Organic Gardening Tips: Natural Gardening—Good For You and the Planet

Here you'll find organic gardening tips you can use. And that's important these days. Concern for the environment, conservation, and natural gardening all go hand in hand. Composting, natural pest control and other organic container gardening methods—all covered in this section—produce great flowers, veggies, and herbs, but not at the expense of the planet.

So when this question comes up--Can we engage in frugal living and still have beauty in our lives?—the answer is an emphatic Yes!

We’re going to talk about four organic gardening topics here: Compost and Organic Soil Recipes, Mulching, Fertilizing, and Organic Pest Control.

Organic Gardening Tips: Composting and Organic Soil Recipes
Simply put, compost (also called humus) is decomposed organic matter. Dark, clean-smelling, and easily crumbled, it’s great for your plants and the planet. And perfect for container gardening.

Compost and your flowers and herbs
Compost literally feeds your plants. It contributes nutrients your flowers and herbs need. It also helps keep the soil from compacting. It aids in water retention. Good food, aerated soil, enough water—a great recipe for great blooms.

In herbs, compost helps fire up the flavor.

More Organic Gardening Tips:
There are two types of composting—Hot (also called “active”) and Cold (or “passive”). Hot composting means the temps. in the compost pile can reach 120 degrees.

The problem is, you have to tend it a lot—turning it, watering or covering it, making sure the carbon/nitrogen levels are adjusted—so it may not be the best idea for you, unless you’ve got the room, the time, and the commitment. Not to mention the leaves and grass clippings.

Ratio of Carbon to Nitrogen: Simply put, brown leaves provide the carbon and green grass clipping provide the nitrogen. For a Hot Compost pile, you need a 30:1 ratio. Slower piles can be up to a 50:1 ratio.

There's lots more organic gardening tips on passive and active composting, including How To plus Advantages and Disadvantages of each type.

Compost Tumbler Here's a great organic gardening tip--a very smart composter from Gardener's Supply. It's a really efficient design, very effective, and easy to use. Just fill it up with garden refuse, slide the door closed and give it a turn every couple days. It holds 6-1/2 cubic feet (42 dry gallons) and is only 31 inches long! A perfect fit for container gardening! Click here to order.

If you don’t want to make your own compost, you might find it (and mulch) free in your local parks. Check the larger parks in your area—all you need is something to shovel it up with and something to bag it in. The media, itself, is free.

More Organic Gardening Tips:
It's important to remember that uncured compost material can actually burn your plants and, as it cures, can sap the soil of nitrogen. Nitrogen is what contributes to healthy leaves and strong stems—so you definitely don’t want that to happen!

How to tell if the compost is cured? Unless you buy it or make it yourself, you’ll have to depend on your hands, eyes, and nose. If it’s dark, clean-smelling, and crumbles easily, it’s likely cured.

You can also purchase composting bins at reputable online organic products websites and from your local organic nursery.

I use compost in my big pots. I layer it with good potting soil, then mix it as best I can with my shovel and large fork. I’ve used from ten to about thirty percent compost to potting soil with great results.

Organic Gardening Tips: Make Your Own Organic Soils
Use the link below for soil and soilless potting mixes suitable for certified organic production. This means they’re the real deal—no hedging as with some commercially found products an other online recipes.

You’ll find mixes for seedlings, soils for seedlings to transplant size, Cornell-mix substitutes (these are a range of mixes designed for foliage and tropical plants—it promotes good drainage among other things), and some classic or more all-purpose mixes.

In all you'll find 5 Organic Soil Recipes.

Organic Gardening Tips: Mulch
Mulch is anything you put on the top of the soil to keep the roots cool and retain water. If it’s organic, mulch can also contribute a little to your soil’s nutrient composition. For container gardening, the amount of mulch is a negligible contributor.

Still, a little is better than none at all.

Here are 8 great reasons to mulch, plus the sorts of things you might use. There's also great ideas for organic and decorative mulches.

Organic Gardening Tips: Fertilizing
First, let’s understand what’s in fertilizer—what that "NPK" stands for.

Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium (the N-P-K) are called the macronutrients. They’re the essentials for good plant growth and production. For us, that means blooms or taste.

Nitrogen promotes healthy green leaves and strong stems. Phosphorus helps build a great rooting system. Potassium is what boosts flower production and helps strengthen the plant against diseases.

You’ll see the package labeled with “parts” of each—so a 15-15-15 fertilizer has equal parts of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium.

There are also micronutrients—usually magnesium, calcium, sulfur, iron, manganese, zinc, boron, and molybdenum—all good for healthy plants, but not reported in the numbers.

You can buy time-released, water soluble, and dry fertilizers.

