Dennis1979
Leafing Out
Im not an expert but I have learned a few things relevant to your situation so Ill chime in.
Weeds I agree that you have to get rid of the weeds you have before you can mulch or else you will just have weeds with mulch. There is a way to make weeding no big deal. Here is what I do: I have been making mulch for years using grass clipping from the yard and leaves that I mulched in the fall etc. So I have lots of this material. What I do, after preparing my soil and before planting, is to completely mulch my beds. For those things planted from seed, I just move away the mulch from where I plant the seed. It is easy to pluck any weeds that came up in that small area and the rest of the bed stays pretty much weed free. As soon as the plants are high enough I mulch around them. As the plants grow I continue to add mulch. I mulch fairly heavily so I just dont get many weeds. This spring, weeding for me has been pulling out a few weeds every couple of days. I spend no more than a few minutes a week on weeds.
Water if you rely 100% on rain your garden will not make it. Turn on the water hose when you have to until the rain comes. If you are concerned about water usage or your water bill, just hand water and concentrate the use rather than a sprinkler and you wont need to use a lot of water. I havent had rain in a month and the temps are going up in the high 80s and low 90s now. I find that I am watering more and more the longer we go without rain. As discussed by others, if you mulch good the water will not evaporate very quickly from your soil and no matter how dry it gets you will not have to water nearly as much.
Tomatoes you said they have bugs on them but are the bugs eating them? I have bugs on mine all the time but they are not eating. They are pollinating I hope, or just hanging out. Perhaps your tomatoes are not doing well because of other issues??? You might want to check with your local garden center or some expert that can tell you whats wrong. Also, see if you can find a book on organic gardening in general or one that is specific to your area. I have a book on organic gardening in Texas and it has a troubleshooter on each plant. It gives a long list of potential problems and solutions for each one. I have found this to be invaluable.
My bug problems are usually a flea beetle of some kind and snails/slug. Generally for any bugs eating leaves, I spray affected plants twice a day, morning and evening, with Garrett juice. I have a quart spray bottle and just go out there and spray the leaves. For me this will generally end the leaf eating. Diamataceous earth works too but can harm good bugs if overused.
Organic I urge you not to get too balled up in that term and what it means. There is no real definition of organic in my opinion. Grow your vegetables the way nature intended them to be grown and you will be fine.
You said,
I would really like to try my hand at organic gardening, just because I think it would be nice to see if I could actually do it, I would also like to have food grown without any chemicals in it
Once again I never use the term organic because it is meaningless, but gardening without chemicals is not hard to do. In fact its easier and a lot more fun than doing it with chemicals. In my beds my soil is about 50% dirt and 50% composted material. This mixture is better than any fertilizer you can buy. All of my vegetable plants are growing like crazy. They are deep green, lush and many are already producing.
Compost - I compost everything I can. I compost egg shells, veggie scraps, coffee grounds and filters, banana peels and even paper towels used for drying hands etc. Much of this is from regular store bought stuff. I dont care what you call it, organic or not, it will not poison you or ruin your garden. In my opinion it is more organic to compost it than to put it the garbage disposal or in the landfill.
As far a food scraps/table scraps, I dont compost those. They can be composted but can lead to nasty bacteria and stinky rotting stuff. If you want to compost that stuff, I suggest a separate compost bin just for it. Each time you add food scraps, you will want to cover it on all sides and on top with some kind of high-carbon mulch material like leaves, grass clippings or wood chips. You will want to cover it well to keep animals from knowing its there. You will have to let this compost a very long time before using it in your garden. We have dogs so most of our table scraps go to them and I dont have to worry about it.
Basically, you can compost anything. I have a plan to try and compost most of our garbage at some point in the future. If we can get completely away from plastic packaging, (hard to do) I think I can compost 90% of everything else. Most cardboard packaging, junk mail, paper towels, etc. can all be composted.
