Organic gardening: Growing your own organic foods
Gardening is basically the practice of growing plants in a garden for foods, medicines and income. In organic gardening, organic seeds are planted into the soil or pots to harvest in due time as organic produce for subsistence, health improvement and commercial advantages.The practice of gardening does not only entail sowing of seeds into the soil but consists of other steps as soil improvement, plant watering, weeding, and harvesting.
Growing your own organic staple foods, fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices obviously helps you stay smart healthy. Common planting in a garden includes fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices which provide abundant minerals and vitamins, fiber, needed to promote health. Garden plants as fruits, vegetables, particularly herbs and spices have been known to contain powerful anti-inflammatory properties that improve brain and memory functions. They have therapeutic effect to lower blood sugar levels in diabetic patients, inhibit cancer development, fight infection, improve immunity, help treat arthritis and overall enhance body metabolism. Herbs and spices are used as disinfectants, anesthetics and are effective treatment for skin, musculoskeletal system disorders
Organic crops grown in your own garden have more nutrients than some crops sold in the market because organic crops are high quality natural produce with no addition of artificial fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth hormones to denature their nutrient content. You are the one to decide whether to use organic manure or not, whether to use fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, growth hormones, which are known to be unhealthy, when you grow your own foods.
Organic gardening not only improves your health but has an income earning potential as its organic produce when sold in the grocery stores are three times more costly than inorganic produce.
You will never go hungry or go undernourished when you grow your own varieties of foods. You can subsist chiefly on foods made from your own garden. Food and Agricultural Organization(FAO) of the United Nations estimates that 795 million people out of about 7.6 billion people in the world, suffer from chronic undernourishment. There will be eradication of hunger or undernourishment if these number of world hungry folks produce their own foods.
Gardening is good as an agribusiness with income potentials and as a diversification of an economy.
Hear the tale of a couple who saves $24K a year by growing their own foods. "My wife, Susan, and I have always loved healthy foods especially the fresh, well-ripened kind- which is why we routinely spent towards $400 on organic produce. But it wasn't until we accepted a dinner invitation from our friend Eliza, a master naturalist who grows all of her own foods, that we realized just how amazing organic eating could be. The couple went further to explain that when we bought a house the following year on a three-quart- acre lot in Greenville, South Carolina, we tried out our hand at gardening just like Eliza. In an average year, we harvest literally thousands of pounds of foods, squash alone yields hundreds per week in the summer . Most of the produce sold in stores is generic and relatively bland, so to put a number on how much money we save is like comparing apple to orange- no pun intended. But if we were to buy comparable foods from organic grocery, it would probably cost us $1,500 to $2,000 a month for the same quality, quantity and variety."
Planting can be done outdoors in a backyard or indoors on the patio in a pot depending on the plant and how much sunshine the plant requires.Herbs and spices can be planted both outdoors in a ridge, bed or indoors in pots whereas fruits and vegetables are better plants for outdoors to let enough sunlight exposure. It's important you know which seed grows better outdoors or indoors before gardening.
I have a close friend who fills her ridge with 55 kinds of fruits, vegetables, some plants are inside of pots indoors. Some other plants are outdoors in the backyard. Her backyard is so well designed with plants of tomatoes, blueberries, artichokes, watermelons, cantaloupes, basil leaves, thyme, cilantro, turmeric, peppers, and who sells her produce online on Craiglist to make profits.
When and What crops to grow in your garden?
There are variations in when and what plant to grow depending on climate, region, country and what kind of crop survives in the region. Typically, tropical crops do not survive in temperate climate and so also temperate crops do not survive in tropical climate except some few crops as beans, corn, tomatoes, peppers, okra, watermelon, potatoes, peas, that usually thrive in both climates.
