The topic of  vegetable gardening is getting more and mor important once the summer comes closer. I prefer to buy organic goods, but even in the organic store in my hometown, most vegetables and fruits are not really “local”, so I’ll tell you how to grow your own organic food!

Even though I like to devote my garden space to pure flower gardening, growing my own vegetables is getting more important to me (and is making up an increasing share of my garden). Not only are self-grown vegetables ecologically superior to bought ones, but legumes from earth that you tilled with your own hands also bring a special feel to the dinner table.

So, here are 5 basic tips for organic vegetable gardening:

1. In which way is organic gardening different from “normal” gardening?

One should rather say that organic gardening is “normal” since it was practiced ever since men started to grow their food (until the industrial revolution)!

Organic gardening means not to use artificial herbicides, pesticides and fungicides. This may seem like a step backwards since you can’t rely on the “little helpers” you may have grown accustomed to.

On the other hand it’s just healthier for you and your garden (in the long run) to avoid the use of chemicals. In an extended sense, organic also means to rely on local produce – although for example guano is an organic fertilizer, it may come to you from places thousands of miles away. I’m not sure whether this should count as “organic”. Keep this in mind when you think about how to organize your gardening resources!

2. Is my garden suitable for organic vegetable gardening?

For the overwhelming number of gardens, this can be answered with a definitive “yes”. However, there are two factor that may keep you from growing your own vegetables:

• Availability of sun (i.e. if there are trees that shade most of your garden)
• and the possibility of contamination.

Most vegetables that you will want to grow need an abundance of sun – shadowy places simply will not do, you’re better off with shrubs and grasses here (or take green vegetables like lettuce that don’t need as much sun).

You should also think twice about growing your own vegetables if you’re living near a highway or heavy industrial areas that may create acid rain. Most amateur gardeners lack the time and resources to analyze their soil thoroughly. You can ask about pollution levels at your local cooperative extension service.

3. How should I prepare my garden?

The quality of your soil is a critical factor if you decide to grow vegetables organically. Organic matter like compost, manure or grass clippings contain nutrients in complex form that your plants can only absorbed when they’re stripped-down to their ionic form. You do, however, have the advantage of long-term supply of nutrients (and good texture) to your soil if you apply organic matter.

I’ve made the experience that it works fine to start early (in lake winter) by putting leaves, dried grass and compost on the soil and mixing it into the soil about 3 foot deep (some organic gardeners I’ve talked to till much deeper, but that may be more necessary if you have very sandy soil that needs huge additions of organic matter). There is of course the possibility to use cover crops that are later tilled into the soil, but this technique is less attractive if your garden space is limited.

4. What vegetables should I plant in my garden?

This depends on your taste as well as the climate of your region. You should pay special attention to the frost-hardiness of plants (check the requirements on table 6 on this paper

http://www.caes.uga.edu/applications/publications/files/html/B1011/B1011tables.pdf  by the University of Georgia);

In the end, you’ll make the experience that some just grow better than others. You should, however, always follow the basic principle of plant succession!

Vegetables from one group should not be planted on the same earth in succession of other plants. The main groups are the plants from the

• nightshade family (eggplants, tomatoes),
• legumes (beans, peanuts),
• cucurbits ( cucumber, squash)
• and cole (broccoli, cabbage).

5. How can I control for pests without pesticides?

This is one of the most difficult things in organic gardening and one that may tempt you to use chemical – but you can safe yourself a lot of trouble by following these guidelines:

1. Plants are more vulnerable to pests if they’re unhealthy anyway:
   Care for good soil, enough sunlight and the right amount of moisture, and your plants will be hardier.
2. Mono-cultures are more vulnerable – planting a diverse selection of plants will help you tremendously:
   Also try to acquire disease-resistant varieties of vegetables you want to grow.
3. Planting your vegetable early once winter is over will give them a head start to pests:
   You can plant your vegetables from seeds inside the house and put them outside once you’re sure that frost temperatures are over.

These five principles will surely help you in avoiding some disappointments and starting your own vegetable supply successfully. If you’re interested in furthering your knowledge, I can recommend the discussion boards at www.organicgardening.com which also features a seed swap subforum!

