Your Own Organic Garden

Some Basics for Beginners

by Max Huberman

As organic gardeners most of our lives, the Hubermans have our own backyard evidence that organic cultivation, crop rotation and composting are ideal ways to put the best foods on the table while enhancing other factors that build enduring health.

I refer to direct benefits of physical involvement in the planting, weeding, thinning and harvesting with clean air and moderate sunshine while exercising the body in a poison-free environment.

For beginners, I am pleased to convey some basic tips from our own productive family experience. If you have access to plots of workable soil, you can plant most seeds or starter plants when there is no danger of near frost conditions.

Behind our own modest home in Youngstown, Ohio, we maintain two 24- by 80-foot gardens producing

varieties of lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, peas, green beans, wax beans, chard, chives, cucumbers, onions, peppers, summer squash, zucchini, and raspberries.

Whether you begin with a large or very limited space, your first venture of course is obtaining certified organic seeds from a health food store or mail order sources. The following are three companies, but internet browsers can pick up other leads worth checking.

Seeds of Change: www.seedsofchange.com

Ph: 888-762-7333

Jaffe Brothers: www.organicfruitsandnuts.com

Ph: 760-749-1133

Johnny's Selected Seeds: www.johnnyseeds.com

Ph: 207-861-3901 (Sells organic as well as non-organic. The catalogue will specify.)

Also check your area for organic farmers or co-ops that can supply starter plants such as tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. Most seed packet labels specify best planting dates, soil temperatures and spacing guidelines plus harvesting tips.

For more details on raising your favored vegetables, your local library or bookstore offers numerous new titles reflecting the increased interest in the organic and environmental movement.

Our own home bookshelf still treasures the 1150 page, 1976 Encyclopedia Of Organic Gardening from the editors of Rodale Press. For a less weighty reference of more recent vintage, I recommend the readily available Super Nutrition Gardening, previously reviewed by me in the Spring 2002 issue of Health Science. It is available from the NHA.

In summary, creating and maintaining an organic garden will make you a defender of the environment and a beneficiary of the lifestyle we call Natural Hygiene.

Basics for beginners

COMPOSTING: Compost is your best fertilizer and soil builder and is simply built with piles of decomposing organic matter such as grass clippings, leaves, weeds, hay, vegetable kitchen scraps, etc. In lesser proportions you can add crushed lime-stone, wood ash, rock phosphate and greensand. Mix all such items and top the pile with an inch or two of soil and repeat layers until the heap is about three feet high. Keep the heap moist but not soaking and turn it over each week or two. In warm weather you may expect finished compost in 30 or 60 days.

WEEDS: A few weeds among your vegetables can actually be beneficial, if not too thick. Just pull them on the spot for mulch or add them to the compost pile.

MULCH: Mulching means dressing the soil around the plants with organic matter. I mostly use straw, compost, spoiled hay, pulled weeds or grass clippings. Such side dressings help plants retain moisture and keep weeds down while adding

nutrients to the soil.

INSECT CONTROL: Never panic. NHA members will understand that insects are part of Nature's web of life. If your garden seems overwhelmed by insects, just pick them off by hand, squirt them off with a hose or douse with soapy water. Mounting a bird feeder also helps — we maintain three. We also welcome ladybugs and praying mantises.

And if despite all efforts, some insects or even rabbits persist in sampling your blooming goodies, consider it a compliment.