By Kellie Stajer, RHN
Lori Pearson, RHN

Organic Gardening

Soil
It's a good idea to investigate whether your soil is acidic, alkaline or neutral. This measurement is known as the pH scale, and you can purchase pH testing kits at the garden centre or you can send a soil sample to a lab for testing (contact your local ministry of agriculture office). Knowing the pH of your soil will help you to match appropriate plants with your conditions-- some plants need acidic soil, others need alkaline, and others prefer neutral soil--and matching plants with the conditions in your garden is crucial to a healthy organic garden.

A soil test will also provide information about the nutrient content of your soil. All plants need nutrients for growth, in particular nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. (These nutrients are gradually released into the soil by decomposing plant litter--for example, the dead leaves that fall to the ground in autumn return their nutrients to the soil as they decompose.) If your soil test kit reveals a nutrient deficiency in your soil, add the following organic sources of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium: leaves and household food scraps (like banana peels and egg shells). This pile is continual. Nitrogen: blood meal, hoof and horn meal, canola seed meal Phosphorus: bone meal Potassium: wood ash, kelp meal

The pH scale goes from 0 to 14. Soil with a pH of 7 is neutral; less than 7 and it's acidic; more than 7 and it's alkaline. Most plants do just fine in the 6.5 range.

You can never have too much compost in the garden. You can buy a commercial compost bin (many municipalities give them away to residents, too) or you can build your own using wood or wire mesh. Along with garden wastes, compost kitchen vegetable scraps--and be sure to mix "green" materials such as grass clippings and food wastes with "brown" materials such as dead leaves and sawdust. This will ensure speedy, trouble-free composting.

TIP...
In composting, "green" materials are those that are rich in nitrogen: for example, grass clippings and food wastes. "Brown" materials are those rich in carbon: for example, straw, dead leaves and sawdust. For best composting results, you need to mix these materials in the bin. If you're having trouble finding carbon-rich materials in summer, add some shredded newspapers to the bin.

To encourage earthworms apply a rich mulch of organic material to borders. This will provide an enticing food source and help retain the moisture needed for the worms to survive the seasons.

Common items included in a soil test are your soil’s Ph level, nitrogen level, potassium level, and phosphorus level. These are the four most important nutrients contained in your soil and can easily be augmented or controlled based on what you add to your soil. A high Ph level means your soil is alkaline and a low Ph means it is acidic. Adding peat moss, nitrogen, or even sulfur can lower your soil’s Ph based on the results of your soil test, while adding something as simple as a nitrogen-rich fertilizer is all that is needed to augment nitrogen-deprived soil.

Rainwater

The eco-friendly garden collects rainwater to use to water your garden. Collected rainwater reduces run-off into the sewer system and the chlorine free water is good for your plants.

Seeds

Follow nature's lead by gardening with native plants. They have evolved to thrive in local conditions, need less maintenance and water, are more tolerant of pests and provide habitat or local fauna. Choose to plant disease and insect-resistant plant varieties. Concentrate on using heirloom seeds for planting.

Natural Fertilizers

By using organic fertilizers, you can create a better soil structure and one that has better water retention capabilities. By activating the enzymes that occur in soil naturally, nutrients from the fertilizers are absorbed more easily and your plants are better able to adapt.

One of the commonly used fertilizers is animal manure, specifically from cows or chickens. Another commonly used fertilizer is compost, which requires you to create a pile of organic scraps, which must be turned and mixed as it decomposes until ready to use.

Many organic fertilizers can be found at your local garden supply store or on the internet. But you can make it at home! Some organic fertilizer recipes require you to buy some items from garden supply or feed stores. One recipe uses 4 parts seed, 1 part lime, 1 part bone meal, and 1 part kelp meal. This mixture is then added to the soil or spread around plants.

Did you know coffee grounds are a great source of nitrogen? The used grounds can be mixed with compost or regular garden soil to make a super cheap organic and slow release fertilizer for your planter boxes, hanging baskets and other containers.

Kelp for your borders helps supply minerals. An application of kelp applied to your flower borders during the growing season will supply a free and organic source of many trace minerals needed promote blossoms. Apply with a balanced, all-purpose fertilizer to ensure equal levels of all nutrients.

How often you should fertilize will depend on what plants or vegetables you have in your garden. Most gardeners will fertilize their gardens once when planting and then once every month or two. Lawn fertilization is generally less frequent, occurring usually at the beginning of the growing season and once or twice throughout the growing season.