Synthetic vs. Organic Fertilizer: The Great Debate.
What you’ll notice when you compare an organic fertilizer to the synthetic ones are the numbers. They’re really different, with the organic ones being much lower. It might make you think that synthetic fertilizers give your flowers and herbs more good stuff than organic ones.

Not so. It’s release time that matters. When you apply a water soluble synthetic fertilizer, you’ll get a quick release, but then the majority of the usefulness is gone. That’s why you have to apply them frequently.

And—when you water your plants, the synthetic fertilizer leaches out much more quickly than the organic ones do.

With organic fertilizers, you get a slower release time—much slower, studies show—and less leaching. So in the end, organics may be less-expensive and better for your flowers and herbs than are synthetic ones.

But—you’re the best judge of what works for you. Remember—Your Style, Your Way--that's the motto.

And, if you'd like to purchase organic fertilizer, here's a source for Compost Tea Granules you can mix with water.

You can also make your own Compost Tea.

Organic Gardening Tips: Natural Pest Control
Pests are not as much of a problem in container gardening as in flower, vegetable, and herb beds. There’s limited space, and you’re pretty much in control of the soil you use.

Of course the best protection against garden pests is good cultivation habits. Great potting soil, a good fertilizer regime, plant maintenance, dead-heading and pruning, watering. . . all this contributes to healthy, disease and pest-resistant plants.

And, remember, there are beneficial insects as well as harmful ones.

This bee visiting a cleome bloom is a good reminder of how much our beneficial insects need our protection.

Ladybugs, praying mantis, and lacewings are three insects you may want hanging out around your pots (though the praying mantis is a bit large—get one only if you enjoy watching it and have large trees, ornamental shrubs and the like). These good bugs eat the ones you don’t want marauding your lovely blooms.

But stuff happens. So it’s necessary to address how to rid our plants of unwanted visitors . . . but do it naturally.

There are two categories of natural pest control—Home Remedies and Organic Pest Control Products.

Organic Gardening Tips: Home Remedy
Here’s an example of a good home remedy for aphids and spider mites:

Put all this in your blender: 3 garlic cloves, about the same amount of hot, red chili, one half of a strong onion. You can add a tablespoon or so of light cooking oil to help it stick on the leaves. After it’s blended, strain it into about 4 cups of water. You can add another tablespoon of organic liquid soap or kitchen soap if you want.

One cautionary note: Liquid dish soap may contain harsh chemicals that will hurt the leaves. You may want to leave out the soap if you don’t have one without harsh detergents.

Spray this mix on the plant—be sure to hit the underside of the leaves where the bugs hang out. You’ll likely have to repeat this, especially for the spider mites.

And don’t forget to wear gloves—this recipe has hot chilis!

There lots of these sorts of recipes. But if you want commercially made organic pest control products, you’ll want to understand what they are.

Organic Gardening Tips: Commercial Natural Pest Control

Horticultural oils:
Good for nearly all the pests (aphids, spider mites, mealybugs . . . ) you’ll run into. As the name suggests, the oil coats the bugs and suffocates them. Some oils actually poison the insects. The added benefit is the oils are less harmful to the beneficial insects than are some other pest controls (which wipe them all out). Some oils can stain, so apply with an eye out for only hitting the leaves!

Insecticidal Soaps:
These are fatty acids and are effective in eradicating the usual culprits—especially aphids and spider mites. They damage the outer coating on insects, so getting the bugs covered is essential to the effectiveness of the soaps. They are not household soaps, but ones designed specifically to kill garden pests. You can’t substitute detergent—or you shouldn’t—because household products can easily harm your plants.Some plants can be burned by both insecticidal soaps and hort. oils, so be sure to read the directions for application.

Botanical Insecticides:
These are made from plants, but don’t let that fool you. They can be very toxic, especially to fish, honey bees, and cool-blooded animals. Some, not all. But you have to be careful—wear protective clothing when you use botanical insecticides. They sound harmless, but they aren’t always.

There's more organic gardening tips on this sort of natural pest control.

This page has a lot of organic gardening tips you can put to work in your container garden. One of the best is this natural pest control remedy you can use on many types of flowers and plants. From the environmentally sound Gardens Alive, it's versatile and easy to use. Definitely one of the best! Why? Because Pyola® Insect Spray kills on contact, and is so safe it can be used up to the day of harvest. Plus, it kills insects (such as ants, aphids, beetle larvae, cankerworms, fungus gnats, lace bugs, leafhoppers, leafminers, mealybugs, mites, and more), caterpillars, and beetles. It's nearly an all-in-one product. And you can use it on fruits, vegetables, and flowers (including roses). Click the photo to order, or here to visit the Gardens Alive website.

For information about where you can buy beneficial insects and other organic products, go from these organic gardening tips to our Garden Supplies section.