Another thing that new organic gardeners become confused about, and sometimes even frustrated with, is figuring out how to control pests and bugs in their gardens. It doesn't matter if you're growing roses, annuals, perennials, bushes, trees, vegetables or something else… all plants have one or more bugs which seem to like to feed on either the plant leaves and stems, the flowers themselves, or both.

The most natural way to control pests in your garden is to simply hand pick the bugs off of leaves and flowers as you find them. This is a time consuming process for large gardens though, and many people do not like controlling pests this way alone. Thankfully there are many other things you can do to help with the process naturally though.

One step you'll need to take is effective weed control. Be sure to leave enough space between your plantings to allow yourself room to pull up weeds as you see them. In vegetable gardens particularly, it's helpful to leave a wide enough space between the rows which will allow you to take a hoe to the area, because this makes weeding go much faster. If you pull or hoe weeds while they're still quite young and small, you'll see the best results too. Because they come out of the ground much easier, and they don't have a chance to start dropping seeds and drawing in a lot of bugs and pests to the area.

Another natural way to control pests though, is through planting itself. By planting certain herbs and flowers around your garden, you can naturally control and even repel a wide variety of common garden pests.

Planting chives around your apple trees for instance, will help prevent scab. And if you plant chives around your roses, they help prevent black spot.

Elderberry is a plant which can be used to get rid of garden moles. Just stick branches and leaves from this plant down into the mole holes, and they'll leave the garden. You can also make a tea or wash with the leaves from this plant, and it will help repel aphids, carrot root fly, peach tree borers, and cucumber beetles too.

Garlic is another wonderful, all natural repellant for your garden too. The flavor of garlic can be abosorbed by other plants though, so don't plant it near any vegetables that might taste bad with a hint of garlic flavor in them.

Lemon Balm is another wonderful, all natural herb which works excellently as a repellant for a variety of things. You can sprinkle lemon balm leaves throughout your garden to repel a number of different bugs and pests, and you can even rub the crushed leaves on your skin to prevent mosquitoe bites too.

Tags: Natural Pest Control, 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: Peppers, Vegetable Gardening, Tomatoes

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: Organic Gardening, Companion Plants, Marigolds