Introduction
The other day I had a conversation with my friend, author Steven M. Thomas, that made me realize how much most people don't know about gardening, and specifically organic gardening. I immediately decided to write a basic how-to of gardening as I approach it.
Growing up on a farm, I became very familiar with chemical fertilizers and pest controls. My father had a huge garden and it was very beautiful and productive through the use of "conventional" agriculture, however, Dad was always interested in organic gardening and passed on that interest to me.
After life on the farm, I moved to Oregon and found myself surrounded by organic gardeners, food stores and lifestyles. Back then, it wasn't clear if organic fruits and fresh produce would ever reach the level of quality and distribution that we were accustomed to with "traditional" agriculture (organic farming was once considered traditional and chemically enhanced farming was considered new and scientific). Walk into almost any grocery store these days and check out the organic produce. You'll find plenty of beautiful fresh veggies. Organic farming has become a large-scale success. It's also possible to raise your own beautiful fresh organic veggies at home.
But why organic? Organic gardening puts far fewer chemicals into the environment and our food, but for me it's really all about sustainability. As I build my soil and natural controls for pests, I save money and create a system that makes my job easier. Last year I spent many hours tilling my garden plot. This year, most of my garden was accomplished with no-till methods. I'll talk about this at length later on.
My garden space is approximately 30 feet by 30 feet. It was previously a clearing on the edge of the woods that was covered by sparse clumps of native grasses, wildflowers and small sumac trees. I had three choices for growing on it: develop a healthy soil structure where my plants would flourish; build raised beds; or use containers.
Each approach has benefits and drawbacks. Growing in the ground requires an ongoing commitment to developing a rich healthy soil. Raised beds and containers have the cost to build or buy and the expense of bagged organic soils.
This is my first ripe tomato of the season. It's planted in a seventeen gallon food-grade plastic tub with plenty of large holes drilled along the bottom and lower sides for drainage. The soil is a mixture of whatever brands of organic outdoor container potting soil and raised bed planting medium that were on sale that day. When I was ready to transplant the seedling from its nursery pot, I mixed organic bone meal and organic tomato food into the planting hole and covered it with a couple of inches of soil as a buffer. Every few weeks I water in some liquid organic plant food. The plant is healthy and that red tomato is absolutely perfect, with no cracks, spots or bug bites. Okay, it was perfect. It was also delicious.
I don't have any raised beds this year, but in the past I've found that they work very well for high density planting. Carrots and onions grow well under the shade of the tomatoes, and an entire herb garden can be tucked neatly into small spaces between taller plants. With both containers and raised beds, weeding is rarely necessary, unlike growing in the ground.
Getting Started
Growing a garden is simple enough--put some seeds in some dirt and add water. Producing lots of great tasting veggies requires a few tricks. Let's start with seeds.
Heirloom Seeds--I currently use heirloom seeds, exclusively.
Heirloom seeds are varieties that have been kept pure to type, as much as possible, over at least seventy years and some for hundreds of years. Any improvements have been made through selective breeding, by choosing the most productive and healthy plants for seed. The people who produce heirloom seeds are dedicated seed savers who are careful to avoid cross pollination in order to keep varieties like the famous Hatch, New Mexico green chiles pure. Many people believe that heirloom vegetables taste better than hybrid versions, and some, such as Cherokee Purple, simply can't be improved on. I mainly buy heirloom seeds to support the people who produce them and to help preserve genetic diversity. And there is no limit to the selection. If you plan to save your own seeds, heirlooms are the way to go.
Hybrid Seeds--Hybrid seeds are created by crossbreeding two very different plants in order to combine certain traits, such as disease resistance, rapid growth, early ripening, fruit size and such. Seeds from hybrid plants can't be saved to produce more plants with the same desirable traits. Instead, seed companies that produce hybrid seeds must continue to grow and save seeds from parent strains, in addition to cross-pollinating some of them for more seed crops with the same desirable hybrid qualities. Some hybrids have been around as long as many heirlooms. Tomato hybrids such as Best Boy, Better Boy and Early Girl have excellent qualities, have been proven through several decades and are easy to grow. Some people think hybrids have less complex flavors, but I haven't found this to be true. The Early Girl plant I bought at the Walmart garden center produces the sweetest, most delicious tomatoes I've ever tasted.
GMO Seeds--I don't trust genetically modified organisms, probably because I've seen all of the Godzilla movies dozens of times.
Coming up next Soil.
Stephen
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