How to Grow Organic Vegetables at Home

A Healthy Way of Living - Organic

An Important aspect of organic vegetable gardening is the health benefits. You won't need to worry about consuming chemical pesticides since everything you'll use in this type of garden will be natural. This means your food will be more nutritious and your body will be able to fight against illness better. The soil is one of the main things that need to be nourished if you want to produce the best nutritious vegetables. It's vital that plants have a healthy environment.

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How to Nourish Your Soil

Find out what type of soil you have by picking some up and feeling it. This will help you know how to nourish it in the best way. Sand, Loam and Clay are three basic types of soil. Loam soil is great to grow plants in because it has a lot of organic matter that holds plenty of water. Loam soil will stay together but crumbles easily. One way to tell if your soil is healthy is send a sample away to an agricultural agency. They will test it for nutrients and measure acidity or alkalinity. You can also buy soil tests to you can use at home. A mild acidic or neutral soil is usually fine for vegetables to grow. Compost and manure will improve the quality of your soil. Mulch can help soil keep nutrients and moisture.

More about properly nurishing the soil of a homemade garden

Picking an Area to Plant

Organic vegetable gardening needs to be done in area where there is direct sunlight for about six hours. Vegetables need this much sun in order to flourish so they shouldn't be put in an area where anything blocks the sun. The sun will also keep the soil warm. The area where you plant should also have adequate drainage. If there isn't enough drainage it can interfere with the nutrient absorption of the soil. Roots also won't grow properly. Too much drainage isn't good either and can take away nutrients. To find out if you have drainage problems you can use a percolation test which will measure how packed your soil is.

Picture guide of suggested areas to start a garden

Designing a Garden Plan

When designing an organic vegetable gardening plan take into consideration that when plants are full grown they take up more space. Planting in blocks will give you more space than planting in rows. Block planting can make it easier for you to take care of your vegetables. Whether you decide to plant in rows or blocks, you should never overcrowd any area so your plants stay healthy. The way you arrange your garden can also depend on the type of plants you use since some vegetables require more space than others.

picture guide of garden designs

Choosing the Types of Vegetables to Plant

First, you should always choose vegetables that you and your family will definitely eat. Some common types of vegetables are artichoke, brussel sprouts celery and spinach. Low-maintenance vegetables plants are great if you're a beginner at organic vegetable gardening. Beetroot is easy to care for because it only needs moist soil to grow. You can eat beetroot fresh from your garden between June and late fall. Radishes, zucchini, cucumbers and parsley are also easy to grow. Green beans are a great vegetable choice and a very productive plant.

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The organic vegetable garden will very quickly become one of your very best investments. Not only will you save money on your food bill, but you will also be able to give yourself or your family healthier choices at the dinner table. But before you begin your journey into this world, these are just some of the things that you should know:

Year Round Growing

Depending on where you live, you might not be able to grow your garden year round. Certain vegetables require strict temperature ranges. Brussel sprouts and onions for example should be grown at temps around 50 to 70 degrees. This is in my opinion, the lower end of the temperature spectrum for growing veggies.

Automatic Watering System

Make sure that you have some type of automatic watering system in place. This will aid you in the long run because we are all busy and the last thing that your organic vegetable garden cannot go without is WATER! You have to make sure that your garden is watered everyday. You don't won't dead seeds before your garden has had a chance to begin!

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Sunshine is Necessary

Make sure that you plant your garden where there will we lots of sunshine. Vegetables like any other plant need lots of sunshine to properly grow, around 5 to 6 hours of sunlight is optimal.

Study the location of your garden

You need to know the usual weather and type of soil that you have. This is so that you can decide on what types of plants should you include in your garden. For example, leafy vegetables such as spinach, lettuce, cabbages and parsley do not need as much sunlight as do the root vegetables such as radishes, onions and turnips. If your garden is somewhat shaded, you can plant these vegetables that do not require strong sunlight. The types of vegetables that need the most sunlight are those that produce fruit such as eggplants, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers.

Plant a variety of vegetables

This is called mixed cultivation. By planting a mixture of types of vegetables, you would have better and healthier yield. This is because your vegetables help each other grow. For example, you can plant carrots, leeks and onions together or cabbages with dwarf (French) beans. You could also combine lettuce, kohlrabi and red radish. Furthermore, such situations will draw beneficial insects to your garden and thus, you will have fewer problems with insect pests.

Adding mulch and compost

Mulch is made up of materials like sawdust, straw, wood chips, leaves, twigs etc. Adding mulch around your vegetables will protect your soil from dehydration, erosion and weeds. It also controls the temperature so your plants will be able to survive until harvest season. Besides mulch, also add compost to your vegetables, which is a natural fertilizer to your plants. The ingredients for compost are basically the same as that for mulch. You can either buy them or make them yourself. To make your own compost, just leave the materials in a pile or a bin for a few months so that it can decompose. Turn it over once a week and let nature take its course. After a couple of months or so, you will have lots of compost for your soil.

Get Familiar with your Vegetables

This comes with close and regular inspection. Look over the leaves, roots and stems every day and you would be able to spot early signs of pests or disease. By doing so, you can act on it fast and nip problems in the bud.