Gardening Organically, Edible Garden and Soil Building

Gardening Organically, Edible Garden and Soil Building

Organic gardening means you won't be using synthetic fertilizers or pesticides, but that doesn't mean your plants are left to fend for themselves. There are an array of tools you can use to bolster plant health and ward off pests.

Edible landscaping is the use of food-producing plants in the residential landscape. It combines fruit and nut trees, berry bushes, vegetables, herbs, edible flowers, along with ornamental plants into aesthetically pleasing design

Wearing away of Earth's surface caused by wind, water, ice or chemicals. Soil-Building. Process where the breakdown of rocks and organic materials creates arable (farmable) land.

Local Gardening

Being able to garden local and organically can provide and help the local economy in a big way. As of season starting here in Southwest Florida, if I am not working then I am at the local farmers market by my house each Saturday morning. Not only are you able to support local companies and businesses as well as knowing where your food, products and goods are coming from. I usually go to get local fruits such as oranges and grapefruit as well as local produce such as tomatoes from the fields in Immokalee. Not only is everything very local and healthy, but not so expensive either. I rather take the time to go to a local market then a store for my produce because I know what I will be eating, as well as supporting the local community.

Local Planting

Not having much interest, resources or want to garden was difficult for me to like this weeks class and presentations. Even though, my group learned about composting and what benefits it may have for local gardeners, I personally don't have an interest in it or resources to do it in my home. However, being able to learn and have ideas on what different types of pots there are for planting you can have at home. There were also many options and different pots to learn about for the different types of gardens other people may want and have. Learning about different containers to garden in is best for different garden areas.

Soil Building

This week I learned about highly managed compost, compost tea, and compost extract. Highly managed compost (or aggressively managed compost) is similar to passive compost, except it requires a lot of work (like turning and monitoring the temperature). In return the compost is created much faster (2 weeks or so instead of a year). The speed at which the compost is created is dictated by the size of the materials and how often it's turned. 

Compost tea is exactly what it sounds like. The compost (and other optional ingredients) is brewed/steeped into water and aerated. The microorganisms are fed either molasses or kelp/fish powder. This process takes at least one day, but after it's done you are left with liquid fertilizer. The tea has a very high concentration of microorganisms. 

Compost extract is very similar to tea except that it is normally produced using humidified compost. The compost is placed inside a burlap sack and submerged in a barrel of water for an hour or so (some methods take slightly more or less time). The end result is similar to the tea, except the extract has a greater number of different microorganisms (biodiversity) than the tea, and it has generally much better shelf life as well. 

Organic Soil

A lot of what was discussed this past week had to do with personal gardening.  The vast amount of gardening techniques makes it easy for someone in any environment to grow their own food. The first thing needed is good soil. We learned many different ways to give more nutrients to the soil, most of them involve adding compost to the soil. Next we discussed different types of pots such as hanging pots to hold different plants in. This can be very useful for inside plants or if you live in a city and don't have a yard to plant in. Of all the things we discussed, I think the most important thing was that all these techniques teach us how to grow organically and locally. Organic food is what our bodies are meant to eat not the chemically and genetically modified food grown by large farms.