Organic Gardening

Lasagna Gardening No, you can’t grow lasagna in your garden — sad, but true. What you can do is treat your garden bed like a big pan of lasagna, and assemble layer upon layer of goodness to create a thriving environment for your treasured plants. It’s inexpensive, and very worthwhile doing. All it requires are the right materials and a little elbow grease.

Open-Pollinated Seeds If you’ve ever saved the seeds from a Honeycrisp apple in hopes of planting them and creating a lifetime supply of free Honeycrisps, we have some bad news: seeds from hybrid vegetables and fruits (including Honeycrisp) will not reproduce true-to-parent...

Organic Growing Myths & Mistakes There’s more to organic growing than just clearing the chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides out of the garden shed. Knowledge is most certainly power, and having it can save you money, toil and trouble. Here are several myth-busters and information about organic gardening you probably didn’t know.

Preventing Problems Before They Begin Organic gardeners have fewer tactical weapons in their arsenal in the war against pests and diseases, as chemical problem-fighters are not in the mix. Non-chemical alternatives are, by nature, less potent and sometimes an extra effort is required to keep your garden in good health. Preventive action bridges the gap.

The Best Fruit-Tree Varieties for Organic Growing Raising your fruit trees without the aid of man-made chemicals can be a challenge, so why not make it an easier and more successful endeavor by choosing disease-resistant organic trees at the outset?

Growing More “Perfect” Organic Fruit In the absence of chemical sprays, dusts and synthetically manufactured growth-boosting fertilizers, organic fruit growers have learned to live with a few blemishes. It’s a small price to pay, knowing the fruit they grow is pure and natural. But did you know that you can grow more “perfect” organic fruit? Here are our best tips for the handsomest fruit on the block, without chemical sprays.

Watering & Conservation Water gives life to growing things — you couldn’t have a garden without it. The average garden requires about an inch of water per week, sometimes more, depending upon what’s growing there. Of course, it never rains precisely one inch per week, so we usually have to augment the water supply during dry periods. This article provides a number of best practices and helpful tips for proper watering and waste prevention.

Soil Health Go out to your garden and scoop up a handful of soil, then really look at it. Is it pale or dark? Does it have little holes throughout and crumble easily, or does it stick together when you compress it? Do you know whether your soil is healthy or not?

Beneficial Insects As gardeners, we are well acquainted with pest control. Japanese beetles, aphids and caterpillars are the bane of our existence, and a sizable portion of our time in the garden is spent trying to get rid of them. There are chemical controls, and also products like neem oil — which are made from natural ingredients — but there’s also another method of pest control, and that is to fight insects with insects.

Organic Mulches Mulching — which dates back to the Stone Age — didn’t really catch on in the U. S. in the ‘70s. Since then, mulch materials and practices have evolved into a literal science, and mulch has become something of an obsession among some yard enthusiasts.