My OG Blog

Container gardening is the perfect solution for the Urban Gardener who is short on space. Container gardening doesn’t take much room and they are simple to care for. Much of the difficult work associated with gardening has to do with weeding and tilling. Weeds rob important nutrients and water from the plants in your garden. With a container garden weeds are almost nonexistant especially if you use a good sterile organic potting soil to start with! Since the soil is in a container your not walking on it and packing it down so there is no need to till. Just make sure it has at least six hours of sunlight and water regularily. You will be enjoying fresh organic fruits and vegetables before you know it!

The choices of what to grow in a container garden are not nearly as limited as you might think.  Some of the more obvious choices are tomatoes, peppers, stawberries and herbs. Pole beans and cucumbers grow nicely in a container, just train them to grow on a trellis, the leaf variety of lettuce also does well in a container even in a sunny window where it will keep you in fresh delicious salads all year round.

What you want to grow in a container is really only limited by your imagination, be creative and you can find a way to grow most of the fresh vegetables you love in a container. Admittedly there are a few vegetables such as corn that are not very practical to grow in a container since the yield per plant is poor in comparison to its size but there is still an abundance of choice! So don’t let a lack of space keep you from growing your own organic vegetables start a container garden today!

The fourth fundamental of organic gardening is planting cover crops.  Cover crops have more benefits than just just covering the soil. They can be used in several ways: to cover soil in unused parts of the garden, to protect beds over winter, to a help block weeds under fruit and vegetable plants (living mulch),  and to help block the growth of weeds in new beds. Cover crops will improve drainage , help prevent erosion, attract beneficial animals and insects, when you mow or cut a cover crop it is like an instant supply of mulch for other parts of the garden! Cover crops preserve nutrients which otherwise may leach out of the soil.

Stay tuned I will be starting a new section of posts on the different types of cover crops highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each!

In the two previous post we talked about the first fundamental collect, collect, collect! The second fundamental of organic gardening is to compost some of what you collected. I mention in that post that some of the materials you collect should be composted right away because they start to decompose so quickly. Materials like kitchen scraps and grass clippings start to decompose quickly and do not store well while items like diseased or pest infected plants should be thrown into the compost pile as soon as possible to prevent the spread of either the pests or the disease along with weeds which have gone to seed since the heat of the compost pile will help to kill pests, disease and weed seeds.

So you might be asking, if I am not saving all this stuff to compost what else should I do with all of these materials I have collected? If the material is one that will store well like pine needles, straw, leaves, saw dust, shredded paper, etc. then it will also make great mulch! Grass clippings are also a great mulch if you use it right away so if you don’t want to or don’t need to compost your grass clippings then use it to mulch. Mulching is an extremely important aspect of organic gardening. It helps the soil retain moisture, helps control weeds and provides shelter for beneficial insects! So it reduces the amount of time spent watering and weeding, conserves on water and supports the beneficial population in your garden meaning you can spend less time working and more time enjoying your organic vegetable garden! An added benefit of using organic matter to mulch with is that as it is acting as a mulch it is also beginning to decompose and when you go to plant in that area  again you simply work the mulch into the soil where it will finish composting and enrich your soil!

In my last post I wrote about benefits of grouping plants into families in your organic garden. This post is about plant friends. A plant friend is a plant that doesn’t belong to the family of plants but still provides some kind of benefit to the family. The friend may attract beneficial insects, or it may attract pests away from the family, it may provide shade or shelter, they may block weeds, or feed the soil. Whatever role they take on it is always good to have friends!

A classic example of planting crop friends together comes from Native Americans. They would plant corn, pole beans and squash together. The dense growth and prickly nature of squash growing amongst the corn stocks helps to keep animal invaders out and the squash has the benefit of open ground to grow on. The corn provides the pole beans with a natural trellis while the beans help to fix nitrogen in soil for the corn.

The most important plant friends are the ones who attract beneficial insects. To name just a few: dill attracts lady bugs, wasps, spiders, hoverflies and bees; Bachelor buttons provide nectar for many beneficial insects; Gazania is popular with lady bugs and spined soldier bugs; Marigolds attract hoverflies and parasitic wasps. I will be going into further detail on this in future posts.

So if we put plant families with plant friends, beneficial insects and beneficial wildlife what do we get? A garden neighborhood! No chemicals needed or allowed!

Before we look at whether composting weeds is a good idea or not it might benefit us to ask the question: What exactly is a weed? A weed is a plant just like any other plant. Unfortunately it is growing in a place where we don’t want it to grow. Example: beautiful green grass growing in your lawn is usually considered quite desirable, however if it is growing in the garden it’s a nuisance and becomes a weed. This being said there are two schools of thought (kind of 3 if you count me) about what to do with the weed once it is removed.

The first says you should burn it or dispose of it. That you should not use it in compost pile as it may have weed seeds which will survive the composting process and reestablish themselves in your garden when you add the compost.

The second thought process says you should compost the weeds. Since they are very rich in trace minerals and other nutrients which will help your garden flourish. Some weeds even have beneficial qualities if they are not allowed to get out of control, but that’s a topic for another day!

I personally take the middle road. If you are keeping up on the weeding in your garden the weeds have not matured enough to have developed seeds and should be composted. Why not take advantage of the extra trace mineral and nutrient rich composting material? On the other hand if you have missed a weed or two and it has matured to the point where it has developed seeds I would probably choose to throw it away instead of composting it. I really don’t need the extra work later.  I like to keep it as easy!

If you are just starting out and you have a brand new raised bed garden weeds should already be well under control, but if you didn’t use all sterilized soil or your raised bed garden is a couple of years old some weed seeds may have drifted in an being rearing their ugly heads. There are a few ways you can control weeds organically.

First and the one I like best is mulch. By mulching around the plants in your garden it prevents the sun from reaching the soil and helps keep weed seeds from germinating. What should you use for mulch? I prefer to use an organic matter for mulch like, coconut coir, peat moss or grass clippings because these break down with the exposure to moisture and sun and begin to compost adding valuable nutrients to the soil. Next spring just work them into the soil and you’ve already added a considerable amount of organic fertilizer! Another added benefit of mulching is that it helps control moisture loss which is critical in the hot summer months

Another way you can control weeds is with a plastic matt. This method cannot be done with an already growing bed you need to do this when you plant the bed. Just cover the entire bed with plastic and make holes large enough to put your plants in. Again it prevents sun and water from reaching the weed seeds and they will have a difficult time germinating. Another disadvantage of this method is you need to have started plants you can’t really sow seeds directly in the bed.

Then there is the just good old weeding and cultivating. It is usually easier to pull up the weeds if the soil is moist, not soaking wet, and loose. You want to try to remove the entire root system of the weed so it doesn’t come back. Loosening the soil with a hand cultivator or hoe will help enable you to get the whole root system.