegetables…
elliot coleman's:
new organic grower
4 season harvest
bill mollison's:
permaculture
masanobu fukuoka's:
One Straw Revolution
teruo higa's:
Earth Saving Revolution
read these and you will not need many products 😉
but when you do:
http://www.seedsofchange.com/default.asp
http://www.groworganic.com
http://www.arbico-organics.com
http://www.lehmans.com/jump.jsp?itemType=PRODUCT&itemID=5937
http://www.amleo.com/index/item.cgi?cmd=view&Words=am12
http://www.amleo.com/index/item.cgi?cmd=view&Words=b14r
References :
For a small vegetable garden you have a number of options. Most of the time you can weed and de-bug by yourself, but a nice cedar mulch is really helpful in keeping weeds down. I like to use chicken shit for fertilizer. It's also useful to plant certain kinds of flowers (nasturtiums and marigolds) as bug-houses to keep them from eating your vegetables. Keep an eye out for evil caterpillars – you can pick them off by yourself. Slugs you can deal with just by leaving a can full of beer in the garden. The slugs will crawl into it and drown.
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support your local pbs network and they can send you a book and tips
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ORGANIC VEGETABLES
At home you can grow vegetables intensively and quite cheaply using your own wastes and by products and plantig for mulch
MULCH
The best in the world is the manure that comes from earth worms,if you mulch your garden you will get worms automatically
All manure is good to add ,cow,rabbit, and horse is the mildest and you can put it on directly.
Chicken is more acidy and is best to mix with saw dust or earth ,
You cannot put too much manure in your garden,it will just get richer and richer,
But to prevent smell mix it well with the ground or with something else before you put it on, like sand or earth or sawdust
Uric acid or nitrogen is good ,this is animal urine,
Farmers now put gutters in their stables to collect it and put it on the land especially for the grassy type species.
Cut down the weeds before they produce seeds and leave them where they fall,they will cover the ground and put even more organic matter on top,
You can use saw dust,leaves green or dry,and when you plant make a little space and plant in the mulch.this is the easiest quickest and by far most benificial way,for the quality of you soil.
To prevent weeds from coming all you have to do it turn out the lights,you can even use cardboard or black plastic(this is good for strawberries because they will rot if they touch humid ground,and the bugs can get to them).
What you do is to cover the ground with mulch which is the same principal as compost but it includes the whole garden surface
The top part of the soil where the topsoil is being produced houses a world or microbiotic life.
Mulch is organic material green or dry that covers the ground,the thicker the better the composting process will turn it in to black topsoil
The humidity is preserved underneath and promotes the devellopment of worms(their exists no better compost than their excrements)and a variety of micro biotic life which together with the mulch produce more topsoil.
The mulch also keeps the ground temperature even and guards against the impact of the rain ,which would other wise brings salt to the surfave if on unprotected land
Mulch also prevents the soil from drying out because of the sun and, lay it open to wind erosian.
do not use chemicals because the water will wash them into the ground and if enough people did that, you would be guilty of helping to contaminate subteranean water suplies that other people could be pumping up to drink
COMPOST
make a compost heap to accomodate al the organic rubbish that you end up with ,both from the garden and the house,all organic material is good for compost,eggshells,wood,
paper,bones,leaves,pine needles
sawdust,old clothes ,the dead cat,toilet paper
etc.
70 %of contamination comes from organic wastes that are mixed with the plastics etc.
HOW
Dig a shallow hole ,bowel shaped about 2 or 3 square meters ,have it in a shady place,like under a tree or built a little roof.
Keep the compost moist,have it near a sprinkler or regularly wet it with a garden hose ,dont saturate with water because the worms will leave
or die.
You can add a little lime at times,cover it with leaves or plastic to keep the moisture in.
We add red earth worms(californiana)which are surface eaters,the more worms, the quicker the decomposition and the richer the compost.
ORGANIC PESTCONTROL
IN AFRICA we had camelions in the kitchen to keep down the flies
In Mexico we got a sort of small lizard that lives on the wall ,and sit near the lamps ,and eat mosquitos all night,
In the mango orchards we release laboratory bred wasps to attack and kill the caterpillars that go for the mangos
There are small chickens, called a silky or bantom or chaparito which are all small chickens that do not scratch ,but run after ,jumping and walking insects,they take care of about 70 percent of all garden pests.
Feasants,guinyfowel,partridge will do the same work
Iguanas kill grashoppers and all kinds of flying insects
Birds we also dont kill
when the passion fruit is ripe ,a little black caterpiller comes and wants to destroy them,luckely a little finch type bird turns up and eats the black caterpillars.
In Mexico we have let mazacoas,which are, python type snakes in to the garden to take care of the rats.
In Africa we released mole snakes into the garden and field to combat the plagues of Norwegian rats that were destroying the fields
Ant eaters and armadillos take care of leafcutting ants that can destroy a large tree in a week.and eat beatles and such
Potbelly pigs and deer and normal pigs are good in an orchard because they eat fallen rotting fruit which breeds a lot of small flies.
In our water reservoirs we put fish to eat the mosquito larvas.
Ihave bred tree frogs from eggs and released them in the garden to eat mosquitos and horse flies.
