Gardening Secrets & Gardening Soil Preparation Tips

Compost
Organic gardening soil needs compost to survive. Compost is the soil’s food. Many people have the elements they need to make organic compost ready to go out in their trash. Don’t throw it away! You can save money by making your own compost from organic garden waste.

The decomposition of organic compost creates humus which acts as glue for your soil. The sticky residue of decomposed organic material helps soil hold more moisture and stay together. You can use compost as a fertilizer for your garden or lawn.

Just about any organic scraps can be used as compost. Chances are you’ve thrown something in the trash just today that would be perfectly suitable for organic compost. Coffee grounds, egg shells and fruit and vegetable scraps as common items used in organic compost. You can also use leaves from trees, weeds, and wood scraps.

The main things to avoid using in organic gardening compost are ash, pet or human waste, and leftover cooked food. It is important to use a good combination of ingredients with nitrogen and carbon in your compost. Some ingredients high in nitrogen include plant residue like grass clippings and skins or waste byproducts of fruit and vegetables. Typical compost ingredients high in carbon are fall leaves, straw, or cardboard.

Your compost pile should contain far more carbon than nitrogen. It is recommended to maintain a 25:1 or 30:1 ratio of carbon items relative to the amount of nitrogen items. Keep holes in the compost pile container to allow for air flow. Soon, bacteria will take over and begin decomposing the ingredients in your organic compost. A staple for making your own compost is grass clippings (which have a 20:1 carbon: nitrogen ratio) mixed in with some dry fall leaves (which have a 55:1 ratio).

Soil
When it comes to maintaining organic gardening soil, the main thing to check for is pH level. The pH spectrum ranges from 0 to 14. A pH of 7 is considered neutral while 0 is totally acidic and 14 is totally alkaline (basic). Soil testing is important since certain plants prefer a bit of an acid or alkaline environment to grow. The pH level of organic gardening soil changes due to certain conditions and therefore needs to be monitored regularly.

Most food-bearing plants prefer a soil that is just slightly acidic in the range of 6.3 to 6.8. Crops such as potatoes and strawberries thrive in even more acidic conditions. Plants such as blueberries and cranberries need a soil as acidic as 4.5 to 5.0 in order to grow. Few food crops require a basic soil with a reading of over 7.0, but some flowers such as lilacs can flourish in even a chalky soil.

The main thing that affects soil pH levels is rainfall. Rain drives away basic elements magnesium and calcium while replacing them with the acidic elements aluminum and iron. Heavy rainfall creates a more acidic soil, so soil pH levels should be checked following a heavy rainfall or long drought.
To increase or decrease the pH level of your soil organically, there are various elements you can use. Nitrogen and phosphorous, which are common ingredients in organic gardening fertilizers, increase a soil’s pH level.

Other elements that work in this way include calcium, lime and magnesium. In the event that you need to increase the acidity (decrease the pH level) of your organic gardening soil (not uncommon in times of heavy drought), metals such as copper, iron, aluminum, manganese, zinc and cobalt are useful. Symptoms of a soil that is too basic are the yellowing of leaves. This is a sign of a nutrient deficiency which calls for lowering the soil’s pH level.

Soil Testing
The pH level of your soil fluctuates greatly even on a day-to-day scale. Mother Nature is always affecting your soil’s pH level through rainfall or a lack thereof. As a result of this, it is important to test your soil regularly to be sure that its pH level is compatible with your crop growing objectives. When measuring a soil’s pH level, it is important to take samples from various points in your garden or farm. The pH level of one particular small plot of soil can vary depending on the presence of rocks or other elements. Measure the pH level at various points on your land and take the average of all of them to have a better idea of your soil’s overall pH level.

There are a few different ways to test pH levels in soil. The most accurate but also most expensive route is to use an electronic pH meter. This is a device that is inserted into the soil and gives an accurate digital reading. If you want to do things a little more old school, you can use litmus paper. The downside of this method is that it doesn’t give you an exact pH reading, it merely tells you whether your soil is acidic or alkaline. Another method that produces the same two-toned result is the use of a barium sulphate testing kit. With this method, you mix a sample of soil with the barium sulphate and add water which changes color based on the soil’s acidity or alkalinity.

