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: Natural Fertilizers, Alfalfa, Organic Gardening, Plant Foods

Organic gardening is the process of growing plants, flowers, vines, trees, bushes, shrubs, fruits, vegetables and anything else you can think of in a completely natural way. In other words: No pesticides, chemicals or harmful substances are used in the entire gardening process. Organic gardening is most used for fruit, vegetable, and herb gardening, because people don't want to have pesticides and chemicals on the foods they eat.

Organic gardening starts with the preparation of your soil. Since you won't be using chemical fertilizers in an organic garden, you'll need to make sure you're soil is as healthy as it can be, so that it can provide all the nutrition your garden plants will need as they grow. Preparing organic garden soil takes a little time and effort, but it's really worth it in the end.

You can create organic garden soil by mixing in healthy rich compost material. Some organic gardeners prefer to create their own compost using special bins or containers. In some places though, you're able to buy organic compost material from other gardeners or garden centers. It's fairly easy to get a start on creating compost though, even without using a special composting bin.

All you need to do is add a few things to your garden bed soil, and let those additives sit for several weeks before you plant. Everything you add to the garden soil should be natural though, because the nutrients are created as these organic items decompose.

First you need to loosen and turn the soil in your garden bed. Then add some organic materials to the bed such as used coffee or tea grounds, sawdust, shredded newspaper, fireplace ashes, or fruit and vegetable matter from your kitchen. You can add one or more of these items at once, but you don't have to add all of them if you don't have them. The smaller you make the material before adding it to the garden bed though, the faster it will turn to compost for you. So if you're using kitchen scraps for instance, try chopping or grating them into smaller bits before tossing them into the garden bed.

After adding the organic material to your garden bed, turn the soil some more so those new items are mixed in and covered decently. Then about two to three times each week, go outside and water the bed, then stir it around a bit again. After about three to four weeks, your bed should be ready to start putting plants or seeds in.

If you prepare your organic garden area in the fall though, before the first hard frost or freeze hits, the soil will be much richer and more ready for planting in the spring.

Tags: Organic Gardening

Planting a home vegetable garden is a wonderful way to provide your family with fresh healthy produce throughout the year. Even though the vegetables in your garden will be ripe for just a short period of time during the year, you can take the extras and put them into your freezer, or can them up in jars to put into the pantry, and both will be useable by your family throughout most of the entire year.

Planting your own vegetable garden also allows you to know more about how healthy or dangerous the foods you're eating are. Store bought produce for instance, is often grown on farms which use chemical fertilizers and poisonous pest control methods. Plants absorb whatever is put onto them or into their soil as they're growing, so if you're eating produce which has had chemicals and toxins used on it, those chemicals are also in the plant itself, and are being fed to your body.

When you grow your own vegetables in a home garden though, you can choose to use organic growing methods which are much safer for both the environment, you, and your family.

Growing a vegetable garden starts with planning. You'll need to decide first what vegetables you plan to grow in your garden. If this is the first time you're growing a vegetable garden, try to start small so you can get a feel for how much of each thing is needed as you become more experienced. A nice way to get started with your first vegetable garden is to select three to five of your families favorite vegetables, and plant just those the first season.

Next you'll need to decide where you'll place your vegetable garden. You'll need both plenty of space and plenty of sunlight to grow vegetables. Vegetables need at least five to six hours of full sunlight each day, so figure out where in your yard that much sun is available, then see if there is enough room there for the number of vegetables you intend to grow. If your vegetable garden will be small, you can probably choose a planting location which is only about three to four feet square.

Once you have your location chosen, it's now time to prepare the soil for your vegetable garden. You can create raised garden beds to plant your vegetables in if you'd like, and this will make preparation and care easier. If you're planting in the ground though, you'll need to turn the soil, remove all weeds, roots and large rocks, then mix some healthy compost into the soil so your vegetables will have the nutrition they need while growing.

After preparing the soil, you'll need to make planting rows, or long mounds of soil, to plant your vegetables in. These rows should run east to west so they'll get the best sun and water exposure. When you start planting seeds or starter plants, be sure to put those that will grow the tallest at the north side of your lot, so they won't shade the smaller plants too much during the day. The smallest plants should go on the south side of your vegetable garden plot, and progressively taller ones should be planted across.

Tags: Vegetable Gardening, Tomatoes, Peppers