Organic gardening 2025

[Alasgun]

Over the years i’ve mentored several folks who developed an interest in Organic gardening. The more you study, the more your head will explode from all the good ideas and advice you will discover. Some of it may be helpful but some of it wont; a lot depends on your situation; what you grow, how you water it, what you feed it etc.
I tell all of them “dont try to wrap your head around all this at once or you’ll loose interest.”

In my opinion the number one thing i try to pass along is “learning how to make good Compost tea”. There’s tea and there’s good tea; it’s simple enough for anyone to master and along the way you will be building up the microbe population in your ground. Those little buggers are your friend. You hear people talk a-lot about feeding the soil not the plant, this is what they are telling you.

 

[akroberts]

I've heard of the tea but didn't get the real down low on how to make it but I can always ask Google. I'm not trying to do everything all at once but I really need to get a serious hold on the plan for the garden. I know I want to fence it all in because of the stray cats and the neighbors' chickens. I'm just really tired of my garden only doing good one day and crappy sorry the next day.

 

[flowerbug]

The heatwave that went for about 3 weeks or more took a toll on the garden this year and it sucked but next year will be better.

if heat and drought are an issue raised beds are not probably going to help without the added complications of needing more water or an irrigation system.

 

[baymule]

You can use soaker hoses in your raised beds.

I used to get bags of leaves off the curb in the fall. I piled leaves in the coop and run up to 3 feet deep. Chickens loved it. They made tunnels, walked on top of the leaves and reduced them down to about 6 inches. I tossed garden trimmings in too. I cleaned the coop and run out 2-3 times a year and put it directly on the garden.

Here is an old thread from 2012 that shows my 1’x12’ green bean garden that was next to the driveway at the house I lived in for 30 years. There is a picture that shows my garden in the background, it was a strip between the driveway and sidewalk. I divided it into beds with brick walkways. Hard dirt like a rock, but the chicken leaf compost made it rich and fertile.

My 2012 Green Bean Garden-2013-post #48

I love my green beans! They vine like mad and produce long beans 24" or longer. Six of them make a side dish for me and my husband! I got the seed from Baker Creek and plant them in a small space 12 inches wide by 12 feet long next to the driveway in the front yard...

www.theeasygarden.com

This is the sweet potatoes I planted in my front yard garden in 2012. It has good pictures of my small strip of garden that produced a bounty of vegetables.

My 2012 Sweet Potato Journal/post #26 starts 2013!

This is the first time I have planted sweet potatoes. My Dad planted them, but I never did and he is gone now and I can't ask him how! So I am drawing on my memories of his sayings to help me along. I had some sweet potatoes on the counter and they sprouted. I had 2 small beds of new potatoes...

www.theeasygarden.com

 

[ducks4you]

Over the years i’ve mentored several folks who developed an interest in Organic gardening. The more you study, the more your head will explode from all the good ideas and advice you will discover. Some of it may be helpful but some of it wont; a lot depends on your situation; what you grow, how you water it, what you feed it etc.
I tell all of them “dont try to wrap your head around all this at once or you’ll lose interest.”

In my opinion the number one thing i try to pass along is “learning how to make good Compost tea”. There’s tea and there’s good tea; it’s simple enough for anyone to master and along the way you will be building up the microbe population in your ground. Those little buggers are your friend. You hear people talk a-lot about feeding the soil not the plant, this is what they are telling you.

Being So physically immobile in 2024 I made some super good compost tea by inadvertently letting straw sit in a 5 gallon bucket, leaving it for a few months, come back to find it full of rainwater and ready to use!

 

[ducks4you]

I've heard of the tea but didn't get the real down low on how to make it but I can always ask Google. I'm not trying to do everything all at once but I really need to get a serious hold on the plan for the garden. I know I want to fence it all in because of the stray cats and the neighbors' chickens. I'm just really tired of my garden only doing good one day and crappy sorry the next day.

Try grass clippings in a bucket and do what I did and leave it for a good month to capture rainwater and cook.

