Feeding the Soil – One Vital Aspect of Organic Gardening
How would you feel, after taking care of other people, spending all the time caring for others, when you are hungry or haven’t been fed, when you have not taken a shower or when you haven’t had time to pamper yourself?
In the beginning, it may appear normal to you because you will endlessly continue to cater for other people’s needs without really wanting anything in return. But with time, you will get weary, hence lack enough energy to continue doing so, the state of your body will generally deteriorate drastically.
That is exactly what happens during organic gardening. The soil used for organic gardening literally identifies with your feelings. It is a fact that soil plays the major role in organic gardening and even in all other types of gardening, it is the basis where everything starts, the foundation of your plants.
While choosing the type of soil, you must go for the kind that suits your type of plant, the one available in your area. Having had the right selection of soil, you are set to go to the next level of gardening the organic way.
From day one, the soil should never be left uncared for, it must be ‘fed’ to help it not deteriorate. You literally have a role of feeding and bathing the soil and generally caring for it just the way you take great care of the plants in your garden or the way you take care of yourself.
Naturally, the soil requires the basic essentials; water, air and sunlight. However, since you are going the organic way, your plants will still need the basic requirements plus some other additives. Your soil should also be fed with organic matters that should be placed directly in the soil.
Contrary to what you are used to on your normal gardening, organic gardening, as the name suggests is going organic completely. You are never allowed to resort to using synthetic products. You make your own organic products to use in the process. For instance, you make use of decaying matters such as grasses, peelings, dried weeds, vegetables, fallen leaves, fish heads, animal manure and twigs to make composite fertilizer. Of course it is a lot of work as compared to normal gardening hence you should prepare and arm yourself accordingly.
When you take food, you don’t stop immediately taking anymore food, you have to constantly feed and so does the soil. You have to nurture the soil regularly by massaging and soothing it to keep it in its regular shape. This you can do by mulching. An advantage of mulching is that you are able to detect early the presence of pests hence take the earliest possible measures to eradicate them.
The only way you can be able to take care of your soil effectively is to be able to correctly identify your type of soil. For instance, clay soil retains water better than sandy soil. Such nitty gritty details contribute hugely on improving your organic gardening project.
