Organic gardening is becoming a lot more popular as people become more aware of the chemicals that are used in conventional food production. It can be a little trickier than chemical-based gardening, but it’s worth it in the end.

• If you’re new to growing plants this way, these gardening tips could help you increase your chances of success.

1. Start with the basics.

• Don’t be tempted to spend an enormous amount of money on your first supplies, materials, and tools. There’s no such thing as a magic bullet, and you’ll only end up with very expensive vegetables.
• Organic gardening can actually be done much less expensively than conventional gardening.
• Compost, manure, and other soil additives replace expensive fertilizer, and natural control methods keep pest levels down.

2. Grow your plants in the right spot.

• Take the time to plan which vegetables you’ll be growing and find out what kind of sunlight requirements they have.
• Take the time to find an area of your yard that will provide the amount of light and the soil qualities that these plants need.
• The right conditions can help you avoid many problems before they even begin.

3. Prepare the soil correctly.

• Check the pH, moistness, and type of soil you have available, then add amendments to make it what you need.
• You might need to add in compost, animal manures, grass clippings, ashes, or other substances to improve the condition of your soil. This might seem like a lot of work to start with, but it will help your garden grow, and will keep on working for you down the line. Setup of an organic garden is the hardest part.

4. Start your own compost pile.

• Compost can be purchased cheaply, but you don’t know what goes into it.
• Composting your own kitchen scraps and yard waste can help you dispose of these substances cheaply and in an ecologically friendly way, plus you’ll get great free fertilizer that you know is organic.
• You’ll be amazed at the difference that a good compost pile can make for your garden. Composting might seem like it’s a complicated process, but it really isn’t. Almost anyone can do it.

5. Don’t ignore your garden.

• Once you’ve tilled and planted your organic garden, it can be extremely tempting to ignore it. This isn’t a good idea in conventional gardens, either, but it can be disastrous if you’re growing organic.
• A little daily weeding and pest removal, a careful check over all plants, and some regular attention will do more to help your garden than any product you can buy. If you take the time to love your garden, you’ll be rewarded with wonderful results.

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What if you live in a high-rise apartment? Does that does not mean you can’t have your own fresh herbs? Gardening herbs in containers is an easy way of creating a beautiful indoor landscape on a shining kitchen windowsill. It is a perfect place to grow some of your favourite herbs. Being creative with a window box or hanging basket can turn an otherwise unimpressive area into something that can in an wink be beautiful, useful and aromatic. In fact, growing herbs in containers is as easy as growing any other house plant. Each plant has it own set of requirements.

All plants need nutrition supplied through sun, soil and water.  There is no exclusion for herbs. The right combination of these elements is the key to growing every type of plant, including herbs, whether indoors or out.   A southern or western exposure will give the best quantity of sunlight.   Lavender has different sunlight requirements than basil or mint but every herb needs adequate sunlight for healthy growth .  Then there are “grow lamps” to supplement the need if natural light is inadequate.

As to the soil you use, it is primary that it drain well to prevent root rot.   This is easily achieved by mixing two parts of a peat rich potting soil with one part coarse sand or perlite for herbs with about an inch of gravel at the bottom of the pots to assure proper drainage.   A teaspoon of lime, per 5-inch pot, should be added to this mix make the soil sweet enough for herbs.

And now to the matter of watering your herbs – watering lightly 2 – 3 times a week should be sufficient.  Misting in between times will give them a nice somewhat humid condition.   A pot will hold water more than the soil in a garden, so it is necessary to be diligent to prevent the roots from get soaked or waterlogged. Never forget well draining soil!

The advantages of gardening herbs in a container are numerous, such as you can move them about as you please, it adds aroma to the room, herbs are a unique type of house plant, etc.   Annual herbs can stay indoors all year long but, perennial will do better if placed outside during the summer and brought indoors before the first frost.   This does not apply to mints, chives or tarragon as they will form firmer and fresher growth after being exposed to a light frost. The lovely flowers of chamomile or the aroma of rosemary provide more reason to grow them indoors.

