Organic horticulture employs the crucial principles of organic agriculture for the successful herbs, fruits, vegetables, flowers and ornamental plants growing. These principles concern the management of pests in the garden, soil composition and conservation, etc.
General Notes
Mulches, Double Digging, compost, Vermicompost, cover crops, mineral supplements and manures are the main constituents of the soil mixture in this kind of gardening in contrast to the commercial farming. Organic horticulture expects to minimize the risk of insects, fungi, and diseases development with the help of maintaining the high quality of the soil. Nonetheless, sometimes it is still necessary to use insecticidal soaps and sprays, pheromone traps, or other pest-control means, created especially for organic farmers.
Experts define five fields of horticulture:
- olericulture, which stands for the production and marketing of vegetables;
- pomology that means the production and marketing of fruits;
- floriculture, which is the production and marketing of floral crops;
Is using a special garden soil like Miracle Grow or Scott’s any better than just using a good bag of topsoil with low organic material in it (twigs, stone, clay). I need about 1cubic yard to fill raised beds and I can save a lot of money. I am growing vegetables. Home Depot has premium (screened) soil for about a third of the price as the Miracle Grow stuff. Even if I have to mix some peat or compost I should be better off cost wise.
My 73-year old grandfather is currently living with us and has started buying and storing bags of fertilizer with his blasting cap collection in our basement.
Now I support my grandfather’s recent interest in gardening as well as his other hobbies (I even bought him an expensive old blueprint of the local police academy from eBay once, where he studied until he flunked out). But I’m more an organic kinda guy, and I don’t want those chemical fertilizers seeping into our local water supply. Can you offer any suggestions on how I can convince him to switch to more environmentally friendly compost?
UPDATE: Great. Now he’s also started storing electrical what-not in the bathroom closet. Probably gonna make his own sprinklers too.
Hi. Our very very small garden is starting to really take off, but I have some questions on how to keep it thriving through the summer to harvest :-). I planted the plants I started from seed inside this winter outside last weekend, and they seem pretty happy. I have an extremely limited space for a garden, most of it in containers, with only 20 square feet of ground space. This is my first time gardening, so please no rude comments if I did something wrong. I’m not experienced enough to know the ins and outs, so I guessed, and now I’m trying to find out more. Experienced gardeners, what would you do?
How often should I water my container-growing strawberries? I have 1 everbearing plant and 1 June bearing plant. I already had 2 die because I think I over-watered them, but I noticed my June bearing wilting, and it perked back up with a good watering. They are both already producing berries. What is a good watering schedule or way to tell if they need water? They are in 5 gallon pots.
I planted spinach from seed in a half barrel, along with other types of lettuces (I didn’t start these inside). Where I planted the seeds is sprouting, but it looks more like grass than spinach. 2 thin leaves for each plant. Is this how spinach should look when first sprouted?
Given the extremely limited ground space I have for a garden, I planted a few indoor-started plants closer together than instructed. These include watermelons, honeydew melons and butternut squash. I now have thriving plants (about 3 tall), but they are only about 14-20 inches apart, and I have 3 plants each. These are produce we frequently buy from the store in the summer/fall, so we would like as large of a crop as possible. Would it be better to thin them out and give each plant more room or keep them spaced as-is to yield more fruit? The soil is very nutrient rich, as I planted these in my compost from last winter, and organic potting soil I used to amend the ground soil. They are also in full sun, in a easy spot to water daily if needed.
I also planted my indoor-started corn plants closer than instructed, at about 6 inches apart. I have a block of 12, 3 inch plants. I know each stalk only produces 1 ear of corn, so I’d like to get as many as reasonably possible. Should I thin them or feed them more often with compost/compost tea to keep them growing in a cramped space?
I got a little tomato crazy when I started the plants inside, growing 2 plants each of 5 different heirloom varieties. I have 10 plants, already large at about 1 foot high, big and bushy, and already starting to produce tomatoes (not big or ripe yet, just little green babies). I planted 8 of them outside, and kept 2 in 5 gallon pots indoors. How many tomatoes does the average plant produce? I never thought of this before I started them, and I’m getting the impression I am going to have to sell/give away some tomatoes.
Thanks for any advice!
I really want to compost in my backyard but i don’t have the money to spend on an expensive bin. Also I don’t know what types of things to put in it. I’m gardening this year with fertilizer but next year i’d like to go organic.
I am growing an organic vegetable garden indoors on the window sill. I have little tiny grey gnat like bugs with wings all over the dirt. The dirt is composed of organic potting soil and organic redworm casting compost. The vegetable victims include small tomato plants, lettuce, spinach, and broccoli. These stupid bugs appear to be inhibiting the plants’ growth. I need an organic way to get rid of these pests. No round up or pesticides, as this is poison to our bodies when we eat the food, and causes brain damage in people.
I have been weeding and found grubs in our garden and flower bed. Some type of caterpillars are on our vegi’s. Moths flying around. There is some tiny parasite looking pink things in our tomatoes. We are trying to keep it as organic as possible. Also we ordered two piles of compost with cow wastes, clippings, and molch. Maybe that contained lots of acid and bugs stuff like that. So what can we do to save our garden by being organic? Help me pleaz!
My planting medium now contains 76% clay, 18% sand and larger particles and 6 % organic material. I want to mix in sand and organic material so I end up with a medium of 40% clay, 35% sand (larger inorganic particles) and 25% organic material, such as compost. All these items are by volume.
I’d like a formula I could use since I have other planting beds with different mixtures.
Would dead leaves and spent blooms be considered organic material. I am not talking about compost, but many Gardiner’s advise adding organic material and i don’t know what they mean.
Can you help me understand organic foods? Organic means that the foods were grown with out pesticides or fertilizers, right? does that mean all fertilizers, or just chemical fertilizers? I’m going to be using my compost to fertilize my garden and am not using chemicals (we have well water). Will that mean that the food I grow is organic because there’s no chemical fertilizer, or isn’t organic because I’m using fertilizer?