 

[akroberts]

I will try the grass clippings and rain water, if we get anymore. I'm trying to stay positive about the garden because I'm tired of going to the store and looking at the prices of just little small cans of vegetables and telling myself well it's either pay the BS price or do without vegetables. I love vegetables and going without isn't an option for me. My strawberry plants did really good this year. I mean considering the fact that this is the first year I've ever gotten them to grow instead of die, so I was very happy with that. I planted a bunch of different types of tomatoes and got almost nothing but cherry tomatoes. I only got about 5 hot peppers. Maybe 5 lbs of green beans and a big bunch of yellow squash, no zucchini , and I did get some nice cushaws but that was about the best I got this year. Last year I was trying to find ways of making meals with my peppers, tomatoes and zucchini. It was crazy good though.

 

[ducks4you]

Don't EVER beat yourself up for NOT growing/harvesting last season and having to buy at the store!!!
NONE OF US here has figured out how to live off the grid foodwise.
We all have our challenges. My biggest challenge is NOT my knees, it is protecting any plants that I grow from my 5 cats inside during the winter bc they will find the pots and dig out the dirt.
The payback is that I never see a mouse in my house.
So...I have to find alternatives.
MANY people who only in apartments have figured out how to grow cool weather crops to eat by using 2 liter soda bottles and aquarium bubblers. They Don't have the land that You have.
Study up HERE and on the Internet.
It sounds like some of your crops, like tomatoes, are going to need to be in raised beds, where you put down cardboard, and cover it with imported soil bc you live in the desert. Worms will find and eat the cardboard and turn it into rich loan for you.
In the mid 19th Century everything west of the Mississippi River was called, "The Great American Desert."
Just a different kind of soil.
If you have a 3 or 5 gallon bucket, buy some potting soil and put a couple of those potatoes in your pantry that are starting to grow into it, put it by a south facing window and keep it watered. Potatoes take from 2 1/2-3 1/2 months to harvest. You could have new potatoes by Easter!
Think about herbs that you use a lot. You can grow those from seed, OR, some grocery stores sell the whole plants.
Study up on what conditions the herb likes and try to keep it alive.
So What if it fails?!? You can harvest the dry leaves and cook with them and throw the stem away. No loss.
I couldn't keep a basil alive during the winter, but my middle DD still has one in her basement going.
Go figure?!?
While you are on "walkies" during this winter, use your phone to take pictures of your garden areas. Save them and mark What time of day. When the seed packets tell you 6-8 hrs of sunlight/day they mean that many hours for the Entire growing season.
Right now we are in the dark time of the year and you expect this or better.
Maybe you will need to move some vegetables and change your plans about where to plant tomatoes.
These pictures are especially useful to see if you have any pooling during a rain.
Most vegetables/herbs do NOT like "getting their feet wet." They prefer drenching and draining.
I can think of only one Flower that likes it wet, and that is Forget Me Nots. I can't seem to grow them. They dry out and die on me.
Back to tomatoes. Last year was a dismal growing year HERE, where even worn out Illinois soil, with a few amendments can grow a lot of crops. SOMEHOW, my neighbors tomato plants didn't do well. I broke ALL OF THE RULES and planted mine in July. My September harvest was magnificent! I have saucer sized fruit from over 35 plants. Bear in mind that I am a BIG TIME CANNER and we have to cook with little/no salt for DH, so it's kind of an imperative. The average tomato grower doesn't need more than a dozen plants. Grow 15 next year and you can afford to lose a few of them.
ONE MORE THING about tomato plants--the entire stem has hairs which become roots when underground.
Don't plant them on their sides! You will be throwing water at them all season!!
I use a manual auger, although a good spade and elbow grease will do fine, and I dig them each18"-2 ft holes and bury each plant up to it's top leaves. They grow great and powerful roots and stay healthy.
ALSO, Everybody gets some blossom end rot. It doesn't mean your tomatoes aren't doing well. It has more to do with inconsistent moisture available.
Still, I water my tomatoes for a few weeks and then I don't. You might be a little bit drier than me, but you get the picture.
If you still have leaves, you can rake them up and/or pile them up on your garden areas.
Darwin's first book was on how he observed worms changing leaves left on rock into soil an inch at a time.
Leaves are the best and cheapest compost around.
I keep horses, so I put some dried manure into every one of my tomato plant holes before transplanting, but you could do the same with saved leaves.
THE BEST help you can get is to contact your local land grant University Extension Services for help.
They can recommend growing tips and vegetables that do better for YOU in your climate than they would for me.
YOUR taxes pay them, so use them.

