Organic horticulture and holistic lifestyles go hand in hand. Many people who appreciate the benefits of this lifestyle enjoy growing their own foods using safe, organic horticulture methods. The following advice below helps to improve organic horticulture skills.
Plant perennials that slugs and snails won't be interested in eating. If slugs or snails find their favorite perennials in your garden, they'll snack all night. When you wake up in the morning, there will be very little left of your plants. These garden pests prefer perennials with thin, flat, delicate leaves, particularly if the plant is not yet mature. Some perennials aren't that tasty to snails and slugs since they have tough and hairy leaves, and an unappetizing flavor. Some varieties of these plants are campanula, helleborus, heuchera, or euphorbia.
Be sure to weed your garden. Weeds can be extremely detrimental to your garden. Try using white vinegar to get rid of weeds. Weeds can be killed by white vinegar! Load up your spray bottle with some white vinegar, and spray the weeds away instead of breaking your back removing them by hand.
Properly put down your sod. The soil requires preparation before sod can be laid. Weeds should be removed, and you should break up the soil into a tilth. Flatten the soil back into place, gently but firmly. Thoroughly moisten the soil. Lay the sod in rows, and make sure the joints do not overlap. Even out the surface of the sod by firming it down flat, filling any available gaps with a handful of dirt. Water the sod for two weeks and then you can safely walk on it as it will have had time to properly root.
Soak the seeds and store in a dark area overnight. Drop some seeds into a small glass or other container, and fill it with water. The water will hydrate the sends, giving them a head start once you plant them. This improves the chances of successful plant development.
One natural method of weed removal is called “boiling”. Any vessel of boiling water that you can carry safely can be used as an organic herbicide. Make sure to pour only on the weeds and to stay away from healthy vegetation. Weed roots will suffer harm from boiling water, and this will probably stop them from growing more.
Irises can benefit from being separated. Increase your iris population when you divide up overgrown clumps. When you see the foliage is definitely dead, lift up the bulbous irises. The bulbs, when harvested, should easily split by hand – allowing you to replant them for even more blooms next spring. For plants with rhizomes, use a knife to divide them. From the outside cut the new pieces and then get rid of the old center. Each new piece you cut should possess at least one healthy offshoot. Replant your new rhizome pieces as soon as you have finished the cuttings.
Think about planting your seeds in indoor pots and then transplanting them to your garden once they become seedlings. This really increases the survival rate of young plants. In addition, you can shorten the intervals between your plantings. You can plant the seedlings once you have removed the old plants.
Start your garden off right with seeds, not plants. Once the plant is healthy enough, replant it in your garden with the appropriate type of soil. It's better for your garden, in particular, because transplants have high failure rates; whereas, sprouting a seed and growing a plant in the same conditions is better. Additionally, it's better for the environment, because the plastic pots used by most greenhouses are generally not recycled and are cluttering landfills.
The more skills about organic horticulture you can learn, gardening will become that much easier for you. Keep in mind that these pointers are simply the tip of the iceberg.