Natural Herbicides

Mulching cuts down on labour. Spread a seasonal layer of organic mulch on your garden borders to smother weeds, improve the soil, aid in drainage and increase fertility. Use readily available organic materials such as straw, fully composted manures, finely chopped leaves, ash sweepings, pine needles (acidic), composted kitchen scraps and processed coffee grounds. Make the layer of organics no thicker than 2-inches.

Pull weeds before they go to seed and spread. Note that at least 99% of the bugs and insect species we encounter in the garden are actually beneficial to the garden: they pollinate plants, eat other bugs, and provide food for birds. Before you consider trying to control or get rid of a visiting insect you don't recognize, identify it in a good reference book or take it to a garden centre or botanical garden for identification.

Natural Pesticides

Healthy plants and soils are less likely to have pest and disease problems. However, when problems occur, you can deal with them organically. TIPS:
1) Aphids: Plant chives and garlic to repel aphids. If an infestation occurs, spray the plant's leaves with a mixture of liquid soap and water.
2) Protect your plants with collars--bits of cardboard that circle the stem.
3) Trap earwigs in a hollow tube. Earwigs will congregate in the tube overnight; clean out the trap in the morning.
4) Slugs: Hand pick slugs off your plants or trap them in a saucer of beer placed in the garden with the rim at soil level.
5) Remove insects such as spider mites and mealy bugs from your plants by blasting them with water from the hose.
6) To keep cutworms away from vegetable plants, remove both ends from a can and sink the "collar" around the base of plants.
7) Marigolds, chrysanthemums, onions, garlic, mustard, chives, basil and mint repel many pests, so plant them near your vegetable crops.
8) Remove diseased plants and compost dead plants to reduce the number of pest hiding places.

Companion Gardening

Organic gardeners know that a diverse mix of plants makes for a healthy and beautiful garden. Many also believe that certain plant combinations have extraordinary (some even believe mysterious) powers for helping each other grow. Scientific study of companion planting has confirmed that some combinations have real benefits unique to those combinations. And practical experience has demonstrated to many gardeners how to mate certain plants for their mutual benefit.

How does companion planting work?

Companions help each other grow—Tall plants, for example, provide shade for sun-sensitive shorter plants.

Companions use garden space efficiently—Vining plants cover the ground, upright plants grow up.

Companions prevent pest problems—Plants like onions repel some pests. Other plants can lure pests away from more desirable plants.

Companions attract beneficial insects—Every successful garden needs plants that attract the predators of pests.

Roses and chives: Gardeners have been planting garlic with roses for eons, because garlic is said to repel rose pests. Garlic chives probably are just as repellent and their small purple or white flowers in late spring looks great with rose flowers and foliage.

Tomatoes and cabbage: Tomatoes are repellent to diamondback moth larvae, which are caterpillars that chew large holes in cabbage leaves.

Cucumbers and nasturtiums: The nasturtium's vining stems make them a great companion, rambling among the cucumbers and squash, suggests Sally Jean Cunningham, master gardener and author of Great Garden Companions. Nasturtiums "are reputed to repel cucumber beetles, but I depend on them more as habitat for predatory insects," such as spiders and ground beetles.

Peppers and pigweed or ragweed: Leafminers preferred the weeds to pepper plants in a study at the Coastal Plains Experiment Station in Tifton, Georgia. Just be careful to remove the weeds' flowers before they set seed or you'll have trouble controlling the weeds.

Cabbage and dill: "Dill is a great companion for cabbage family plants, such as broccoli and brussel sprouts," Cunningham says. "The cabbages support the floppy dill," while the dill attracts the tiny beneficial wasps that control imported cabbageworms and other cabbage pests.

Corn and beans: The beans attract beneficial insects that prey on corn pests such as leafhoppers, fall armyworms and leaf beetles. And bean vines climb up the corn stalks.

Lettuce and tall flowers: Nicotiana (flowering tobacco) and cleome (spider flower) give lettuce the light shade it grows best in.

Radishes and spinach: Radishes attract leafminers away from the spinach. The damage the leafminers do to radish leaves doesn't prevent the radishes from growing nicely underground.

Potatoes and sweet alyssum: The sweet alyssum has tiny flowers that attract delicate beneficial insects, such as predatory wasps. Plant sweet alyssum alongside bushy crops like potatoes, or let it spread to form a living ground cover under arching plants like broccoli. Bonus: The alyssum's sweet fragrance will scent your garden all summer.

