Organic Gardening, Do You Know Where To Begin?
Posted: Monday, May 12, 2008
by C. Thomas Wetherald
The first thing in your garden planning should be the selection of your area and the size it's going to be. If space is confined, then consider having a container garden. This only means it's the best resolve of nothing at all. Gardens are great, inexpensive, and will become beautiful sites with a little TLC. Your organic garden should be planned out on paper. The plan will be a great help when planting time comes.
If possible, choose the ideal spot with a southern exposure. Here the sun will shine warm all day. When the garden area is located then the rows of vegetables and flowers should run north and south. The plants will receive the sun's rays all morning on the eastern side, and all afternoon on the western side. Arranged this way, your plants are less likely to end up lopsided.
Alright, let's say the garden faces southeast. In this case the western sun is not going to shine on your plants evenly. In order to get the best distribution of sunlight run the rows northwest and southeast.
The idea is to get the most sunlight as evenly distributed as possible for the longest period of time. From looking at the lopsided growth of window plants it is easy enough to see the effect on plants of poorly distributed light. So if you use a little diagram remembering that you wish the sun to shine part of the day on one side of the plants and part on the other, you can figure out any situation. The southern exposure gives the ideal case because the sun gives half time nearly to each side. A northern exposure may mean an almost entire cutoff from sunlight; while northeastern and southwestern places always get uneven distribution of sun's rays, no matter how carefully this is planned.
New garden spots are likely to be found in two conditions: they are covered either with sod or debris. In large garden areas the ground is ploughed and the sod is turned over; as for small gardens remove the sod and till the area. Stake and string off the garden spot. The string will give you an accurate and straight course to follow. Cut the edges with the spade all along the string. If the area is a small one, say four feet by eighteen or twenty, this is an fairly easy matter. Such a narrow strip may be marked off like a checkerboard, the sod cut through with the spade, and easily removed. This could be done in two long strips cut lengthwise of the strip. After you have cut through the sod, roll it right up into a roll of carpet.
Then divide this up into strips a foot wide and take off the sod as before. What shall you do with the sod? Don't throw it away for it is full of good richness, although it's not quite in a useable form. So pack the sod grass side down one square on another. Leave it to rot and to weather. When rotted it makes a great organic fertilizer. Such a pile of rotting vegetable matter is called a compost pile. All through the summer add all your old green vegetable matter to this. In the fall put the fallen leaves on. A good deal of goodness is being processed now for next season.
Now if the soil still has clumps in it. Even after the garden has been tilled, I would pick out the largest pieces of sod, shake them well and put them on the compost pile. Soil must be very fine indeed to plant in, because seeds can get very close to fine particles of the dirt. But the large clumps leave large spaces which no tiny root hair can penetrate. A seed can be stranded and wasted when planted in chunks of soil.
Now with your TLC at heart and the plan on paper you now are ready to stake and string off your garden rows. Remember the string gives an accurate and straight course to follow.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Good article! I had never considered the layout of the rows for maximum sun time. Thanks for the information.
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