Tips And Advice On Organic Container Gardening

If you want to try your hand at growing your own organic flowers and vegetables but have no garden, don’t worry. Many people grow organic products successfully using a container. You can keep the container wherever is convenient or move it around if you need to.

A container describes any vessel which can hold soil. It might be natural, such as a clay or wooden container, or you can use an old wheelbarrow, plastic carton or bucket. As long as it is not going to fall to bits when watered, you can make use of it. It is important that your chosen container can drain because most plants dislike being over-watered. If the container does not have holes in it, you can make some with a drill or knitting needle, depending what the container is made out of. An inch or so of broken clay pots, gravel or pebbles in the bottom of the pot ensures good drainage, while a layer of leaf mold or ripped up paper on top of the clay or gravel can help to retain adequate moisture.

With organic container gardening, you won’t have any sub-soil to help retain water which in turn prevents the roots from becoming too wet. The best way to correct this problem is with simple peat moss. Peat moss can either be used alone or added to your organic soil along with compost or composted manure and the result is an excellent soil mixture for organic container gardening.

Depending on the size of your chosen container, you can grow whatever you like in it. As long as the pot is big enough, you can choose from herbs, tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, lettuce and many other vegetables. Organic seeds and plants should be used for organic gardening to produce a true organic product, but as long as you don’t plan to sell the product, it is up to you. It can be fun to experiment!

Pest control is much easier in organic container gardening than in regular gardening. You can see the whole plant and pick off bugs such as hookworms. You can bring it to a faucet to wash the leaves and stem when the plant is in a pot instead of in the garden. You probably won’t see cutworms if you are using containers but you might find slugs. Simply sprinkle diatomaceous earth on the soil around your produce to get rid of them.

With the use of organic container gardening, you can plant the same plants and vegetables that you would in any other garden such as tomatoes, peppers, beans or herbs. The key is using containers appropriate in size to what you are planting. For instance, zucchini plants will need the same amount of room in the container as they do out in the garden, so be sure to have something that will allow the plant room to grow healthily.