There are four planting seasons in the year- spring, summer, fall, autumn. Crops are grown depending on their planting season and which usually fall into any of these four planting seasons;
Spring planting; In the southern United States for example, spring planting typically begins in April and ends in June when soil temperature is between 60 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Crops to plant in this season includes beans, peas, corn, pumpkins, okra, tomatoes, watermelons,, basil leaves, collards, spinach, cabbage, sweet potatoes. These plants need sunlight, warmth, well- worked fertile soils to sprout and to grow well. You can also plant peas, green beans, cilantro, spinach in fall season. Some seeds grow well in two planting seaons. Best time to plant most herbs and spices is in May. Most of them are fall seaon plants as well.
Summer planting; This begins in late June. Crop planting at this time are mostly fruits and vegetables such as blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, peaches, potatoes, onions, peas, beets, arugula, spinach, lettuce, carrots, broccoli, cilantro, brussel sprouts, turnips, collards, cauliflower, beans, peas, radishes
Fall planting;This is done after the soil warms and includes mostly vegetables such as spinach, cilantro, lettuce, carrots, arugula, kale , broccoli, beets, potatoes, onions, peas. Most summer crops such as spinach, cilantro, carrots, beets, onions, have extended planting season to fall and grow successfully well in fall period, too.
Autumn planting. Autumn time is a good time to plant crops that thrive in winter cold condition and are such edible crops as boy choy, kale, radishes, leeks, garlic, onions, chards, cabbage
How to plant In your garden?
Gardening begins in southwestern America after rainfall in April when the soil is well drained The best planting soil gardeners love is nutrient dense loam soil that can be further improved with organic manure or compost for better plant growth and yields.
Commence gardening after clearing the ground, tilling the ground, and making ridges or beds for planting. Make furrows for the seeds to be planted and then sow the seeds directly into the soil. To improve soil quality, mix the soil thoroughly with organic manure or compost before planting. You can till and dig the ground yourself or hire an equipment for your tilling and planting from any hardware stores such as Home Depot, usually cost about $20 per day.
Pick the seeds you want to cultivate for any planting season-spring, summer, fall, autumn.Make sure you space out plants at least 6 feet in between plants during planting as this is important to ensure sufficient light, nutrients and high harvest yields.
Water the garden regularly once or twice daily with regards to the particular crop. Water the ground early morning before sunrise and evening after sunset for sown seeds to sprout and grow well. Then, water just once in a day after seed sprouting. Number of times of watering per day however is determined by the particular crop water needs. Some crops are more water loving than others, like watermelon grows better when soil is well drained. Also, some crops love more sunshine and warmth than others, like okra grows a lot better with sufficient exposure to sunshine Make a groove in the ground for irrigation in between ridges so as to provide growing crops with enough water supply when one is traveling out of town.
It's also important to regularly weed your garden by pulling up weeds from their roots making sure to target only the unwanted grasses. Avoid pulling surrounding crops. Don't use herbicides or sprays to kill weeds in order to prevent sprays getting into crops.
Produce harvesting
After planting time comes harvest time. Harvest when crops have reached maturity and ripen. Seed planting duration before ripeness cum harvest depends on the particular seed. Most seeds ripen approximately three months domiciled in the ground before harvest. You can tell when crops are ripen for harvest from their size, skin color- usually change color from green to yellow just like in orange, mango, pawpaw, others are ripen when red in the case of tomatoes, peppers, some others are ripen when their pods are tender as in okra or when pods become tougher as in groundnuts, when buds are tightly closed as in broccoli.
However, the best way to know when a crop is ripen for harvest is to follow seed package instructions showing the number of months a particular plant seed stays in the ground before harvest. Seed package instructions will show you for instance that watermelon seeds will mature in 87 -120 days of planting or that okra seed maturity is in 65 days. Package label instructions are usually accurate. Harvest can be simply done by pulling, plucking, picking of crop yields.
For more information on how to know when your fruits, vegetables, are ready for harvest, go to www.growveg.com.
Begin to eat your own organic grown foods after produce harvest and begin to sell some of them to make money
Written by Ngozi Eneremadu, July 3rd, 2018
Source: http;//www.learnvest.com/2015/04/tales-of- a-backyard-gardener-how- a- couple- saves- 24K- a- year- by- growing-their-own-food
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