Six Steps to Organic Gardening Without Giving Up Your Life

I had wanted an organic garden for years, but since I lived in apartments until I got married, I could only grow a few potted plants here and there. So I was excited when my husband and I bought our house, and I finally had a yard where I could create a garden.

I waited until my son was one year old and then started planning a spring garden. I could not wait. Homegrown fresh organic food and a lower food budget would soon be mine.

Remembering how I loved to eat sweet peas straight off the vine as a child, snap peas were one of the first crops I planted. I had even grown them in pots with some success, so I was sure they would do just fine with little maintenance.

About six weeks after the seeds were sown, the now flowering pea plants were covered in aphids. Determined to maintain an organic garden, I tried all natural means: hosing them down, buying ladybugs from the nursery, spraying with a natural repellent.

It was all in vain. I lost all the plants to the disease that the aphids had spread and I didn’t harvest a single pea pod that year.

If my story rings true, then you know how difficult it can be to fit gardening, especially organic gardening, into an already packed schedule. But, there is a way. In the last two years I have learned some valuable lessons about how to run an organic garden without spending all your free time on it. Let me share them with you…

1. Start small and stay small until you have more free time. Mothers with babies and young children need to be especially patient. I would have done much better, the year my peas were destroyed, if I had tended a little lettuce patch in the spring, and then grown a couple of tomato plants, and maybe a cucumber, in the summer.

If you really want to grow some of your own vegetables, but don’t think you have time for a garden, read up on container gardening. Anyone can find time to care for five potted plants a day, especially since container gardens tend to be close to the house, so you’re more likely to remember to check them out. Which brings me to the next point…

2. Take time to check on your plants at least every other day. Especially if you’ve refrained from planting too large an organic garden, carefully checking each plant for diseases and pests every other day won’t take much of your time. But the time you spend doing it will be well worth it. You’ll be able to find pests and recognize the early stages of disease before they have a chance to completely destroy your crops.

3. Try to plant together. When you plant various herbs and flowers among your vegetables, you help both repel pests and attract beneficial insects that eat them. And the fewer pests you have to deal with, the less time you’ll have to spend in the garden.

4. Write down the fertilization schedule in a calendar or diary that you consult frequently. If you overfertilize, you’ll end up with a lot of foliage and little yield. Lack of fertilization will lead to pathetic looking plants and small fruit. Different crops have different feeding requirements, so getting organized in this area of ​​your garden will really pay off.

5. Install an easy irrigation system. Some people opt for a subsurface irrigation system. If that’s a bit out of your budget, run soaker hoses about an inch below the soil where you’ll be planting. Being able to turn on a faucet and leave it for twenty minutes is much easier than dragging a hose around the garden.

If you’re planning a container garden, consider investing in self-watering container containers, or even making some yourself. You can find instructions for doing this online.

6. Consider a raised bed garden. Or, at the very least, cover your yard with plenty of mulch. Either way will save you a lot of weeds (I have virtually no weeds in my raised beds). Raised beds are also much easier to dig because of the loose soil.

Growing your own organic garden, even if you have busy days, is possible. Follow these tips and you’ll soon find yourself surrounded by delicious food from a garden you’ve spent just a few minutes a day in.