Advanced organic gardeners are able to make a strong educated guess regarding the pH level of their soil by making observations. The presence of yellowing leaves on plants is common of soil with too high of a pH level. The presence of the types of plants themselves is also indicative of your soil’s pH level; most plants can only grow when the soil is within a particular range on the pH scale. For example, the presence of a heather plant indicates a pH level of around 4.5 to 5.0 since this plant cannot thrive outside of these acidic conditions.

Growing Food Tips

• Stop wind from damaging your garden tomatoes and peppers by planting and gardening them as deep as the first leaves.
• After you plant and garden strawberries for the first year, pick off the blooms to make the plant healthy and make better and bigger strawberries.
• Water your garden tomatoes with 1 tablespoon of Epsom salts to a gallon of water.
• Water and garden and plants with a little milk, mix crushed egg shells into the soil, water plants moderately but regularly to avoid getting blossom end rot in tomatoes.
• When gardening and growing green peppers, put large rocks next to each plant, the sun will warm the rocks and draw heat to the pepper plants, pepper plants like heat, and they seem to grow much better.
• Garden Water tomatoes from the bottom, they don't like getting their leaves wet.

How to Get Rid of Ants in your garden
If you want to get rid of garden black ants - spread raw grits on the ground (not instant grits). When the ants eat the grits and drink water they die out.
In addition dry yeast works to kill black ants when spread on top of them as well. Fresh garlic cloves broken-up on a paper towel, right by where you can see the ant's coming from, and notice them soon disappear.

Garden Ant Bites
The best remedy for fire ant bites is meat tenderizer (plain) with baking soda. Mix equal amounts together with a little bit of water to create a paste with it. As you apply it to your wound it will draw out the venom and help soothe the itching. Band-Aids can help keep the pasty mixture on.

Ant Deterrent
If your home and garden becomes infested with ants, the most effective thing is putting lavender oil in the path entrance. They HATE it!! Put a few drops in the cracks you suspect they are coming in, and they will NEVER return. So every spring, before the weather starts to warm up, start dropping lots of lavender oil around your kitchen.

Herbal Shower for garden Plants
Water all your house garden plants with herbal tea. Use the tea after you’re done with your own cup and sprinkle it onto your plants...Have a little left in your cup? Pour it onto all of the gardens house plants.

Snails & Slugs
A free and effective preventative for protecting your bulbs and flowers is USED COFFEE GROUNDS sprinkled around the base of attacked garden plants. It seems to work as effectively in wet and dry conditions.

How to Get Rid Of Slugs
Another method to collect and kill garden slugs is to lay some cabbage leaves down on the ground of your garden (this will act as a home for slugs), and after waiting 3 or 4 days you can go and collect all of the slugs that have come together under the leaves in the garden. Do this a few times until you have a fair amount of slugs collected in a jar, and then blend the slugs up in a blender with enough water to make the mixture so you can spray it back around your garden plants. This works very well; the slugs never go near the gardens slug mixture.

Sharing My Gardening
Organic soil enhancers help produce a higher supply and quality of fruits and veggies. In stark contrast chemical fertilizers are toxic to plants and will eventually begin to show signs through them. The properties of an organic fertilizer that are collected from the sea - such as fish extract and sea kelp, promote the reduplication of organisms that the plant's roots system thrive in. Liquid organic fertilizer feeds the plants naturally through its foliage. This organic soil enhancer is called AGgrand and can be diluted and sprayed onto the plant or into the soil without fear of burning. If you try doing this with your chemical fertilizers you will slowly poison the plants to death.

• Grow extra-large and juicy tomatoes. Before planting add one tablespoon of Epsom salt in the hole.
• Sprinkle crushed up eggs shell around flower plants and roses to keep slugs and bugs away.
• Clean the leaves of your plant with a cotton ball dipped in milk. It Makes them shiny. 

Natural Weed Eliminator Formula
A simple way to get rid of weeds that grow along garden pathways, patio stones or sidewalks easily is by spraying them with undiluted white vinegar.

Make sure you protect any nearby garden plants that you want to keep! Spray vinegar directly onto the leaves and around the base of the gardens weeds. You might have to re-spray stubborn garden weeds the next day. Good luck!