How To Be A Hero Gardener

Grow Organic!

A  family vegetable garden is a wonderful way to engage children in outside activity, teach them where their food comes from and build healthy eating habits.

You don’t have to be an organic farmer to recapture carbon from the
atmosphere. All of us can plant an organic garden whether it’s for food, for
relaxation or to help fight global warming. It all starts with the soil.

Hero Gardening Tip #1

Return organic matter to the earth. Everyone has access to the raw
ingredients of organic matter, because your lawn, garden and kitchen produce
them everyday. Decaying plant wastes, such as grass clippings, fall leaves and
vegetable scraps from your kitchen, are the building blocks of compost, the ideal
organic matter for your garden soil. Rake them in!

Hero Gardening Tip #2

Check your soil. Find a soil test laboratory in your area where you can get a
low-cost test (use this handy listing of labs from Organic Gardening magazine).
The results of your test will tell you the soil’s pH and what nutrients are out of
balance. With that information, you can choose amendments to bolster your soil
like bonemeal, greensand or rock phosphates, all derived from natural sources
and each suited to particular need.

Hero Gardening Tip #3

Love your insects. The best defenses against insect attack are preventative
measures. Grow plants suited to the site, don’t let them be too wet or dry, and
diversify your garden so pests of a particular plant won’t decimate an entire
section. Most importantly, encourage natural predators to hunt in your garden
like ladybugs, birds, frogs and lizards. Keep a water source nearby – just a dishfull,
if that’s all you’ve got – and forgo pesticides to protect helpful insects (learn
to recognize your insect friends in this Organic Gardening article).

Hero Gardening Tip #4

Weed wisely. Organic gardeners tackle weeds with persistence and the right
tools – not chemicals. A thick layer of mulch keeps light from reaching weeds,
and straw and grass clippings nourish the soil as they decompose. For even
better weed protection, use several sheets of newspaper or cardboard under
these mulches. Early in the season, you can suppress the growth of weed seeds
by spreading corn gluten meal over the area where they’re growing. During the
season, use a sharp hoe to sever weed stems from their roots.

Source: The Rodale Institue with special thanks to Organic Gardening magazine.