Although all herbs can be grown in pots , some do better than others such as mint or oregano. Left alone in a garden, these two can take over a corner of any garden but are easily controlled in a pot while adding something different to your apartment.   As I said, gardening herbs in pots is easy and takes only some special knowledge while keeping your culinary herbs available anytime you need them.

Caring for your herbs will ensure a healthy plant. With these tips and your prudence, you will be able to continuously harvest your herbs which will keep them robust giving you more supply for your next recipe.  Pruning herbs just as with other plants encourages new growth.   Periodically feed them and yearly repot them to produce the healthiest herbs. And in the end use them in your recipes, harvest them and give them as gifts to your friends.

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There are various methods to keep a healthy topsoil in your garden, however, which way you choose will depend entirely on the quality of the topsoil in the first place.

One of the most useful things for the gardener to learn is to understand the workings of what is known as topsoil balance. The balance of topsoil is a great way to learn about the chemical and physical properties of topsoil. This also means that topsoil chemistry and physics as well as biology are learnt about further ensuring that nutrients and structure are perfectly balanced.

Using a system called Mikhail topsoil balance can be maintained easily. This method helps topsoil by ensuring good quality variability and making sure that the soils composition and amount of living organisms can thrive. Topsoil needs a skeleton to enable the other elements of its make-up to exist and be sustained, rather like the human body. In soil, Calcium, Magnesium, Sodium, Potassium and Hydrogen are all elements essential to keeping the structure healthy.

The balance between biology and nutrients are maintained through use of the Mikhail system as well. The structure then also needs to be balanced. Essential elements for plant nutrition are Phosphorous, Potassium, Nitrogen and Sulphur. Once the topsoil’s structure has significantly improved and balance corrected, then fertilizer can be added to maintain the correct levels of these elements. The most common fertiliser is known as NPK, and most general fertilizers actually consist of these chemical elements. A topsoil’s trace element content is particularly important.

Testing the topsoil is the best way to discover exactly what is missing, what isn’t and how improvements can be made. Using soil testing apparatus is the perfect way to test the soil and get the necessary information for making improvements. The required fertilizer, lime and other soil improving material can then be obtained to ensure that the topsoil performs better.

Why build compost piles?

A compost pile will help you refresh your garden as well as allowing you to reduce the rate of garbage that you put into the landfills. By taking just a little bit of time out of your day, you can ensure that you never run out of fertilizer and that you are doing your part to help the environment. Even better, when you start looking into it, you will find that a compost pile is much easier to put together than you might think, even easier than building a other composting supplies!

How To Start Building A Compost Pile

Start by choosing a site for your compost that is near to both your kitchen and your yard. Some exposure to the sun is handy, but make sure that it does not get too much light, as this can dry it out. Some people recommend putting your compost pile in the shade of a tree, with a base of concrete or brick to make sure that that tree is not the only one getting the nutrients. Though it is not necessary, a plastic bin can keep your compost contained and looking neater. You can even create a “corral” for your compost pile using stiff wire mesh. Though the bin can be open on the sides, you will find that a roof is necessary to keep off the rain and to keep the compost from getting flooded.

• Green compost materials are materials that are rich in nitrogen, and they include things like grass cuttings, raw vegetable peelings, tea bags, manure from horses or cows or young weeds without seeds.

Get familiar with green compost materials and brown compost materials.

• They will decompose very quickly. Brown compost materials, on the other hand, are rich in carbon and will decompose much more slowly.
• Some material that are good for brown compost include cardboard, paper, bedding from vegetarian pets, or even sawdust and wood chips.
• When you go to combine these materials, you are essentially looking for a combination of one part green to two parts brown compost.

Combining Green and Brown Compost Together

1. To get started, start throwing in one shovel of green compost, top it off with two shovels of brown compost and then mix them.
2. Repeat until you have a pile that is roughly three feet high, by three feet wide, by three feet long. A composting pile of this size generates enough heat to break down fairly quickly.
3. Finally, throw on some finished soil compost or some garden soil to help get things going.

Make sure that you water your compost regularly;

It should feel like a damp sponge or a wrung out rag. It should also be turned once a week to keep it loose. Within about two months, you are going to have humus, which is the result from the decomposition, and this is going to be perfect for your garden!

