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Green Britain Day




Seven Ticks For Organic Gardening!

Organic gardening is the way of growing vegetables and fruits with the use of things only found in nature.

Why would one want to indulge in organic gardening?

1. One can easily make compost from garden and kitchen waste. Though this is a bit more time-consuming than buying prepared chemical pesticides and fertilisers, it certainly helps to put rubbish to good use and so saves the environment.

2. Organic farming does not use chemicals that may have an adverse affect on your health. This is especially important when growing vegetables. Chemical companies tell us that the chemicals we use are safe if used according to direction, but research shows that even tiny amounts of poisons absorbed through the skin can cause such things as cancer, especially in children.
On average, a child ingests four to five times more cancer-causing pesticides from foods than an adult. This can lead to various diseases later on in the child's life. With organic gardening, these incidents are lessened.
Remember, pesticides contain toxins that have only one purpose - to kill living things.

3. Less harm to the environment. Poisons are often washed into our waterways, causing death to the native fish and polluting their habitat.

4. Organic farming practices help prevent the loss of topsoil through erosion.

5. Cost savings. One does not need to buy costly chemical fertilisers and pesticides with organic gardening. Many organic recipes for the control of pest and disease come straight from the kitchen cupboard. Sometimes other plants can be grown as companions to the main crop. An example of this is the marigold, which helps to repel aphids from vegetables.
Mixing 1 tablespoon of bio-degradable washing-up liquid and 1 cup of cooking oil can make a cheap garden pest spray. Put 3 tablespoons of this mixture in 1 quart of water and spray on plants.

6. A simple mulch of pine needles or bark will help to suppress the growth of weeds as well as keeping the moisture in.

7. Organic gardening practices help to keep the environment safe for future generations.

Green Britain - Another use for plastic bottles!

In one of my earlier postings, I showed how plastic bottles could be re-used as mini-greenhouses in the garden - well, here's another garden use for those same plastic bottles!

As before, just cut the bottom of the bottle off, and remove the cap - then dig a hole in one of your flower or veg beds to half the depth of the bottle.

Put the bottle upside-down into the hole so that the open bottom is on top.

Now fill the bottle with water - instant water trap! Great for when there are long dry spells. It solves 2 problems - firstly the water doesn't run off dry, baked soil and secondly, it gets the water deep inside the bed, so less of it evaporates!

Put several of these water traps round your garden and watering is a breeze! Also, when it finally rains after a long dry spell, the rainwater gets to where it is really needed - around the deeps roots of the plants!

Green Britain - 'Companion Planting'

I'm a big fan of growing your own food.

The 'green' benefits are huge - but home-grown food also tastes amazing - and FRESH - from garden to plate in just a few minutes! ( Far better than supermarket stuff, which has usually been 'force-grown' and transported hundreds, if not thousands of miles to get to you! )

I like to grow everything in my garden organically - I don't use chemical fertilisers, or chemical pest control.

So does my garden get attacked by pests and disease?
Absolutely! But there are ways to combat this naturally.

One of the most effective ways is by using something called 'Companion Planting' - This is a very old technique, whereby you plant certain combinations of plants - 'companions' - together to protect each other against pests etc.

For example;
Marigolds, Tomatoes, and Cabbages are good 'companions'....
Plant them alternately in a single bed. The Marigolds protect the Tomatoes by deterring aphids, and the Tomatoes protect the cabbages by being repellent to the diamondback moth larvae which chew large holes in cabbage leaves!

Here's another set of good companions;
Carrots and Leeks.....
Plant carrots and leeks together in the same bed to protect against a number of pests. Leeks repel carrot-fly and carrots repel onion-fly and leek-moth!


Here's a few more to try.....

Asparagus - prevents microscopic nematodes from attacking the roots of tomatoes
Chervil - keeps aphids off lettuce
Chives - onion scent wards off aphids from chrysanthemums, sunflowers and tomatoes
Coriander - helps to repel aphids
Dill - attracts aphid eating beneficial insects likes hoverflies and predatory wasps
Garlic - deters aphids and is particularly good planted with roses
Tansy (TOXIC!! DO NOT EAT!) - strongly scented plant deters ants and many other pests.
Plants in the pea family - lupins, peas, beans and sweet peas benefit the soil by taking nitrogen from the air and storing it in their roots
Yarrow - this boosts vigour in other plants and accumulates phosphorous, calcium and silica, which can benefit homemade compost when plants are added to the heap. It attracts many beneficial creatures such as hoverflies and ladybirds

If you found this post useful, and want more information on companion planting - just let me know by leaving comments