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The Guide to Organic Gardening

Chapter 1

Grow Organic

Organic Gardening Basics

What are Organics?

Organic amendments are any materials that have ever been alive either as plant or animal. Nutrients from organics are not immediately available to the plant. Soil microorganisms are needed to change nutrients through bacterial action into forms the plants can use in solution. Organics give a steady supply of nutrients over a long period of time; however, some, such as fish-based products, become available quite quickly in warm moist soil. Organics are primarily a source of nitrogen and trace elements, but many also provide some phosphates and potash. Organics in quantities up to one third of the total soil volume are very beneficial to the soil structure. The organics are converted by the microorganisms and are used by the plant. Therefore, they should be replaced at the rate they are used.

How can I control weeds without herbicides?

In a word, mulch. Blanket the ground around your plants with shredded leaves, straw, dry grass clippings, wood or bark chips, newspaper or other degradable material. That layer of mulch will block light from reaching weeds and stop or slow their growth. (Mulch also conserves moisture and builds your soil as it decomposes.) How can you get rid of weeds that are already there? Buy a good hoe designed for weeding, such as a stirrup or diamond style hoe, which allows you to slice off weeds below the soil surface.

You can suppress the growth of weed seeds early in the season by spreading corn gluten meal over the area where they're growing. Corn gluten meal, a by-product of corn processing that's often used to feed livestock, inhibits the germination of weed seeds—bear in mind, however, that once the weeds have gone beyond the sprout stage, corn gluten will not affect them. Also, corn gluten doesn't discriminate between seeds you want to sprout and those you don't, so avoid using corn gluten meal where and when you've sown seeds. It works best in established lawns and perennial beds.

Weeding may seem like an endless battle when you first start your garden, but Organic Gardening editors have found that if you diligently use your hoe, you will eventually reduce your weed pressures to almost nil. By the way, many of the most common weeds-such as dandelions, purslane, and lamb's quarters make a delightful addition to your spring salads. Just pull them up when they're young, pluck off the tender leaves to eat with other greens and discard the roots.

Making Compost

A compost pile can be started in sun or shade at any time of the year. Good ingredients include leaves, hay, grass clippings, tree trimmings, food scraps, bark, sawdust, rice hulls, weeds, nut hulls, and animal manure. Mix the ingredients together in a container of wood, hay bales, hog wire, concrete blocks or simply pile the material on the ground. The best mixture is 75-80% vegetative matter and 20-25% animal waste, although any mix will compost. The ingredients should be a mix of coarse- and fine-textured material. Avoid having all the pieces of material the same size since the variety of sizes will help air to move through the pile. Oxygen is a critical ingredient. Turn the pile at least once a month; turning more often speeds up the process. Keep the pile moist, roughly the moisture of a squeezed-out sponge, to help the living microorganisms thrive and work their magic. Compost is ready to use when the ingredients are no longer identifiable. The color will be dark brown, the texture soft and crumbly and the aroma that of a forest floor. Use compost in all bed preparations and as a high-quality mulch around annuals and perennials.

Bugs And Growing Organic

Don't wage chemical warfare on those pesky bugs in your garden. Not only are pesticides a health hazard, they may not even work. According to David Pimentel, entomologist at Cornell University, over the past 50 years pesticide use has increased 30 times (and toxicity of pesticides more than a hundredfold), yet twice as much of the harvest is lost to insects today. Here's a better way:

COMPOST: Healthy soil helps minimize pests. Build yours up with compost to add nutrients, promote microbial activity, and attract earthworms. Use clover as undersowing-it curtails weeds and actually helps certain plants, such as corn, cabbage, and cauliflower, flourish. Plus, after harvest, you have a ready-made cover crop that can be used as mulch.

ROTATE: Bugs are like the American electorate: confuse them and they'll do whatever you want. "You don't want bugs saying to each other, 'Hey, look, the carrots are in the same place they were last year,'" says organic farmer Scott Chaskey of Quail Hill Community Farm in New York. "Certain pests like certain conditions; if you're creating the same conditions year after year you're also going to have the same pest problems."

DISGUISE: Bugs use sophisticated cues to find the plants they want, so keep 'em off guard by surrounding your veggies with flowers. In particular, marigolds and calendula mask the odor of food crops and attract beneficial insects. Or, protect by planting in combinations: plant dill and chamomile around cabbage, leeks or onions with carrots, lettuce with strawberries or radishes, tomatoes with basil or parsley. "Plants that taste good together often grow well together," says Chaskey.

ATTRACT: After harvest, plant buckwheat—its white flowers attract "good" bugs like ladybugs, butterflies, bees, and wasps, which devour aphids and other pests. Raspberry bushes host the cocoon of the praying mantis, an all-purpose pest fighter.

GET HAIRY: When growing season is over, build up soil by layering a cover crop like oats or rye to add organic matter and prevent erosion. (Oats may die during winter; you must cut and till the rye.) Add "hairy vetch," a legume that twines up the rye, flowers, pulls nitrogen out of the air, and replaces organic matter. Put in a little nitrogen fixation bacteria to let "hairy" ensure that the nitro stays in (plants love nitrogen; it gives them their green color).