 

[akroberts]

Don't EVER beat yourself up for NOT growing/harvesting last season and having to buy at the store!!!
NONE OF US here has figured out how to live off the grid foodwise.
We all have our challenges. My biggest challenge is NOT my knees, it is protecting any plants that I grow from my 5 cats inside during the winter bc they will find the pots and dig out the dirt.
The payback is that I never see a mouse in my house.
So...I have to find alternatives.
MANY people who only in apartments have figured out how to grow cool weather crops to eat by using 2 liter soda bottles and aquarium bubblers. They Don't have the land that You have.
Study up HERE and on the Internet.
It sounds like some of your crops, like tomatoes, are going to need to be in raised beds, where you put down cardboard, and cover it with imported soil bc you live in the desert. Worms will find and eat the cardboard and turn it into rich loan for you.
In the mid 19th Century everything west of the Mississippi River was called, "The Great American Desert."
Just a different kind of soil.
If you have a 3 or 5 gallon bucket, buy some potting soil and put a couple of those potatoes in your pantry that are starting to grow into it, put it by a south facing window and keep it watered. Potatoes take from 2 1/2-3 1/2 months to harvest. You could have new potatoes by Easter!
Think about herbs that you use a lot. You can grow those from seed, OR, some grocery stores sell the whole plants.
Study up on what conditions the herb likes and try to keep it alive.
So What if it fails?!? You can harvest the dry leaves and cook with them and throw the stem away. No loss.
I couldn't keep a basil alive during the winter, but my middle DD still has one in her basement going.
Go figure?!?
While you are on "walkies" during this winter, use your phone to take pictures of your garden areas. Save them and mark What time of day. When the seed packets tell you 6-8 hrs of sunlight/day they mean that many hours for the Entire growing season.
Right now we are in the dark time of the year and you expect this or better.
Maybe you will need to move some vegetables and change your plans about where to plant tomatoes.
These pictures are especially useful to see if you have any pooling during a rain.
Most vegetables/herbs do NOT like "getting their feet wet." They prefer drenching and draining.
I can think of only one Flower that likes it wet, and that is Forget Me Nots. I can't seem to grow them. They dry out and die on me.
Back to tomatoes. Last year was a dismal growing year HERE, where even worn out Illinois soil, with a few amendments can grow a lot of crops. SOMEHOW, my neighbors tomato plants didn't do well. I broke ALL OF THE RULES and planted mine in July. My September harvest was magnificent! I have saucer sized fruit from over 35 plants. Bear in mind that I am a BIG TIME CANNER and we have to cook with little/no salt for DH, so it's kind of an imperative. The average tomato grower doesn't need more than a dozen plants. Grow 15 next year and you can afford to lose a few of them.
ONE MORE THING about tomato plants--the entire stem has hairs which become roots when underground.
Don't plant them on their sides! You will be throwing water at them all season!!
I use a manual auger, although a good spade and elbow grease will do fine, and I dig them each18"-2 ft holes and bury each plant up to it's top leaves. They grow great and powerful roots and stay healthy.
ALSO, Everybody gets some blossom end rot. It doesn't mean your tomatoes aren't doing well. It has more to do with inconsistent moisture available.
Still, I water my tomatoes for a few weeks and then I don't. You might be a little bit drier than me, but you get the picture.
If you still have leaves, you can rake them up and/or pile them up on your garden areas.
Darwin's first book was on how he observed worms changing leaves left on rock into soil an inch at a time.
Leaves are the best and cheapest compost around.
I horses, so I put some dried manure into every one of my tomato plant holes before transplanting, but you could do the same with saved leaves.
THE BEST help you can get is to contact your local land grant University Extension Services for help.
They can recommend growing tips and vegetables that do better for YOU in your climate than they would for me.
YOUR taxes pay them, so use them.

I did the garden last year and it gave me more cherry tomatoes than I could ever eat, peppers and zucchini plus yellow squash. I did get about 6 decent potatoes. Probably got around 15 lbs of green beans. I think I got some pumpkins too but this year it was really all about the cherry tomatoes and yellow squash. I'm not complaining about it but no zucchini was just a pisser. I know that I have to put potatoes, carrots, beets, turnips, radishes, garlic and onions in pots because they can't get through the soil here.

 

[akroberts]

So just about 15-20 minutes ago I was sitting in my bed and I got an alert for an earthquake. Sure enough my bed felt like it was swaying in the wind. This is only the 2nd time I have ever felt an earthquake.