Beginning Gardening Vegetbale Gardening Guide.

Winter is the time of year I start thinking about my flower and vegetable gardens. It may seem a little strange to some people, because nothing usually grows much in the winter time, but this does tend to be the best time of year to start your compost pile.

Now I don’t create “official” compost piles and I don’t have any kind of composting bin either. Instead, I mix a variety of natural materials together in one of my garden beds, and let those decompose on their own. My two favorite things to use are coffee grounds and fireplace ashes.

Coffee grounds make wonderful food for almost any kind of plant or flower. I sometimes spread them around the base of my indoor container plants, and sometimes I mix them into my soil when planting something new.

In the winter time though, I tend to have a lot of fireplace ashes. Since I’ve got a fire going regularly in my fireplace, it needs to be cleaned out every week or so. When it’s time to clean out the ashes from my fireplace, I simply scoop them into a bucket. Then I take that bucket to a garden bed that’s right outside my office door, and I dump them in the corner.

I have coffee every day too, but I don’t always remember to dump my used coffee grounds, so this is done randomly and occasionally. The same simple proceedure applies though: Just empty the coffee grounds into a bucket, and take them outside. I dump them into the same corner as the fireplace ashes. Then once in awhile I may stir, mix or spread the pile if it gets a little big.

If you drink tea instead of coffee, tea grounds work just as well. In fact, you can toss the entire tea bag into your compost pile, but it will take longer to decompose that way.

These everyday household items are all I tend to use for enriching my garden bed soil. In the spring when I start preparing the beds for planting, I simply mix the ashes and coffee grounds into the soil itself. I then scoop out some into buckets and spread it around to other beds around my yard, and mix it into the soil in each of those too.

Creating compost or enriching your soil in this casual manner does take a bit longer, but it works wonderfully over time. If you’d like to speed up the process you can of course create a full fledged dedicated compost pile in your backyard, or buy a commercial compost bin. Some of them turn your scraps into rich compost within just a month or two.

Other every day items that you can add to your pile include:

Newspaper scraps – They’ll decompose faster if you shred them first.

Fruit and Vegetable scraps – These also will decompose faster if you chop or shred them first. Be aware though: Adding these to your pile can be a bit “smelly”.

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Posted under Miscellaneous Content

Organic gardening is the process of growing gardens without using any type of harmful chemical for pesticides or fertilizing. Anything can be grown organically, including flowers, trees, bushes, fruits, vegetables, and even indoor house plants too.

Organic gardening is often used primarily for food based gardening, because most of us don’t want to have pesticides and chemicals on our fruits, vegetables, herbs, or other foods we eat.

Starting an organic garden bed begins with preparing the soil. Since you won’t be using chemical fertilizers in an organic garden, you’ll need to make sure you get the soil as nutrient-rich and 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.

The best thing you can do as an organic gardener is learn how to compost. You can create outstanding organic garden soil just 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 creating your own compost too, and you don’t need lots of money or even a special composting bin.

All you need to do is add a few things to your garden bed soil directly, 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 kitchen compost made from scraps of unused fruit and vegetable matter. 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 everything before adding it to your 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, before the first hard frost or freeze hits, the soil will be much richer and more ready for planting in the spring.

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Posted under Organic Vegetable Seeds