When you properly apply organic horticulture techniques, your garden will show great results. People will be able to tell that you love your plants and want them to be healthy. This is a great thing. As any other skill, your organic gardening skills will only grow with time and experience. The following tips can assist you.
Do not plant perennials that are prone to snail infestation. Slugs and snails are voracious eaters that can destroy a plant literally overnight. These garden vermin prefer plants with tender, herbaceous stems and leaves, particularly seedlings and young plants. There are perennials that slugs do not want to eat, the ones that they hate have hairy leaves, or are unappealing to their taste. Selecting an unappetizing perennial, such as campanula or heuchera, will help stop them from being eaten.
Having healthy soil in your garden is your number one defense against pests! The hearty plants that will grow in a garden with rich soil can resist the bugs and diseases that weak plants can't withstand. Healthy, rich soil with fewer chemicals will increase the yield of your plants, and reduce accumulated salts.
Baking Soda
If you see mildew that is powdery, stay away from expensive chemicals to treat it. Mix a solution of baking soda, water, and a tiny bit of dishwashing liquid. Spray the mixture on the plants once every seven days or so until you no longer see the mildew. Baking soda will not damage your plants and treats the mildew gently but efficiently.
Before you even start planting the garden, check the soil. Consider getting a soil analysis and working on enrichment techniques for giving your garden a vibrant and healthy environment. The cost of the analysis will be easily offset by the benefits of a healthy and vibrant crop.
Plants need ample amounts of CO2 to reach their maximum growth. Most plants grow better in higher levels of CO2. Getting a greenhouse is the best way to get a higher amount. CO2 levels, when kept high, give your plants optimal growing conditions.
Divide your irises. You can increase the number of irises you have by splitting clumps that are overgrown. If you notice a dead foliage, lift the bulb. The bulbs will naturally split in your hands, and after you replant them, will flower about a year later. Split rhizomes with a knife. Discard the center and cut pieces from the exterior. At the least, each piece will need to have one strong offshoot. You also need to make sure that you replant the new pieces as soon as possible.
An excellent garden shouldn't begin from plants. They should begin from seeds. When you grow a new garden, start the environmental way, from seeds. It is common for commercial plants to be packaged in plastic that is not commonly recycled, and therefore, it is better to use seeds or purchase plantings only from merchants who make use of organic packaging.
Do some research to find out the best time for harvesting your vegetables. Different vegetables and fruits have their ideal seasons and months where they flourish, survive, and are harvested at the highest quality. Baby peas, for example have much better flavor if they are harvested early in the ripening process, as does zucchini. Tomatoes, though, are tastiest when they have been allowed to ripen on the vine as long as possible. To get the most out of your horticulture efforts, find out when to harvest your crops.
Water containing some aspirin helps your plants fight illness. To add the aspirin to the plant, dissolve about one tablet and a half into approximately two gallons of fresh water. Next, coat the plant with the aspirin mixture by spraying it on the leaves. Give your plants a spray of the aspirin-water mixture about one time every three weeks.
It is easy to quickly prepare your perennial garden ground. Take your spade and work up a thin layer of soil. Turn that soil over, then spread a few inches of wood chips on the newly turned area. After a few weeks, you may then utilize the area to plant your flowers.
When composting lawn clippings, leaves, and other materials, it is best to add the same amount of green, freshly-cut material as you do dried material. Examples of good green material to use for compost include grass clippings, flowers, leaves, and weeds. Paper and straw are dry plant materials. You should not use things like meat scraps, charcoal, blighted plants or the manure of meat-eating animals in your compost.
A rule of thumb followed by many planters is to bury the seeds in soil to a depth of around three times the diameter of the actual seed. There are some seeds, however, that you should not cover at all, since they need sunlight to germinate. Some common examples include ageratum and petunias. If you're not sure, a guide either comes with seeds, or you can find this information online.
You now have the information you need to start applying these tips to your own organic garden. This is awesome! The tips here should help you with your organic gardening. Don't stop here, though, you should continue learning. In fact, it is possible that you came across a trick that you never would have thought of otherwise.