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Keep your garden free of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers and garden the organic way.

Get the most out of nature and enjoy a garden that is free of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.

These days, many things come organically. We often hear of organic produce, organic meats and organic health and beauty products. Perhaps the best way to go organic, however, is in your garden. Pesticides, fungicides and herbicides can severely damage your garden and your lawn, but organic gardening works with the garden’s natural system to produce a healthier garden.

If you’re thinking about turning your garden into an organic one, read the tips below and find out if organic gardening is right for you. Chances are, it is!

1. Plan Ahead
   In general, planning is good for any new project you take on, including an organic garden. Think about the elements of a garden that are important to you. Organic gardening incorporates all of nature-it is an eco-system consisting of soil, water supply, wildlife and insects. Think about your organic garden and how it looks and works, and then jot down your wants and needs. This is an effective way to plan, and you can reference your notes and tweak when necessary.
2. All About Soil
   In essence, organic gardening starts with the soil. Soil is the heart of an organic garden. When soil is nourished with organic substances, it becomes fertile and moist. This enriched soil produces a garden that is abundant with healthy plants, flowers and organisms.
3. Compost ­- An Inexpensive & Beneficial Fertilizer
   Kitchen scraps. Grass trimmings. Fallen leaves. Deceased plants and animals. Coffee grounds. Wood chips. What do all of these things have in common? They make great compost-a mineral-rich, dark brown material consisting of decomposed organic matter that is ideal for fertilizing soil and controlling soil erosion. Compost is an important component in organic gardening, as the waste is all natural and full of nutrients. You should mix compost with the soil in your organic garden every week or two.
4. Additional Organic Fertilizers
   Compost, while highly beneficial, is not the only organic fertilizer you can use in an organic garden. For natural fertilizer that is chock full of nutrients, try the following:
   • Bone meal – This is self-explanatory, as it consists of crushed bones. Provides a good supply of phosphorous.
   • Manure - If properly mixed in with the soil, manure from a cow, chicken, horse or sheep is a great way to fertilize an organic garden. (To cut down on the stinch, you can compost the manure first.) A good supply of nitrogen.
   • Epsom salt – A natural approach to increase the amount of sulfur and magnesium in the soil.
   • Compost tea ­- Place compost in water and let decompose. Spray on soil and plants. This nutrient-rich fertilizer is a good supply of microorganisms and humus
5. Out with Herbicides & Pesticides!
   A no-brainer, herbicides and pesticides scream murder on an organic garden (or any garden, for that matter). While pesticides may serve a purpose of some kind, they often kill the good insects that help repel problematic pests. There are safe, natural products on the market, as well as some recipes you can make yourself, that will help your garden flourish the organic way.

• Did You Know? Peppers, catnip and garlic serve as natural pesticides, and corn gluten meal serves as a fungicide and herbicide, as well as a good supply of nitrogen fertilizer.

Now that you’re armed with 5 great tips to turn your garden into an organic one, it’s time to step outside and get to work. Nurturing your garden the organic way not only benefits the environment, but also serves as a fun pastime!

A little landscaping design can turn an ordinary backyard into a beautiful getaway.

Some people refer to a lawn as the picture frame for landscaping designs.  A beautiful lawn will showcase a beautiful landscape in the best possible light.  When you spend a lot of time creating the healthiest lawn possible, you will want to adorn the lawn with well-tended landscape beds.  There are some key design principles to keep in mind when selecting landscaping plants and landscaping rocks for planting beds.  If you can remember these three main principles-and apply them equally to choices of landscaping plants and landscaping rocks, you will have a beautiful garden.

Basic Elements of Design

There are three different elements of design you need to understand in order to create beautiful landscaping designs.  These design elements can be applied to all elements of the landscape, including plants, hardscape (sidewalks, patios and curbs), landscaping rocks, edging, and furniture.  Anything that is part of the landscape should be carefully considered for their design element characteristics, to ensure that you have a balanced, beautiful landscape.

Landscaping Design: Color

Color is reflected in landscaping plants, rocks, gravel, and furniture.  Plant leaves and flowers should both be considered for their colors.  Some plants, particularly perennials and grasses, are used mostly for their leaf colors, not their flowers.  Elephant ear, ornamental grass, caladium, and coleus are all selected for leaf color.  Annual flowers that bloom all summer are selected for flower color.  Zinnias, annual vinca, petunias, geraniums, lantana, and salvia are flowers that bloom all summer.  Thus, their flower colors must be considered carefully as part of the landscape design.