P.S.: Not is just the right time to prepare your garden for growing vegetables!

In the last articles on Chinese gardening I explained the origins, concepts and motives of Chinese gardens (as they appear to me). In this article, I will write down some hints you can use to create a Chinese garden yourself or render your own garden more „Chinese“.

Keep in mind that you should always adapt to the preconditions of your garden! If you have little space and want have room to throw a barbecue party or something of the like, it doesn’t make sense to fill your garden with ponds, rocks and large trees. You can, however, keep the following points in mind and contemplate which of them will make a good addition to your garden:

Asymmetry: Most Chinese gardens are not ordered symmetrically

As a “reproduction of nature in three dimensions”, they mostly have a free-flowing form. For example, ponds or lakes in larger gardens may be kidney-shaped instead of oval. Straight lines are replaced by soft, bending forms. Pathways – including bridges – are not straight, but bending or even zig-zagging.

Lakes in chinese gardening

As the meaning of the well-known keyword “feng shui” – “wind and water” – may suggest: Water plays a vital role in Chinese gardens. One could even say that ponds in Chinese gardens take the same place that lawns do in western gardens! You should, however, take care not to devote too much space to ponds if you need a spacious garden (i.e. room to play for the kids). You could replace ponds with stone basins filled with lotus and other water plants. Alternatively, you could built a roofed gazebo next to your pond that’s spacious enough to provide room for activities – this is also a great possibility to add Chinese architectural features to your garden (preferably in a rather subtle way).

Borrowed views and preferred views

These are two really interesting concepts that Chinese garden often feature. Basically, these two offer views at special objects either outside (“borrowed”) or inside (“preferred”) the garden. A borrowed view may be a mountain or hill near your home that one can see through a window in your garden wall so it practically becomes part of your garden; a preferred view could be a beautiful flower, structure etc. inside your garden that is set in place by its surroundings, i.e. a round moongate in front of an artistically structured pond or a bunch of bamboo in front of a white wall. Both serve to accentuate the quality of a certain object, plant or structure.

Hidden views and walls

In classic Chinese gardens, walls serve as a counterpoint to the “untamed”, bending forms of natural objects. They may separate a garden into several smaller parts that you only see one by one instead of taking in everything at first glance. Walls may hide special parts of the garden, for example a bed of beautiful flowers or a small pond filled with goldfish. If you think that walls will not suit your garden – because it’s too small or it wouldn’t fit in with the neighboring gardens – you can use natural structures like a ponds, mounds, rocks or shrubs instead.

Rocks in chinese gardens?

Rocks are used as a means to recreate miniature versions of mountains inside a garden. The so-called “Gongshi” are reminiscent of Chinese landscapes like Mount Huang (the yellow mountains) or the well-known karst rocks of Guilin. I think that it’s not easy to create fitting “mountains” for your garden – they often look a bit out of place if they’re not carefully integrated into the garden. The easiest possibilities may be to place them in a pond as a recreation of a stone island – this also evokes the taoist myth of the “eight immortals”, divine beings that are said to live on an island in the sea.

One other possibility is to place rocks between different levels (i.e. pathways in different heights) if you have the possibility to do so in your garden; this way, they fit in easier than if they’re free-standing.

Read the rest of this entry »

Kinds of fertilizer

You can decide between organic and inorganic fertilizers. First of all, inorganic fertilizers have a bad reputation with a growing number of people, but they have some advantages: As they are way cheaper than organic fertilizers, you get more bang for your buck – and they can very quickly add specific nutrients to your soil.

Organic vs. inorganic fertilizer

On the downside, inorganic fertilizers don’t really improve your soil, but simply feed your plants; they may even harm your soil as their salt content is higher. Organic fertilizers, on the other hand, release nutrients over a a period of time and will also aid the texture of your soil (especially if you use compost). So, your decision should be based on the following questions:

• What should I do if I realize that a certain nutrient is only rarely available in my soil and my plants are about to die?
  –>  Apply inorganic fertilizers that encompass the specific nutrients.
• What should I do if my soil is sandy, does only have moderate levels of nutrients and/or my plants don’t grow the way they should?
  –> Apply organic fertilizers like compost or manure.

