Success with Organic Vegetable Gardening

First, before giving organic vegetable gardening tips, you need to know the basics of organic vegetable gardening, and how it differs from conventional, or non-organic gardening.  Organic vegetable gardening is best defined by what it does not involve, than what it does involve.  Organic gardeners do their best not to use synthetically produced chemicals while gardening.  They use natural alternatives for pest and weed control, and focus on building soil with lots of organic matter like compost and beneficial organisms like worms, helpful bacteria and fungi.  Gardening based on reaching a balance with the surrounding environment can be considered organic gardening.  For the most part, organic vegetable gardening is also safer than conventional gardening, in terms of producing food.  The word organic is not a blanket recommendation for safety, but on the whole, organic gardening practices are better for people, plants and the planet.

Tips for Organic Vegetable Gardening

For success with organic vegetable gardening, follow these tips.

• Focus on the soil. Build good soil structure and soil nutrition by adding well broken down compost, grass clippings and encouraging worms. This will improve drainage and feed your plants at the same time.
• Companion-plant. You can control a lot of pest and disease issues by inter-planting. Plant lettuce next to marigolds, onions next to cabbage and tomatoes near peppermint. The smells of the heavily scented plants will deter insects from snacking on the other plants.
• Use mulch. Mulch helps conserve water, and eventually breaks down, adding important organic matter and nutrients back into the soil.
• Till as infrequently as possible. Tilling breaks up the soil structure into a fine dust, which destroys its water and air holding capacity. Tilling also kills earthworms, which are some of the most important creatures to welcome into your garden.
• Maintain a compost pile. Composting happens on its own-it is how soil is created. You can help the process along by maintaining your own compost pile to use in your organic vegetable garden. Mix equal parts green matter (grass clippings) and brown matter (twigs, dry leaves and shredded newspaper). Turn the pile every few weeks and make sure it stays moist. Once it no longer heats to a temperature above 70 degrees, it is ready to use!
• Do not spray insecticides. The problem with insecticides (organic and synthetic) is that they kill all insects, including beneficial insects. If you leave the insect population alone, it will usually take care of itself.
• Encourage bird nesting. Birds are great pest controls because they eat small flying insects and grubs, which are the larva for larger, more destructive flying insects.
• Rotate crops. Organic vegetable gardening is most successful when you rotate crops. This helps confuse insects. Where you plant cabbage one year, plant tomatoes the next. Where you plant potatoes one year, plant beans the next. Alternate nitrogen-fixing plants like beans with nitrogen-using plants like corn. This will help your soil stay healthy, naturally.

Organic vegetable gardening is more a state of mind than a set of rules.  Start with maintaining a healthy soil, and follow the other tips above and you will be well on your way to a beautiful organic vegetable garden.