You can keep a barrel of water and throw in everybodies sigarette buts
this can be used for getting rid of ants
A mixture of green liquid soap with garlic and terpentine also gets rid of a lot of leaf eating pests
Lavendal is good for moulds
and there is a great variety of weeds that acts as pest repellents when ground up (such as Khki boss in South africa )
Marigolds and similar looking flowers around vegetable keep bugs a way
So does garlic ,mint ,spring onions ,oregano ,thyme
when planted near Tomatoes
WATERHARVESTING
In Permaculture the rule is to harvest rain water to the point of Zero runoff.
This means that all of the rain that falls on an area is absorbed by the terrain and not a drop leaves it.
By building dams,ponds or swales, with interconecting ditches,
If there are enough of these ;the places ,where before the rain water ran over the ground into the rivers and on to the sea ,(in a matter of hours or days),
It now runs into absorbant dams or swales and saturates the ground and eventually reaches subteranean water deposits ,taking many months to do so.
Or it fills up ponds that can be used for Aquaculture.
And so a convex situation that repels water is transformed in a concave ,absorbant one and turning the area in to a sponge.
In Spain and Portugal ,which still display many examples of the conquering Moorish influence,One can find many remnants of Waterharvesting,such as aquaducts and tanks underneath the patios ,which collect the rain water from the roofs ,to be used in dryer times.
In Arabia ,on a large scale ,land has been shaped to catch and lead,rain water into sandy areas or to agricultural lands.sand is almost as good as dams because it absorbs water and holds it.(swales)
PERMACULTURE
Permaculture is a world recognised earth friendly movement and tends to include people that practice the concept and are active in the field.
The Permaculture designers manual by Bill Mollison,which cost about 40 dollars.
and is the best all round book you can get,on Environmental design,.(tagiari publishing, tagariadmin@southcom.com.au)
Some other writers that are on the internet are
david Holmgren
Larry Santoyo
Kirk Hanson
Masanobu Fukuaka has written ,
One-Straw Revolution
The Road Back to Nature
The Natural Way of Farming
http://www.context.org/iclib/ic14/fukuok…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/masanobu_fu…
Simon Henderson
and Bill Molisson.
a representitive of the concept in USA is
Dan Hemenway at YankeePerm@aol.com
barkingfrogspc@aol.com
http://barkingfrogspc.tripod.com/frames….
http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalo…
References :
Until recently I was a permaculture consultant for the department of Ecology for the regional government of Guerrero in Mexico
rbyderule yahoo 360, which has some stuff in English as well as this spaces
http://spaces.msn.com/byderule
I use chicken manure and cow manure from our farm. I put it on the ground and till the dirt about 10 times before I plant.
I don't use anything to debug or to control weeds. If I see bugs, I pull them off. Once my plants are big enough, I let the chickens control the bugs. I also weed the garden about three times a week.
References :
Make your own compost. It truly is gold!!
(cut grass, newspaper strips, leaves, weeds, coffee grounds, tea bags, egg shells(rinsed), ALL cut up veg scraps, corn husks you name it.)
Think layers brown/green
Example: veg scraps covered with newspaper or coffee grounds/brown leaves, type thing.
Among your plants, Incorporate herbs such as Basil. Bugs don't like smelly stuff.
Placing chopped garlic at the roots is a good start.
Using RED (powder) pepper such as paprika works GREAT!
(sprinkled around the base of your plants.) I would buy it in bulk at the flea market LOL
I use BasicH2 to spray instead of dish soap for a couple reasons:
Its 100% organic
It kills insects but also feeds the plants.
(you can email me how to get that if you like)
Its also a good idea to start planting things around the yard and go in the direction of a Butterfly garden and if you can/have room, put up a bat n' bird house.
You want to begin to attract the things that like to eat insects.
(Butterflies, birds, bats etc.)
I found that herbs all over the yard helped (especially for the mosquito population) A LOT until I got my garden going strong.
Balance is the key!
I learned a lot by watching HGTV shows on organic gardening of all kinds, and I chose to do everything as they say, "the low low budget old fashion way" just for the challenge.
It was time consuming but very rewarding.
You will find the healthier your garden, the stronger, which will help in retarding a lot of issues but as I said it is a challenge.
good luck I know you will enj0y the adventure!
References :
You can start by composting all your green waste it will provide a bounty of beautiful rich soil for your garden. Then get a book at the library on gardening for your region. It is just as important to grow hearty plants/foods that are friendly to your climate as it is to grow them chemical free.
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I use sheep manure, and especially when planting make sure to put the some at the roots, always very helpful.
Other then that, try composting, then you'll have compost soil you can put into it.
For debugging, I'm not sure.
But I've heard that if you have problems with bigger animals you can put bad tasting plants on the outside and good tasting plants on the inside, so if they come they get the nasty stuff and likely wander off to another garden that's tastier.
References :
Make a smoothie for your plants. It's a great fertilizer. Take all of your kitchen scraps, besides meat, and put them in the blender & liquidate them. Dilute it with water just enought to where you can see through it slightly, and pour on your plants.
Weed killer & pest killer, use straight vinegar but DON'T get any on your plants.
Recycle your bath & dish water, by watering your plants. The soap, shampoo & conditioner helps to keep the soil brokern up & loose. Therefore your plants roots will continue to spread rather than be cooped up & not produce much. Always water directly on your plants to knock off any spider mites & other living critters. There's no excuse for using store bought fertilizers & pesticides. If you need more recipes…e-mail me & I will send you a list. Good l;uck & keep up the good work.
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