• Take a moment to think about your garden and the waste that you create that can go into a compost pile. This is a great addition to any green-minded gardener’s garden, so see what it can do for you!

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Organic gardening is growing plants using vegetable or animal-based fertilizers in place of the synthetically made ones.

It is also about doing pest control naturally too without using the commercial insecticides. The pest control is a combination of beneficial insects and natural solutions to keep pests away without spraying harmful chemicals.

• Growing organically might be becoming more popular today, but it has actually been around since the beginning of gardening. Chemical fertilizers did not come on the scene until the 1840s. Farming and gardening since then has been more chemically based than organically based. In recent times though it has been found that all these chemicals are harming our environment, they are also used in greenhouses. It is now being recommended that you return to using organic fertilizers for the health of your soil and the environment.

There are many benefits to gardening organically:

The food that is grown this way has more nutrients and vitamins in them to help one fight off diseases. You are also not ingesting as many chemicals eating organically-grown food. No growth hormone, pesticides, chemical fertilizers and no added preservatives or flavouring are used either.

• Studies have proven that children have a much lower level in pesticides in their systems when they eat organic foods compared to food grown using other methods. Food grown organically gets delivered to the market with all of its nutrients intake. This food taste much better too.

Doing gardening is much more enjoyable to do organically too.

• You don’t have to protect yourself while working with dangerous chemicals. This makes gardening much more satisfying to do. It is a great way to relax or get your daily exercise too. Gardening can even be a type of therapy for people to become more emotionally fit along with improving the overall fitness of the body. Any regular physical activity including gardening lowers your risk for obesity, certain types of diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, heart disease, and stroke.

• Gardening organically can bring out your inner child. Remember your childhood when you played in the sandbox or made mud pies in the rain? Digging in the dirt and planting flowers or vegetables give you this same fun feeling that you had as a child.

Organic gardening is no more expensive to do than any other gardening method:

• If you are buying your fertilizers both types cost about the same. But if you do your own composting of you kitchen and garden scraps this can cut down on how much fertilizers are needed.

• Through the use of beneficial bugs the pesticides will not be needed as much and possibly eliminated all together. This is a natural way to control many garden pests. Many times just planting the right plants enables the plants to fight off pests, also plant or use natural elements that fight off the pest too, such as cucumber peels keep ants away.

There are many methods for gardening available today.

• Not all of the methods use the synthetic or chemical fertilizers and pesticides. You can work in harmony with nature and have a luscious garden, by doing it organically.

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Sustainable landscaping is the process of working with the environment where you design landscapes that is in tune with the weather conditions

It needs no other resources such as organic  minerals or any other soil nutrients.

There are many different levels of sustainable landscaping, the best way to get involved is to just start somewhere by setting short and long term goals.

A small objective could be putting up a composting bin.

A much better way could be creating a sustainable area where harmful chemicals are eliminated for good.

Following are helpful tips on how to create a sustainable landscape:

1. Shrink Your Lawn

Those expanses of green turf take an enormous amount of resources.

Take out some lawn and design a natural background.

You’ll save on fresh water and this ultimately save you money on water bills.

Moreover, you may not need to use the raker or the hoe often.

2. Store rain water in barrels

Harvesting rain water in barrels helps to conserve water and save money.

Usually rain water is pure and of good quality.

You can even use it for drinking consumption.

3. Use a protective cover like mulch.

Mulched beds improve the appearance of any landscape.

Though more valuable than this is that it germinates the seeds and provides micro-nutrients when it decays.

Mulch slows soil erosion, retains moisture and helps to prevent weeds.

You’ll save some time watering your plants, in turn lets you enjoy your garden.

4. Compost, Compost, Compost

Composting organic waste from your home improves garden soil because it generates humus.

By composting you minimize your garbage wastes, thus lessening the greenhouse gases.

You save on your expenditures on chemicals as well.

5. Plant the natives

Indigenous plants can adjust in any soil condition and weather the harshest climate.

They are also better able to resist pests and diseases, thus reducing the need for harmful chemicals.

