When you decide to try your hand at organic gardening, one of the most frustrating parts of the entire process is trying to control pests, disesases, and other miscellaneous problems that come up with any form of gardening. Thankfully though, there are natural techniques which can be used to solve many of these common gardening problems, and one of those techniques is known as companion planting.

Companion planting is the process of planting specific flowers, herbs, and vegetables together in a way that either enhances the taste of the vegetables, and/or serves to help naturally control common pest and bug related problems in the garden.

Companion planting is important and useful for natural garden pest control, but it's also very important in vegetable gardening too. When you decide to plant two or more vegetable plants close together in your garden, you could end up with either a very bad tasting vegetable, or an extremely good one. And how your vegetables taste is dependant upon which companion plants you chose to plant together.

If for instance, you plant basil close to your tomatoes, or put them together into the same container garden, you can enhance the flavor of the tomatoes - particularly when using them to make home made sauces such as spaghetti sauce.

Chives is another excellent companion plant for tomatoes as well as carrots. Not only will the flavor improve, the growth of these plants will too. Chives also helps to keep aphids away from tomatoes, and they're thought to help keep carrot rust flys away too.

Chives can even help prevent black spot on roses. They need to be planted near the roses for two or three years before they begin to help prevent this common disease though.

Planting cabbage with celery, dill, onions or potatoes will benefit all these plants, but trying to plant cabbage too close to tomatoes or strawberries may cause problems with both growth and production.

Marigolds, also known as Calendula, are a very common flower to use for repelling pests around your home and garden. These little flowers have been used for this very purpose for centuries. You can scatter them throughout your yard and garden to help repel a variety of common bugs and pests. You need to plant marigolds which have a scent though, or else they won't work to repel the bugs. Some people don't like the scent of marigold flowers either though, so if you've never smelled them yourself, you may want to before planting too many.

Tags: Marigolds, Organic Gardening, Companion Plants

Fertilizing an organic garden is easier than most people think. Just as you can improve the flavor of vegetables by planting certain plants together, and you can help repel common pests, insects and diseases by planting certain plants together, you can also fertilize your garden naturally using specific plants too.

One of the best fertilizers you can use in a garden of course, is compost. And compost is made with all natural, organic materials such as grass clippings, shredded leaves, sawdust, fireplace ash, and even shredded newspapers. You can also toss in fruit and vegetable matter from the kitchen to help your compost become even more rich and fertile for use in any area of your garden.

Besides compost though, you can actually just put certain plants into your garden area to help fertilize the soil, and provide additional nutrients your plants need.

Alfalfa for instance, is a wonderful hardy plant which can survive in almost any conditions, yet it's very high in a large number of vitamins and minerals that are beneficial to your soil in general. Alfalfa will provide your soil with nitrogen, iron, magnesium, phosphorous, and potassium for instance, plus it's long strong roots will help break up hard, rocky, clay like soil too.

German Chamomile is an annual growing herb which will reseed itself each year if you leave some of the flowers unpicked each season. This herb helps contribute calcium, potassium, and sulfer to your soil. It's also excellent for improving the taste of cucumbers, cabbage, and onions. A perennial version is the Roman chamomile, and it will grow in almost any kind of soil with full sunlight.

Clover is an excellent addition to any garden. It has long been considered a source of "green manure" and can be a companion plant to almost anything. In fact, it's particularly useful for increasing the soil fertility of grapes. Clover will attract many beneficial insects to your garden too.

Comfrey is another herb which has wonderful medicinal healing properties, plus it provides your garden soil with calcium, potassium, and phosphorous. This herb likes to grow in moist areas.

Kelp is a natural seaweed which works wonderfully both as a fertilizer and a pest repellant. You can put a natural kelp supplement pill into the soil near any plants to help them grow more beautifully, and you can even drop one into a flower vase to help your cut flowers live longer. Put kelp into a tea mixture for spraying, and it feeds the plants through their leaves while also repelling a variety of common garden pests and bugs too.

Tags: Organic Gardening, Alfalfa, Natural Fertilizers, Plant Foods

Tropical gardens have become quite popular in more recent years, because the plants that you can grow in this type of garden are full of gorgeous color. Tropical plants often have a more unique look about them too, which makes them all the more appealing for areas of the country where everyone seems to plant the same things in their gardens.

Tropical gardens often attract butterflies, bees and hummingbirds too, and this makes the garden all the more enjoyable throughout the year. Tropical gardens can contain a wide variety of plants, but some require lots of heat while others require lots of water. Tropical gardens also don't often survive freezing temperatures either, so many people in cooler climates choose to create tropical container gardens which can be taken inside when bitter cold winter temperatures come around.

Most tropical plants require a lot of sunlight though, so if you're planting them into a ground based garden or raised garden bed, be sure to choose the sunniest spot you can find in your yard. You'll want to plant tropical plants and flowers in areas which get a minimum of six hours direct sunlight each day.

Some tropical garden plants such as bougainvillea, thrive on irregular watering patterns. The bougainvillea plant for example, is natural in areas of the world where there could be pouring rain for weeks, then months of dry spells. You can mimic these conditions when growing bougainvillea plants in your tropical garden by watering them really well for a week or two, then not watering them for at least a month. You'll find that these tropical plants seem to bloom best when they've been stressed, or kept dry for extended periods of time.

Bougainvillea plants can be grown in a variety of ways too. Most varieties will climb as a vine in the right conditions and with the right care, but these plants can also be shaped and pruned into small shrubs and bushes too. Bougainvillea plants have hook like thorns on them which can hurt if you're stabbed by them, but these thorns is what allow the plant to climb fences and trellises, and create a gorgeous display of color.

Bougainvillea tend to create tiny flowers which most people miss. The flowers are surrounded by paper thin bracts which bloom in a variety of bold, beautiful colors, and most people think these bracts are the actual flowers of the plant. The flowers themselves though, are tiny and located inside the bracts.

Esperanza and Spanish Broom are two more excellent plants to put into a tropical garden. These plants do quite well in really dry gardens too, because they're both heat and drought tolerant, which makes these beautiful plants quite hardy and tough. Despite their toughness though, both of these plants produce gorgeous, bright showy yellow flowers that bloom continuously from spring through fall.

Tags: Tropical Gardening, Bougainvillea