When considering color in the garden, you need to think about the hue of the color.  Do you want to use warm colors or cool colors?  Planting cool colors adds depth to the garden, because cool colors appear further away than they actually are.  Warmer colors come to the forefront of a garden design.  Mixing warm and cool colors will make the garden or landscape look more dimensional, and deeper than it is.

Cool Colors and Warm Colors

Warm colors appear closer than they actually are, and cool colors appear further away.

Warm colors include: red, orange, yellow, pink, and fuchsia.  Cool colors include blue, green, and purple.  White is more or less a neutral color, but it is jarring to the eye.  It must be used repetitively in order to tie the garden together, not break it up.

Texture

Landscaping plants, landscaping rocks and furniture texture are also an important factor in landscape design.  Contrast of textures, as well as contrast of color and form are what makes landscaping design interesting.  If the whole landscaping bed is filled with plants that look alike, even if they are not the same plant, the bed will be boring, and will blend in to the surroundings, or be unnoticeable.  To make an interesting design, you need to mix up smooth textures and fine textures.  The contrast of a very fine grass and the wide, smooth leaves of cabbage would be striking and interesting.

Form

The last element of design is plant form.  Form is the overall shape of the rock, plant or piece of furniture.  Different forms include upright and linear, prostrate and sprawling, rounded, pyramidal, oval, columnar, square and more.  As with color and texture, to prepare a uniform, pleasing landscape design requires repetition of form, even if the plants, rocks or furniture are not the same.

A fountain shape could be repeated with Zelkova trees, ornamental grasses, and false indigo.  Plants like Italian cypress, lilies and gladiolus are columnar.  Cotoneaster, daylilies, hosta, some dogwood trees and cherry trees have a strong horizontal shape.

Texture, Color and Form Together in the Garden

The combination of color, texture and form together in balance create a restful place for the eyes.  The picture of the arid garden was taken at the Ruth Bancroft garden in San Francisco.  The principles apply across all landscaping zones, landscaping plants and landscaping designs.

Properly caring for your garden means knowing how much to water your garden.

Proper garden irrigation is a necessary element to a prosperous garden.

Whether you’ve planted a garden for the first time, or you consider yourself a garden connoisseur, most homeowners recognize the importance of proper hydration to ensure a healthy garden year round. Garden watering is not a difficult task per se, but understanding when and how much you should water varies with every garden.

Of course, garden watering is not as critical during the fall, winter and spring months, but the summer brings about dry, hot conditions, whereby your garden requires additional water. The amount of water you give your garden depends on the climate in which you live, as well as the flowers, produce and/or herbs that you’re growing.

Although garden irrigation is especially important during the summertime, caring for your garden should take place much earlier than June. In fact, garden maintenance should be an ongoing project. The following watering tips will protect your garden throughout the year, as well as save water.

• Soil Preparation – Before planting your garden, make sure the soil is enhanced with natural, organic matter. Why? Enriched soil retains water much more efficiently than soil that hasn’t been prepared properly. And, you’ll find that garden watering isn’t as time consuming, as the soil absorbs the water better.
• Use Plant Beds – Rather than plant in separate holes, use prepared plant beds. Why? Plants that grow in individual holes of unprepared soil do not produce substantial root systems; as a result, garden watering is much more demanding in order to survive.
• Plant in Groups – As with anything else in life, planning your garden and the location of plants is important. Why? If you plant according to garden watering needs, you’ll find the garden watering process much easier, particularly in the hot months when water requirements are greater.
• An Inch a Week Will Do – Knowing how much water you should give your garden weekly is tricky, as everyone’s garden is different. However, a general rule of thumb is that your lawn and garden require approximately one inch every week. Garden watering is easier with a sprinkler system, but don’t water all at once. Instead, water your garden three times a week, giving it about one-third of its weekly dosage and a couple days of rest in between watering. If it rains during the week, do your best to subtract how much water you use accordingly.
• Use More Mulch – Not only is mulch aesthetically pleasing, but it conserves water too. Mulch is a great way to retain moisture in your plant beds, containers and annuals. Therefore, use more mulch and think of it as a part of your garden irrigation system.

Gardening and garden watering are not difficult tasks, as long as you’re equipped with the right information. These tips will help your garden flourish regardless of the season, so go ahead: Get growing!

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.

Mulches, and fertilizers and compost! Oh my! Having a yard that is worth of a photo shoot for the local home and garden magazine, doesn’t just happen. It takes work, work and more work. However, it is worth it. And a gorgeous green yard and colorful gardens are not just as a status symbol. It has been found that home owners who improve the properties yard landscaping may add from to 5-11% to the base value of a home; also, investing in lawn landscaping has a return of 100% for the home owner. Of course, as those who love gardening, for the homeowner, or even the conscientious renter, having a beautifully landscaped yard is its own reward.