6. Attract Pollinators to Your Yard

By growing a variety of plants you increase the number of different wildlife species that are attracted to your garden.

Insects, bees, birds and bats contribute to a healthy ecosystem by transporting pollen from one plant to another during fertilization.

7. Plant Deciduous Trees

Consider deciduous leaf shrubs near your home to cut your electricity bills in summer season.

Deciduous trees drop their foliage in fall and this allows more sunshine in your house.

But, trees deliver more than cost savings; they are important carbon sinks and help to reduce global climate change.

8. Plant Edible Ornamentals

Aside from beautifying your garden, it would be great if you can have edible shrubs in them.

Onion chives, scallions, and cherry tomatoes would look nice in your ornamental orchard.

9. Choose natural resources

Rather than using exotic materials trucked in great distances for your landscaping projects, consider using stone, salvageable concrete, used bricks, and other recyclable materials found locally.

10. Use alternative power gears

You can use a push reel mower rather than a power mower.

You can just use a hoe and hand shears rather than an electric weed trimmer.

You can just allow leaves on the ground to decay to convert into soil nutrients instead of still using a leaf blower.

Better yet, think of having a meadow rather than just a lawn.

I have been involved with Sustainable Calgary Landscaping in Calgary, Alberta Canada for a long time. These Tips have been implemented with my company for over 8 years.  We have had alot of fun Landscaping in Calgary over the years. What we do will work almost anywhere in the world to create sustainable landscapes.

Remember, just because I use this with Landscaping Calgary, doesn’t mean it won’t work in your local area. Now get out there and try things out!

Written by: Custom Stone and Waterscapes ?3829 Parkhill Place SW, Calgary, AB T2S 2W6 (403) 870-1142

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Compost gardening is good for the environment, budget friendly and great for your fruits, vegetables and flowering plants. If you are maintaining your own compost piles or bins, you can run into some minor problems with them, so the first priority is to have a well functioning compost heap or compost tumbler.

Your compost pile should be a good balance of browns and greens, be kept moist at all times, and covered when it is very wet and rainy.

• Chop up your twigs, clippings, and vegetation as small as you reasonably can, and the process will go much faster for you. Adding a can of worms, or a thin layer of soil to your pile will help it along. Cow and horse manure are also good.
• There are artificial additives that can be mixed with your compost, such as nitrogen fertilizer. This will accelerate the process.
• Mix it with your organic materials.
• If it starts to smell like rotten eggs, it might have gotten too wet.
• Add shredded newspaper, dried leaves, or grass, and turn it over, mixing well.
• Adding some lime will help to lessen the smell. But if it smells like ammonia, use fireplace ashes or dolomite to neutralize the odor.

To keep pets, flies, and vermin away, don’t put any type of meat, fish, fatty food scraps, egg yolks, or bones in your compost mix. Compost flies are actually a good thing, as they indicate that the compost is decomposing nicely. Using a tarp or a bin with a lid, will help to keep that problem to a minimum.

Ants will gravitate to dry compost heaps, but they are good for distributing the material and mixing it up for you.

• Get rid of them before you add the compost to the garden by watering it well. The ants will vacate and your compost will be ready to do its job.
• If the compost gets too dry fungal spores (a fine powder) may form which when disturbed can be dangerous to breathe in. If this occurs, wet the heap, cover with soil and allow to sit for a few days.
• If the compost gets too wet turning it to incorporate air should help as will the addition of some dry material such as grass clippings.

Once the compost is dark, crumbly and no longer smells bad, you can add it to your garden.

• Mix it lightly in with the garden soil, or use it as mulch around your plants, shrubs, fruit trees, and flowers.
• As water seeps into the ground, the fine roots will suck up the nutrients from the compost. It will also help to keep the soil moist in arid times or when it is hot and windy.

Don’t forget to wear gardening gloves when handling compost and always wash your hands when you are through!

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I walk by some nice home gardens when I am out for my exercise but the ones that stand out the most to me are the few places than have sunflowers growing.

I am always amazed how how fast they grow and how big they get. But it really seems to be the sun that makes the biggest difference.