Organic fertilizer

As you may have expected, “organic fertilizers” is a wide term. On the one hand, that are substances like compost, manure or commercial “all in one” solutions that supply all nutrients; on the other hand, there are also mediums for specific nutrients.
I would recommend to stick to the former and only apply specific nutrients if your soil are lacking only this nutrient. The following list will give you hints about the most common organic fertilizers:

• Compost: Nutrient levels of compost are not as high as those of other fertilizers, but it’s for free (if you’re composting your garden waste) and adds good organic matter to your soil
• Manure: Has higher levels of nutrients – especially nitrogen – than compost, but you will have to get it composted before applying (otherwise its ammonia levels are too high; also, your neighbors will hate you for the smell ).
  You can ask a local farmer about acquiring manure, but apply it with care (and enough time between application and harvest, if you’re having a vegetable garden).
• Important: As manure supplies high quantities of nitrogen, application in high amounts will cause foliage and weed growth!!
• Peat moss, grass clippings and cover crops (grown on unused land and later cut and tilled into the soil) will have the same effect as compost – cover crops will also help you to suppress the growth of weeds.
• Other fertilizers supply primarily one kind of nutrient to your soil: Fish emulsion (nitrogen), bone meal and seabird guano (phosphorous) and wood ashes (potassium).
  I especially found that alfalfa meal is a good plant-based supplier of nitrogen, potassium and trace minerals.

In the end, all soil will benefit from the addition of organic matter in appropriate measure. Inorganic fertilizers should only be a supplement if “normal” fertilizing hasn’t been sufficient or isn’t fast enough.

I hope youenjoyed this article – to me it was fun writing it as it helped me to put my experience together in a short, clearly-arranged way. See you next time!

Hey guys, today I want to continue my article about gardening in ancient China. In the last article, I explained (or tried to explain) how the practical use of these chinese gardens influenced a concept that built up over centuries and culminated in what is today known as “Chinese gardens”. In the following lines, I will point out what their basic concepts of and which elements are integral to gardening in China.

The Philospphy behind Chinese gardens

Gardening in China has been heavily influenced by the Taoist philosophy (by the way, if you’re interested in Taoism I can recommend you to read something by Zhuangzi – it’s great and thoughful literature!); its most important ideas in relation to nature are the following:

• Men have to follow the natural order of the universe and should thus live in harmony with nature
• Nature is made up by antagonisms (like male and female), that are not possible without the other
• To struggle against the natural will is in vain; instead you should adopt and align yourself to the “Qi” (flow of energy)

Chinese garden concepts

These ideas result in the following concepts when it comes to gardening:

• Gardens should be a natural, place and must not be symmetric; plants should be planted in their natural form.
• You should unite the antagonisms of nature like hard and soft, mountainous and plain, simple and elaborate in your garden.
• The flow of “Qi” should be freed by proper alignment of the different elements: Creating round shapes, inclusion of ponds, hills and way (which are said to have a different qi, respectively)

So whether you believe in the concept of “Qi” or not, you will note that the fascination of Chinese gardens often come from a combination of seemingly contradictory elements. In fact, there are eight important entities that should be present in a Chinese garden (provided that there is enough space..):
Earth, Heaven, Plants, Water, Mountains, Structures, Ways and men.

“A miniature model of the real world”

What I find quite interesting about this is that on the one hand, Chinese gardens should be a miniature model of the “real” nature. On the other hands, they are carefully composed to include all these elements that are said to make up the order of the universe. IT must have been quite interesting when the first missionaries came to China from Europa at a time, when the gardens of the French aristocrats with their symmetric built-up, well-trimmed bushes and orderly impression were the high fashion. Perhaps this experience even triggered the development of the specific English gardens that were much less symmetric and more “flowing”?

After having explained what are the basic concepts behind Chinese gardens (in my eyes), I will give practical instructions on Chinese-style gardens in the next article of this series. I’m looking forward to your comments and questions!