Steps of Lawn Landscaping:

If a man’s home is his castle, then the lawn is the palace grounds. However, before you can have that luxuriant lawn, landscaping plans and procedures need to be identified.

1. Evaluation- take a close look at your lawn keeping these questions in mind- What will you use your lawn for?

• How much time do you have?
• Is your lawn animal-friendly?
• How much sun is there?
• What is your soil like?
• How much water access do you have?
• Do you have a place to park your lawn landscaping tools when not in use?
• Who will be doing the work?

2. Soil testing-once you know your soil’s components you can begin to enrich it with mulches and soil additives or amendments, if necessary, so that it is ready for lawn landscaping. As you work your soil, you will find yourself planning where the trees, shrubs, flowers gardens will someday flourish. You may even wish to design a yard landscaping blue print to help decide what areas will need edging, or where you may want to place flower gardens, shrubbery or decorative items.

3. Depending on what region or zone of the country you live in, select a ground cover that will thrive. Cold region grasses include bluegrass, rye grass, fairway, and fescues; warm region grasses include Bermuda grass, Zoysia, Centipede, and carpet grass; transition grasses are bluestem and buffalo.

4. Watering needs—a crucial part of lawn landscaping is your water supply. Be sure to think about the ease or difficulty of keeping your lawn refreshed and healthy. While some forms of yard landscaping need minimal amounts of water, other plants require a great deal. If you live in an area that gets a low amount of water, be sure you plan your yard landscaping accordingly.

5. Mowing and maintenance – Depending on your grass seed choice, the size of your lawn, and the style of mower you select, you will be spending a fare amount of time keeping your yard attractive, but it is worth it to see that beautifully landscaped yard and being able to say, “Look what I (or we) did!”

An enviable lawn can be yours. Just take some time to plan and prepare and before you know it, your lawn will be the talk of the town!

Improper lawn drainage can hurt the health of your lawn. Make sure that excess water is draining properly from your lawn for optimal lawn health.

Good lawn drainage is imperative for lawn health.  Drainage affects a variety of plant functions including metabolism, photosynthesis, and root health, as well as pest and disease resistance.  When you read books, websites and extension pamphlets about plants, you often see that to diagnose a plant problem, first you start with the roots.  If the roots are healthy, the rest of the plant has a better chance of being healthy.

When the roots have problems, the rest of the plant will be affected.  Roots in soil with poor drainage can rot.  Wet conditions and lack of air provides an ideal place for growth of disease-causing bacteria.  Additionally, if water fills all of the spaces near roots that generally hold air, the roots cannot take in oxygen, which is necessary for the metabolic processes through which plants break down the sugars they have produced during photosynthesis.

Factors Affecting Lawn Drainage

Several factors affect the quality of lawn drainage.  The soil type is one of the greatest factors.  Soil that is high in clay, but low in sand or organic matter will have poor drainage.  The molecules in heavy clay soils are close together, providing few spaces for air and water to move around.  In clay soils, drainage is slow to non-existent.  Very sandy soils have the opposite problem.  They drain quickly-sometimes too quickly.  Plants that are not well adapted to sandy soils, and like to stay on the dry side do not do well in sandy soils that drain quickly.  Sandy soils also leach nutrients quickly because of their rapid drainage.  The sand particles do not easily hold on to nutrients and frequent rushing of water carries nutrients out of the soil as it quickly drains.

Another factor that affects lawn drainage is soil compaction.  Soils that sustain heavy foot traffic consistently become compacted-literally pushing the soil particles together and squeezing out any spaces for air and water movement.  Compaction can cause lawn drainage problems by prohibiting water from penetrating the soil in the first place.

How to Improve Lawn Drainage

If your lawn is poorly drained, all is not lost.  You can alleviate lawn drainage problems with a few steps.  The first step to improving lawn drainage is to aerate the lawn.  The best aeration is done with a punch-core aerator that actually removes cores of soil, rather than pushing the soil further into the ground.  The act of aerating in and of itself will add air pockets.  To improve the soil drainage long-term, the next step is to top-dress the soil with a compost/topsoil or compost/sand blend.  This will gradually introduce more organic matter into the soil, which will improve the drainage long-term.  Organic matter works both to hold water and improve drainage.  The unique properties of compost for improving drainage have not yet been replicated by any man-made substance.  Because of these dual properties, addition of compost to your lawn soil will solve lawn drainage problems for both sandy soils and soils with heavy clay content.

For healthy turf, you must pay careful attention to your lawn drainage.  If necessary, take the steps described above to solve lawn drainage problems and improve your lawn for the long term.