I see the places that have sunflowers growing. Because I messed up the first year we planted our garden because I didn’t pay attention to where the sun was going to be as the summer progresses I didn’t have much of a garden. It was still an amazing experience and lesson learned.

I saw a row of sunflowers that were much taller than I am. So tall that I could barly reach my arms up to take this picture. The head on the sunflower, where the seeds are, was nearly a foot across.

They same place this sunflower is has had them growing for years and it just makes my day every time I walk past them.

I take pictures every few days and it made me think I would like to have a sunflower growing in our year.

Then a friend calls telling me she has a girl friend who has a daughter. She planted a sunflower but it was not doing too well. So she asked me if they could plant it in our yard for her.

I couldn’t say no to that and it was perfect because I had set the pack of sunflower seed down somewhere and ended up planting my almost a month too later. So they are only a foot high.

Peggy brought the sunflower plant over and I planted it in corner of our little garden. It’s still a little plant, only 3 1/2 feet tall but it’s got this cute little flower blooming.

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Like any hobby, growing a family-sized garden can quickly get out of control. Often your plans will exceed your abilities to care for, and maintain, what actually comes to fruition. It is also tempting to fall for every ad and display that you see, promising the best and most useful gardening tools.

Absolutely necessary for the care or success of your venture.

• While many of these tools may be nice, few are actually required to have a successful gardening experience. Advanced gardeners enjoy professional greenhouses and hydroponics equipment.
• The reality is that you can grow a very beautiful garden with only a handful of basic gardening tools.

Below you will find the tools that are needed in order to be able to garden successfully.

Soil Preparation and Planting

Even a beginning gardener needs to pay a bit of attention to preparing their soil properly.

• Luckily, this does not require a lot more than just basic physical effort. Necessary tools for planting and preparation include the following.

Shovel – Every gardener should have a shovel on hand.

• This basic tool is excellent for digging small areas for soil preparation, as well as planting large crops, such as potatoes.
• A shovel can be used to create mounds and designate large rows as well.

Rake – Once the soil has been prepared, a basic garden rake can help to smooth and level the garden patch.

• Rakes are also used to create tiny rows for small seed planting, such as carrots or lettuce.
• To cover already planted rows, the rake is also the tool of choice.

tiller – A tiller is a large-scale and expensive tool, but it can make the job a whole lot easier. Your soil will need to be turned and loosened at the beginning of each gardening season.

• Unless you have a very small garden area, or work with raised beds, you will need a tiller or garden tractor to accomplish this task.
• Many gardeners rent tillers or borrow from a close neighbor who owns one. In order for this to work, be sure to take better care of the tool than they expect, or they will not offer it again. If you do decide to purchase, look for a used model to save money.

Trowel – This is the basic tool of choice whenever you are planting seedlings. A trowel is a tiny shovel-like hand tool that creates the perfect-sized hole for seedlings.

• Trowels are also great for creating short planting trenches, and for digging in amendments around already planted areas.

Gardening Clothing

There are really only a few pieces of gardening clothing that are absolutely necessary for the best functionality of your gardening efforts.

• While things like hats and gardening aprons can add to your ease of work, they are not required for a successful garden. The following is what you will need.

Gardening gloves – Your job in the garden will be so much easier if you have a pair of well-designed gardening gloves.

• These are very inexpensive and serve to protect your hands, as well as offering greater traction for things like weed pulling. Getting your hands wet and dirty can really affect your skin, so be sure to protect it will a good pair of gloves.

Gardening shoes – There are several choices for decent gardening shoes, but you will definitely want to set aside a pair that you can get dirty; otherwise, you will tracking garden dirt and mud into your home.

• An old pair of canvas tennis shoes can do the trick just fine; just be sure to remove them outside your door. Some people prefer breathable rubber shoes especially designed for the dirty gardening environment. These can be sprayed off with a hose whenever necessary.

Pruning

Pruning is a vital part of plant and tree care. The following guide can be useful to help you prune properly.

Three basic tools suffice for most pruning jobs: shears, loppers, and a pruning saw. Keep them sharp for clean cuts; disinfect after pruning diseased material.

