7. Organic Plant Maintenance

When I first commenced this blog I knew that eventually I would have to compile a page about organic gardening. I understand the principle and we have been organically growing without knowing what organic gardening actually means for the last two years. Neither my wife nor I are keen on synthetic remedies for anything. We are not fans of pest control and we are not into the synthetic fertilisers that can be purchased to “improve” the condition of the soil. We are into anything that is natural which apparently, by pure accident, makes us organic gardeners anyway.

Organic gardening is the means of producing anything using natural ingredients, and mainly relates to the preparation of soils and pest control, and doing it the simple and inexpensive way. It doesn’t mean that your garden needs to be “chemical free”, just using natural ingredients to get the job done, safely.

SOIL PREPARATION

We require at least two different types of soils, one for the greenhouse and another for out in the garden. And we have learnt our soil preparation through trial and error;

Soil in any greenhouse needs to be friable (or open textured), must have its own reserve of nutrients, must provide good drainage and must not compact when dry. Many seeds are tiny and very brittle and unless your soil preparation is as above you may not propagate anything at all. We have learnt this with lettuce. You can buy seed raising mixtures or commercial composts but it is just as much fun making your own. We have developed a greenhouse soil that is part compost (our own), part loam and part granulated sand in various consistencies. Vermiculite is also an excellent additive that boosts aeration and drainage but we have yet to try it. We only use seed raising mixture to cover our seedlings, not as a soil in itself. Seed raising mixture has very little nutrient and is not recommended. Once your seedlings are big enough to plant out any excess soil used to propagate them should be thrown back on your compost heap. Don’t use it again for the next lot of seeds; it is probably devoid of any nutrients.

Soil out in the garden consists of compost, compost and more compost, mainly our own, but from time to time a little commercial mushroom compost is added. Fortunately we run our own compost bin and a green leaf container and they provide all that we need. We save all our greens, all our egg shells, any vegetable matter from the garden, throw on any previously used soil from a greenhouse seedling tray, a few worms and voila! You can throw on grass clippings if you mow your lawns on a regular basis but don’t throw on bucket loads. A few handfuls every now and then is fine. Used coffee or tea is brilliant. My wife brings them home from her university. Some wood dust from my workshop gets added every now and then. If you have your own compost bin give it a little water every now and then. It will dry out if covered and the moisture helps with the breaking down of materials.

Once you have harvested a crop don’t plant a new one immediately. Breakup the soil with a hoe, rake in the mulch you were using for the previous crop, add some more compost, a few worms, even add a few handfuls of grass clipping or vegetable greens, water in and leave for a couple of weeks while mother nature does her job. A little chook manure also helps and don’t the neighbours love it! And do not plant the same crop in the same place two times in a row. Rotate what you grow. Plant something different the next time and this will prevent the accumulation of pests, diseases and weeds.


PEST CONTROL

We have not had any real problems with pests and I believe that is more a case of good luck than good management. We get the odd caterpillar on the lime tree, but they are easy to remove. Some of our tomatoes have been feasted on but we accept that as the price we pay for producing lots of tomatoes. We have had a little black fly in the greenhouse and they tend to love spring onions, but since we grow them in mobile growing boxes it is a simple matter of taking them outside and giving them a good water. We always wondered why there were no bugs on the corn. It is growing close together and would be a candidate for a real active bug. But on a closer inspection we found ladybugs along the central stem and there isn’t another bug game enough to call our corn home. I never realised that something so small, colourful and cute can be such a bully. I picked up half a dozen of them and moved them to the greenhouse. Now we don’t have any black fly.

The only true nuisance we have is snails and the odd slug. Fortunately snails are big enough to see, easy to pick up and throw over the side fence. We have a vacant block of land to our south which makes the disposal of them quite easy. We have also done a small deal with a family of blue tongued lizards that live behind some trellis on our southern side. They can have the run of the backyard, in peace, so long as they dispose of as many snails as possible. Snoopy still barks at them but I notice he doesn’t get too close. After a rainy night snails are in abundance and I will find them sticking to the outside of the greenhouse. Lots of throwing practice.

I suppose what I am working towards is simply being vigilant. It doesn’t take that much time to walk around your garden each morning or evening for five minutes or so. Observe, inspect and note what is happening to your plants. The earlier you catch an infestation or a takeover bid by a group of bugs the better chance you have of eradicating them, without resorting to spray cans. Remove caterpillars by hand (and don’t be a sook. They don’t bite). Spray a little water onto thrips or aphids (although I note they have never attacked our vegetables). And if something looks diseased, cut it off before the disease spreads, and don’t put what you have cut into your compost bin. Put it in the rubbish bin. And if worse comes to worse and removing bugs by hand does not turn you on, buy some chooks (hens) and they will do the work for you. We are about to invest in them and I have added an additional chapter for those who are interested in keeping a few. We will be starting from scratch including constructing the enclosure. Stand bye.

For those of you who just have to have a few pest control solutions other than getting your hands dirty, try the following;

For snails and slugs – Expresso coffee mixed in water sprayed on seedlings and the soil surrounding them twice a week. Needs to be reapplied after any rain. Beer in a saucer also works well in the greenhouse. The snails love it and die in a drunken stupor. Also garlic spray works well.

For leaf eaters in general – White oil spray, one part dishwashing liquid to four parts sunflower oil, mix, and add one tablespoon of this concoction to one litre of water. The other one which is similar is one teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda to one half a teaspoon of sunflower oil and one drop of dishwashing detergent. Mix and add to one litre of water. Revolting but very effective.

For grasshoppers, bugs and plant hoppers – Pyrethrum spray or some neem oils (remember to purchase the ones that are certified organic). This oil tends to deter more than destroy. It just makes life uncomfortable, particularly for scale, mealy bug and vegetable grasshoppers. It can only be purchased commercially.

As with all sprays of this type store out of reach of little hands with inquisitive noses.