Organic Veggie Gardening 101

I’m a bit behind in reporting on what I learned at the Organic Vegetable Gardening 101 class at Natural Gardener on Saturday. We’re painting our house, and it takes a very long time, as we’re doing it by ourselves using brushes only. Oh, how my muscles ache. Give me weeding and tilling over exterior painting any day! On the other hand, it’s looking good, despite the slow method! I’ll share a picture at some point, when we’re further along in the process.

So… veggies! By the way, I took this class with Caroline of The Shovel-Ready Garden and Cat of Amlo Farms. They are delightful! I see in Caroline’s blog that while I took more notes, she took more pictures, haha! Well, I’m a farming newbie — I had to pay close attention! So I recommend visiting Caroline’s blog for additional information about hoop houses and many excellent photographs.

The class, taught by horticulturist Rosina Newton, covered a lot of the basics of starting a garden. A big part of her lecture was on soil preparation. It was particularly interesting to hear how much they mix into their soil, versus the simple mixing in of compost that I did for my jack-o-lantern pumpkins. For their vegetable garden, they mixed in:

• cottonseed meal (organic 7-2-1 fertilizer)
• cow manure compost
• green sand (for minerals, such as potassium)
• worm castings
• *crab shell (*they are dealing with root-knot nematodes, which are bad nematodes – the crab shell encourages chitin-loving microbes to increase, which will consume both the crab shell and the bad nematodes)

They also water in with liquid seaweed and then regularly fertilize. In Texas, we need to mulch – pine straw is recommended. Rosina says, “Never leave bare soil.”

Rosina recommends fertilizing every 4 to 6 weeks with an organic fertilizer. Fertilizers are labeled with three numbers, which in order identify ratio of Nitrogen : Phosphorus : Potassium (N-P-K). FYI, they are absorbed in a 3-2-1 ratio. Nitrogen helps with green leafy growth; phosphorus helps with roots, blooms, and fruit; and potassium helps with plant vigor, stem strength, and disease/pest resistance. For my pumpkins and melons, I chose Rabbit Hill’s Buds ‘N Blooms fertilizer. So if you never knew what those numbers mean, there ya go! Choose your fertilizer based on your garden needs.

Other tips:

• Add Innoculant when planting legumes, for necessary rhizobium bacteria.
• Plant your garden east to west to allow best sun coverage as it passes over. Taller plants should be on the north side, unless you need them to provide shade for other plants.
• Don’t over-till. A garden fork is preferable over a shovel, too.
• Always wet the root ball before transplanting.
• Always rotate your crops with each planting season. For example, don’t use the same bed you just had squash in to plant anything else from the squash family. Ideally, wait two years before using that same location.

There was other information about dealing with clay soil, sheet mulching to deal with Bermuda grass, and using row and shade cover. I’m not adding that here, but if anyone is interested in what was said, I’ll be happy to provide it if you let me know in a comment.

Here’s a bee that captured my attention while they were planting during class. I love bees!

This was an interesting side note from Rosina – apparently it has been found that ADD/ADHD is linked to a magnesium deficiency. And what is the first nutrient to deplete from the soil? Magnesium. Could there be a correlation in regard to diet, she wondered? In any case, it certainly won’t hurt to make sure your veggies and fruits get fertilized and replenished minerals. Epsom salt adds magnesium, fyi. Apparently there’s info on the package about how to use in a garden.

With trusty Googling, I read that symptoms of low magnesium include light or restless sleep and daytime sleepiness. That’s me to a tee – I’ll need to see what my energy levels are like on days where I do or do not eat nuts, spinach, oatmeal, or bananas.

A final note — Rosina’s helper added this message, which I’d like to pass on: “Teach children and others to be caretakers of the soil, for the next generation.” So many kids never venture outside, much less learn to garden, in this era of technology. How will they protect the Earth, if we don’t teach them to love it and nurture it?

There’s a Master Gardeners organic gardening class on Saturday. I might try to go to it, too.