Dennis
Weeds I agree that you have to get rid of the weeds you have before you can mulch or else you will just have weeds with mulch. There is a way to make weeding no big deal. Here is what I do: I have been making mulch for years using grass clipping from the yard and leaves that I mulched in the fall etc. So I have lots of this material. What I do, after preparing my soil and before planting, is to completely mulch my beds. For those things planted from seed, I just move away the mulch from where I plant the seed. It is easy to pluck any weeds that came up in that small area and the rest of the bed stays pretty much weed free. As soon as the plants are high enough I mulch around them. As the plants grow I continue to add mulch. I mulch fairly heavily so I just dont get many weeds. This spring, weeding for me has been pulling out a few weeds every couple of days. I spend no more than a few minutes a week on weeds.
Water if you rely 100% on rain your garden will not make it. Turn on the water hose when you have to until the rain comes. If you are concerned about water usage or your water bill, just hand water and concentrate the use rather than a sprinkler and you wont need to use a lot of water. I havent had rain in a month and the temps are going up in the high 80s and low 90s now. I find that I am watering more and more the longer we go without rain. As discussed by others, if you mulch good the water will not evaporate very quickly from your soil and no matter how dry it gets you will not have to water nearly as much.
Tomatoes you said they have bugs on them but are the bugs eating them? I have bugs on mine all the time but they are not eating. They are pollinating I hope, or just hanging out. Perhaps your tomatoes are not doing well because of other issues??? You might want to check with your local garden center or some expert that can tell you whats wrong. Also, see if you can find a book on organic gardening in general or one that is specific to your area. I have a book on organic gardening in Texas and it has a troubleshooter on each plant. It gives a long list of potential problems and solutions for each one. I have found this to be invaluable.
My bug problems are usually a flea beetle of some kind and snails/slug. Generally for any bugs eating leaves, I spray affected plants twice a day, morning and evening, with Garrett juice. I have a quart spray bottle and just go out there and spray the leaves. For me this will generally end the leaf eating. Diamataceous earth works too but can harm good bugs if overused.
Organic I urge you not to get too balled up in that term and what it means. There is no real definition of organic in my opinion. Grow your vegetables the way nature intended them to be grown and you will be fine.
You said,
I would really like to try my hand at organic gardening, just because I think it would be nice to see if I could actually do it, I would also like to have food grown without any chemicals in it
Once again I never use the term organic because it is meaningless, but gardening without chemicals is not hard to do. In fact its easier and a lot more fun than doing it with chemicals. In my beds my soil is about 50% dirt and 50% composted material. This mixture is better than any fertilizer you can buy. All of my vegetable plants are growing like crazy. They are deep green, lush and many are already producing.
Compost - I compost everything I can. I compost egg shells, veggie scraps, coffee grounds and filters, banana peels and even paper towels used for drying hands etc. Much of this is from regular store bought stuff. I dont care what you call it, organic or not, it will not poison you or ruin your garden. In my opinion it is more organic to compost it than to put it the garbage disposal or in the landfill.
As far a food scraps/table scraps, I dont compost those. They can be composted but can lead to nasty bacteria and stinky rotting stuff. If you want to compost that stuff, I suggest a separate compost bin just for it. Each time you add food scraps, you will want to cover it on all sides and on top with some kind of high-carbon mulch material like leaves, grass clippings or wood chips. You will want to cover it well to keep animals from knowing its there. You will have to let this compost a very long time before using it in your garden. We have dogs so most of our table scraps go to them and I dont have to worry about it.
Basically, you can compost anything. I have a plan to try and compost most of our garbage at some point in the future. If we can get completely away from plastic packaging, (hard to do) I think I can compost 90% of everything else. Most cardboard packaging, junk mail, paper towels, etc. can all be composted.
Dennis
Watering can be a huge pain. You can also try making furrows or wells around your plants by shaping the soil, so that when you water, you can puddle water in those spaces and not have to stand there watering as long per plant and not loose as much to erosion (if the site is sloped). Every little bit helps when you are pressured for time.
