A Year of Growing Vegetables Organically

Source: sxc.hu Photo: lockstockb

As you may recall last year we cleared out some space in our back lawn to create a backyard garden where we can grow organic vegetables as well as plant some flowering plants to create a small butterfly garden. Since we have two little kids, it just seemed right to use as much of our own locally grown and organic vegetables in our kitchen as possible. The butterfly garden is nice too. This was also an opportunity for us to recycle most of our kitchen waste by using all the vegetable scraps to create compost that we can than use to feed our plants.

It has been an year and now we are getting ready to plant the vegetables and plants for this season. The experience last year was probably not the same as what we will have this year and the next. We did learn a lot that will simplify the process this time around.

It may be Tougher to Start the Vegetable Patch than you Imagine

We cleared out roughly 15×15 feet of sod cover to prepare the patch. I remembered the time when we planted the lawn using the sod squares and based on that I figured just cutting and taking off the sod will not be a big deal. Turns out that many years of vertical (roots moving down and down in the ground) growth and the intricate web of the root system that traps soil and moisture made the sod incredibly thick and heavy.

Duh!

There may be Lazier (and Probably Faster) Alternatives

After the sod from the vegetable patch was cleared, and I added new top soil and composted manure to start amending the soil. This soil was, and no surprises here, a construction site (of our house), before it was just covered up in a blanket of sod without a thorough clean up. Among some of the old debris that I removed, there was this brick I remembered having laid down on the grass a few weekends ago. And what do I find as I pick it up? Beautiful fresh compost soil underneath it.

Apparently, the grass and many inches of its root system were all turned into compost within few weeks with lack of sun, abundance of moisture and the ever present earth worms.

Hmmm, I could have just laid layers of newspaper, held it down with properly placed stones or bricks, and just sipped wine for those few weeks and I could have had a well prepared, and fertilized with compost patch all ready to go.

Patience is the key

It is so easy to fall into the trap. You find out that the tomatoes should be planted outside only when the danger of frost is completely gone. It is mid April in Michigan, the last week averaged daily temperatures in 70s and nights in 50s, and you think now is the time to move your tomatoes to your garden.

We did that, only to have couple of frosty nights destroy most of the transplants.

Rabbits Loved Our Garden

And our kids loved the rabbits but even they were horrified when they saw the rabbits munching on the bean stalk or spinach or some other leafy plant. I eventually dug around the perimeter and installed a rabbit fence, which worked reasonably well but still let the smaller rabbits get in. Than we realized that the rabbits never touched the cilantro for some reason. So we just sprinkled cilantro seeds around the perimeter and that seemed to do the trick. I do not know if this is something that is an accepted gardening wisdom, but it worked for us.

Go for the Heirloom Varieties for Seeds

We used a mail order service called SeedSavers to get our seeds. They claim to have thousands of heirloom varieties, completely organic (not only having grown organically but also with care taken so they do not pollinate with non-organic or gmo varieties). These seeds are, maybe 50% more expensive than the organic seeds you can buy at the big box store, but oh, what a difference does it make! I had almost forgotten what a good tomato tastes like.

They also have instructions for how to harvest and save seeds for the next season. In the long run they cost much less since these seeds are NOT illegal to save and replant, so you do not have to keep buying a new pack every year.

We Feel Much Safer with our Kids in the Garden

They loved going in and picking strawberries and tomatoes and biting into them, maybe after a quick rinse with the garden hose, or sometimes maybe not. It is a joy to see them enjoy the fruits of our labor, and we feel much safer knowing that we did not spray these plants with chemical fertilizers or pesticides.

Would love to listen to your anecdotes and experiences in the garden. Do chime in.