I get asked a lot of questions about growing a garden or just growing plants in general so I figured I would let you in on some of my gardening techniques. Besides growing our own garden at home growing up, I also worked for a Nursery and spent a lot of time listening, studying, and talking to our Horticulturalists. I learned a lot and ate up every tidbit of free info they were willing to divulge. We would have people from all walks of life bringing in plant samples and dirt to show to our guys and figure out what was going wrong and how to fix it and make it even better!
I have a pretty laid back old fashioned approach to growing my garden, it's simple and easy and it works! When you grow your own food, you're always needing to think about what's next a season ahead of time. I start my spring garden in the winter and my summer garden in the spring. Now it's time to start planning for my winter garden and though it's still a long ways off (especially for those of us that typically experience warmer weather well into November) but seedlings need time to grow and a lot of patience and love. I like to grow my garden mostly from seed so that I can insure first of all that all my plants are Organic and secondly that they're from a sustainable source (I love the sustainable seed company though I do order from other companies as well). When I'm really on top of my game for that season I'm using my own seeds that I've saved from previously grown plants... but that doesn't always happen. I'm actually trying to get better at seed saving.
A healthy garden needs a healthy home so the first thing you need to do is prepare your soil for planting. Now not all soil is created equal and I have been fortunate enough that my soil started out healthy and needed next to nothing to get started but if you have doubts as to what type of soil you have or if it's healthy enough to plant, take a little sample into your local nursery....For the love of your garden please DO NOT take your sample into Lowes garden center or Home Depot or any other such establishment and here's why, those folks have hourly employees that have very little to no knowledge at all on what it really takes to grow a garden. You might be getting Todd the paint department boy who is covering Jackie the garden center girl for her lunch break and just because Jackie works in the garden center doesn't automatically qualify her as a seasoned and trained horticulturalist so it's best to take your dirt and plant issues to someone who knows a little more about what's going on in the world of things that grow.
Now that that has been cleared up you're ready to start preparing your dirt given that your dirt sample came back clean of disease or other issues (yes dirt can have disease, look at the issues industrial farming is facing with over growing, planting the same things over and over again and contaminating the dirt with chemicals, that poor dirt has no chance of being healthy to grow healthy crops...no wonder GMO is becoming such a big deal bc they need plants that can withstand the damage that has been done to the dirt that makes growing healthy plants an actual possibility) One sure sign that you have healthy dirt is by digging up a section and looking for worms, if you have some healthy crawlers underneath your dirt and you have a lot of them, you should be sitting pretty. Worms thrive best in good soil and they also help to make your soil good. If you find yourself wanting to speed up the process of making your dirt extra healthy you can always purchase yourself some worms and then set them free to do their thing.
Alright let's talk some crap here....literally....Dirt loves Poo! Chicken poo is by far the best hence why I have backyard chickens! Rabbit poo is probably the next best poo you can sprinkle into your dirt. You can buy bags of poo for your garden but be warned that too much can burn your soil and cause plant issues so you'll want to mix it into an organic planting soil 1 part poo to 3 parts soil. One of the best ways to get nutrients into your dirt is thru a compost pile that's made up of your own home scraps, I'm talking egg shells, coffee grounds, veggie scraps, veggie and fruit peels, grass clippings from mowing the lawn, etc (basically anything that has been grown in the ground can be turned into compost to be put back into ground, circle of life-plant style!) I'm still in the process of making a compost area for my garden. If you're interested in doing that for yourself but don't know quite what to do, it's simple, you basically make yourself a pile in a corner of the yard or in a composting bin where you can leave the stuff to rot. It's very low maintenance, the occasional turn with a pitch fork or shovel to allow the underneath layers to soak up some sun and weather and help it rot even more. When it looks like dirt, it's ready to go into the garden! Simple!
Let's talk weather....Mother Nature is a smart girl and she knows that a good dose of weather helps dirt along too. While you're waiting for summer to come to an end, it's a perfect time to let that beautiful sunshine work hard on your dirt and put the nutrients into it that it will need for those winter months when sunshine vitamins are needed. Churning up your garden spot and turning your dirt over every once in awhile is a good idea to do. If you have weeds in that area this is a good time to get some natural weed killer by placing a tarp or weed cloth over the area and let the sun bake it to death. I don't use chemicals in my garden even though my husband has begged me to shoot those darn weeds with some round up. Round up lingers in dirt for 7 years and yet you still have to use more each year to fight the weeds....it's best to avoid the toxins and just burn the weeds under some weed cloth. Weed maintenance is pretty easy once your garden is in. Just like the summer sun is good for your winter garden, the cold wet winter weather is also good for your spring/summer garden! Let the weather work for you whatever it is and know that Mother Nature is doing her part to help your garden grow as well.
Now let's talk about the plants...even though I grow a garden year after year, I never grow in the same spot....My garden still stays in the same area of my yard but I move locations of where I plant things the next time I plant them. Root systems are intricate much like our bodily system, we need variety to survive and be healthy and so do plants. If you have one spot where you always grow your tomatoes, you risk losing nutrients from having no variety there. Does that make sense? It doesn't mean you can only plant tomatoes in that one spot once and that's it, I give my soil an every other season kind of trade off...where I planted tomatoes this summer, I will plant bell peppers next summer but then I'll switch back to tomatoes in that spot again the following summer (see what I mean) Every plant variety though made similar systematically, brings it's own special thing to the dirt it gets planted into and it leaves traces of it when it's pulled out. Soil systems are a whole different world of their own and much of the nutrients that we ourselves ingest from eating our homegrown goodness comes from the health and nutrients of that dirt system that grows our edibles. This doesn't apply to root systems for fruit trees, though they do have a life expectancy and shouldn't be grown past a certain amount of years. Plants don't need too much of your attention but it's good to pay them a visit every day or so to make sure they're doing good, make sure they're getting enough water or not too much water and to make sure the pests aren't enjoying more of your garden goodies than you are. Chickens by the way are excellent pest control!
A good garden system in my opinion is one that has all aspects of farming life working together for the goodness of what your body needs. (Animals to make the soil healthy, chickens to keep the pests at bay, bees to pollinate the plants, worms to churn up the soil...all working together and thriving and doing their own thing that helps bring good health to your garden.)
Hopefully you've found this post useful and helpful and informational. I'm sorry it was so long but there's a lot to cover when it comes to growing a garden. Once you have the healthy dirt portion down, everything else is easy! Good luck with your gardens and comment below any questions you have that I might be able to answer directly :-)
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