How To Grow Organic Vegetables

Learning to grow organic vegetables is actually pretty easy, the first thing that you need to do is to stop any pesticides, fungicides, or even weed killers or bug sprays anywhere in your whole garden. If you use any of these then you cannot class your produce as organic, and if you did use the above and tried to sell them as organic vegetables in some countries you would be breaking the law by doing so. This is the first and most important rule.

It is a very good ideal to start with a small area to try organic gardening to make sure it is the right thing for you. Make sure the plot you choose is away from neighbours gardens or anything that might contaminate the vegetables e.g. you do not want pesticides drifting on to your plot from next doors garden.

To prepare the soil remove as many small stones as possible by using a garden sieve, this will be very time consuming but worth it to get the best soil quality. Then you should cover the plot with an organic material such as dried leaves, dried grass or other fine plant material.

Then get some high quality compost or fine black soil from a forest floor (that found in a pine forest is often ideal) and spread it thinly all over your vegetable plot. Doing this is key in helping to inoculate the soil on your plot with soil microorganisms, little insects, and worms that will hopefully do most of the hard work for you.

Mix this in using a spade to dig it in down to a depth of 3 inches, do not bury it any deeper or the bugs and insects will be killed off, where as you want to keep them alive.

You should aim to always keep the soil damp but not waterlogged, as the whole point is to keep air in the soil and keep these insects alive to do their job of keeping other pests at bay. Accordingly avoid walking on it or pressing it down hard as this will stop the airflow and kill the bugs.

Ideally build a raised bed, as this will allow access to your organic vegetable plot from all sides without walking on it. When planting your chosen vegetables then dig a hole slightly larger than the root ball, and then release the plant from its pot and fluff the plants roots out. Place the plant in the hole you have dug for but instead of back filing with soil like normal, and an organic mulch such as leaves or straw around the plant, this will enable the plant to be kept moist but maintain the airflow. The root ball will then need very careful watering with a dripping system being preferred rather than soaking the whole plant area in water. Low cost automated water drippers are ideal for doing this.

So there you are, you have taken the first steps to growing organic vegetables, the key point is the first one I made and that is never to use any pesticides of fungicides, and keep the plants aerated and do not soak the root balls. This last part is vital in order that the insects discussed above can play their part in acting as natural pest removers.

Lastly start your own compost heap, whilst you can buy a nice wooden composting box, just heaping up your waste organic material and leaving it to rot can work just as well, just turn it over regularly. You can then use this compost in future to occasionally apply around your vegetable plants.

So give growing organic vegetables a try today. If you found this article useful then why not find out more about Reasons To Eat Organic Vegetables and where to go about Buying Cheap Organic Vegetables

By Richard Allen -