Cauliflower and dwarf zinnias: The nectar from the dwarf zinnias lures ladybugs and other predators that help protect cauliflower.

Collards and catnip: Studies have found that planting catnip alongside collards reduces flea-beetle damage on the collards.

Strawberries and love-in-a-mist: Tall, blue-flowered "love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena) looks wonderful planted in the center of a wide row of strawberries," Cunningham says.

Container Gardening

Terra-cotta pots, wooden boxes, and even 5-gallon buckets make great containers. Just make sure your containers have drainage holes, are not translucent or opaque (sunlight will fry plants' roots), and are big enough to support the plants growing in them. Fill your containers with a well-draining potting mix (topsoil will compact in containers) that has some compost or an organic granulated fertilizer mixed in.

Almost all vegetables grow well in containers, but choosing the right variety helps. 'Window Box Roma' tomato, for instance, stays a size that's manageable for pots, and 'Tumbler' tomato vines spill nicely out of hanging baskets. Beans, peas, and even squash can be grown up trellises set into a larger container. Try the compact 'Sunburst' yellow scalloped squash and 'Spacemiser' zucchini. 'Miniature White' cucumbers have small vines and unusual white fruit. Carrots such as the heirloom 'Oxheart' and the miniature 'Kinko' grow to only 4 to 6 inches long.

Organic Lawn Care

You can have a green, healthy lawn--without using chemicals. Revitalize your lawn by aerating the soil in spring or fall. Holes in the lawn will allow better oxygen penetration and improve drainage.

Use a dehatching rake in fall to get rid of the compacted grass stems and roots that accumulate on the soil's surface. Top dress the lawn with compost in the summer. Water the lawn deeply and infrequently. Cut the grass high --- at the 3 inch setting on your mower.

There's a certain degree of irony in the fact that many common garden practices actually create pest, weed and disease problems in the first place. Cutting the grass too low, for example, encourages weeds to grow. And frequent, shallow lawn waterings stress the lawn, making it less drought tolerant and more sensitive to pest attack.

Consider reducing your lawn and replacing your lawn with stones, rocks, ground cover and plants native to your region. Ajuga, native strawberries, clover, and dwarf junipers are some great grass alternatives. Growing plants that are native to our area (Ontario) such as white clover and evergreen trees put nitrogen in the soil and contributes a lot of oxygen. Dandelions also put nutrients back into the soil.

RECIPE FOR NATURAL WEED KILLER

4 cups vinegar
¼ cup table salt
2 tsp. liquid dish soap
Spray mixture on unwanted grass or weeds.

Get rid of weeds in driveways and pavement by sprinkling the unwanted seedlings with salt. For tough weeds like dandelion, pull the leafy head, pour a few teaspoons of salt on the exposed root and then douse with boiling water, but do not use near desirable plants. Keep in mind, however that dandelions put nutrients back into the soil and they are only around for 6 weeks so you might want to let them be to do their thing. Rock salt or corn meal directly on weeds is another good alternative. Practicing preventative maintenance to create a lawn that is lush, green and healthy will reduce or eliminate your pesticide use.

Resources:

Organization:
Canadian Organic Growers
P.O.Box 6408, Station J
Ottawa, Ontario
K2A 3Y6
Tel.                (613) 231-9047        
Email: info@cog.ca
Magazine: Eco-Farm & Garden and COGnition

Websites:

Nutrition Action Healthletter from The Centre for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is the non-profit health-advocacy group that publishes Nutrition Action Healthletter. CSPI mounts educational programs and presses for changes in the government and corporate policies.
Nutrition Action Healthletter is the largest-circulation health newsletter in North America, providing reliable information on nutrition and health. To see an issue of the Healthletter go the www.cspinet.org/canada . Centre for Science in the Public Interest - Canada

The Centre for Science in the Public Interest - CSPI's newest book, "Six Arguments for a Greener Diet" explains why eating fewer animal - and more plant - foods protects our health, our planet, and the welfare of the animals we raise for food. While "Six Arguments" was written using U.S. data, its major conclusions also apply to Canadians. To see a preview of the book go to Six Arguments for a Greener Diet ~ Eating Green ~ Center for Science in the Public Interest

www.organicgardening.com

www.goforgreen.ca/gardening

www.organicgardeningmagic.com

Books:

The Chemical-Free Lawn, Warren Shultz (Emmaus, Pennsylvania: Rodale, 1989).

Rodale's Successful Organic Gardening (Emmaus, Pennsylvania