1. Prune Roses

Prune in winter or early spring when plants are still dormant. Prune plants to maintain symmetrical bushes and to encourage strong new growth. Cut back all previous years growth approximately one-third its length. Remove branches that cross through center and remove plants understock. Also prune weak and dead stems as needed. This tends to encourage strong new growth. The new and very popular “Knockout Roses” are really best left alone unless you find dead spots on them, prune them as soon as you see them regardless of the season.

2. Prune Crepe Myrtles

The best time to prune crepe myrtles is in February. Prune out twiggy stems and any dead wood. Thin out crossing or crowding branches in the plants center. If tree form, prune lower branches. Prune top ~to keep symmetry. Each year after flowering, cut 12 to 18 inches off the tips of branches that have bloomed.

3. Prune Hollies

Prune in winter or early spring mostly to shape plants. Cut back wayward branches and prune out weak unproductive dead stems as needed.

4. Prune Butterfly Bushes

Butterfly bushes bloom in summer on new spring growth. They may be pruned in late winter or early spring. By pruning old blooms you are going to encourage new flowers. Also prune out old dead and unproductive branches.

5. Prune Hydrangeas

Hydrangeas fall into two groups. Some you prune in early spring and others after the flowers fade.

1. Early Spring Pruning

Hydrangeas bloom on new growth. These plants are Climbing Hydrangea, Annabelle, Grandiflora, and PeeGees.

2. After-Bloom Pruning

Hydrangeas bloom on last years stems. Included in this are Bigleaf Hydrangeas, Oakleaf Hydrangeas, Lacecaps, SummerBeauty, and Nikko Blue. Pruning should be done when the flower has faded. Cut back the flowering stems to the strongest pair of new shoots. As plants mature, begin to thin out the oldest woody stems. Remove crowded crossing, broken, or dead branches.

6. Prune Clematis

Clematis can be put in three categories: Spring-flowering, summer-flowering , and twice-flowering.

1. Spring-blooming

Clematis produce flowers on stems that grew in the previous year. Prune when flowers are done blooming. Cut back the flowers that are dead. Prune out any old dead stems also.

2. Summer-blooming

Plants bloom on new growth produced in the spring. Cut back stems before new growth begins. Late autumn or early spring is a good time to prune. Cut back about 12 inches of old growth. Every year the vine will grow larger and stronger.

3. Twice-blooming

Plants first bloom in spring on stems produced the previous year. Late summer or fall would be the next bloom time. In late fall or very early spring, prune lightly to thin the stems. After the spring bloom, prune more heavily to get more healthy stems to develop for the next bloom. After the second bloom, prune old flowers away.

7.Prune Fruit Trees

By far the most common fruit trees are apple, peach, pear and cherry.

1. Apple Trees

Apple treesneeds to be pruned in late winter or early spring before new growth starts. Always remove all suckers (summer is a superb time). Also remove dead along with otherunproductive limbs as needed.

2. Peach Trees

Peach trees are fast growing and ought to be pruned in winter. Without pruning the peaches will grow farther from the tree’s center. This may put great strain on the branches, causing them to break. In winter, thin out upward-growing branches that cross in tree’s center.

3. Pear Trees

Prune back in early spring. Always prune dead and unproductive branches as needed.

4. Cherry Trees

Prune in winter. Prune out branches that cross in center and dead unproductive branches as needed.

8. Prune Azaleas and Rhododendrons

They may be pruned in winter or early spring. However pruning at that time will prevent plants from producing many blooms. The most effective time to prune azaleas and rhododendrons is definitely after their blooming period in spring.When you prune at that time, no additional pruning is going to benecessary.

9 Prune Junipers

Junipers need very minimal pruning. They ought tobe pruned to correct their shape, to accent their form,as well as to limit their size. This should always be done during the juniper’s growing stages in mid-summer.

10. Prune Flowering Trees

Flowering trees need to be pruned once they have finished blooming. Prune as little as possible. Dead branches, branches that cross in the center, and branches which are unproductive need to be pruned out.

Three basic tools suffice for most pruning jobs: shears, loppers, and a pruning saw. Keep them sharp for clean cuts; disinfect after pruning diseased material.