Three Organic Garden Tips

If you’re planning an organic spring garden use the following three tips to keep your garden green and healthy…

Grow the right plants:

Native plants are almost always the best choice for your organic garden. Native plants are suitable to your area thus made to stand up to the natural elements better than exotic varieties. Native plants thrive in your local soil, climate, and water availability and also need less care than other plants. Find plants that will work in your growing zone at the National Gardening Association (click on regional).

Try raised beds:

Raised beds work well in many areas. Raised beds allow for closer planting, better root development, great drainage (perfect for wet areas like the Northwest), and you can get your garden going sooner in the spring (less frost issues). Additionally, raised beds need less space and have less space for weeds, so less compost, water, and fertilizer is needed.

Practice crop rotation:

Crop rotation is very important for organic gardens. Rotation prevents disease from building up in the soil which can ruin whole crops of veggies OR make you assume you need pesticides to outwit disease and other problems. Crop rotation is fairly simple – just don’t plant families or groups of same-minded plants in the same space for consecutive seasons. For example; anything in an onion group (leeks, garlic, etc) counts as a group. Other groups include things like root veggies, alliums, legumes, and so on. If a plant doesn’t really fall into a plant family, you should still rotate it.

What are you doing to plan an organic garden this year?

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