The Easy Way to Start Your Organic Garden

You're new to gardening, right? And you figure you've got a lot of digging to do. WRONG! I'm going to save you most of that digging! Here's what you need. Do this a week or two before you plan to plant your starter plants.

• Some old newspaper, enough to cover a 4' x 10' piece of ground
• 4 wooden stakes (I scrounge sticks from the brushpile and use a small hand axe to sharpen one end)
  
• String
• A watering can full of water
  
• A hammer
• Some organic grass clippings or hay
• A few rocks or boards
• A retractable tape measure

Pick a spot in your yard that gets a lot of sun, but that isn't too far for your hose to reach during those dry times, or figure out a good way to haul water that isn't going to kill your back. Use the tape measure to measure out a 4' x 10' rectangle and bang those wooden spikes into the corners. This is a good size for a beginner garden, you can always add another bed once you're sure you've got the ability to maintain more, and this will grow a fair bit of food. Don't stress overmuch about creating a perfect rectangle, the plants will grow whether your corners are square or not. If the ground is hard, water those corners first to soften the ground. Use the string from stake to stake to set the boundary on your garden space.

Now, use the newspaper to cover the grass within your plot, spread the organic grass clippings or organic hay over the newspaper in a fairly thick layer, and water it all down well. Now you can weight it down with some rocks or boards for now, though eventually this should all meld down so it won't need the weight.

What you're doing is creating a mulch cover, which will keep the weeds away. Leaving it a week or two will kill off the grass underneath that newspaper, and allow it to start to decay, which will help feed your plants. When you're ready to plant, you can use a trowel to dig holes through this mulch cover to set your plants in, or poke in holes with a hand tiller for seed. You should be able to reach every part of this plot from the edges, and not have to step in it. This will allow the dirt to be nice and aerated.

Most things you'll grow, like tomatoes and cucumbers and squash and zucchini and peppers, can be bought as starter plants, preferably from an organic greenhouse.Here in PA I have time to start my own plants, which I'll be doing over the next couple weeks inside in small pots on my windowsills, and eventually transferring them to a cold frame outside, probably in April. Then I plant in May. I still end up buying a few plants, though, at my local farm market. Those of you south of here will be starting a lot sooner than I am. My friend Diane in Southern Missouri was shovelling snow to get her lettuce seed in this week!

While you're waiting to get planting, you'll want to start planning how things will go. Building a trellis at one end will allow for peas and/or pole beans. I usually build my trellises out of brush pile scraps. If you've got a sunny spot next to an existing fence that plants can climb, that'll save you some work, but then you'll need to maybe change the dimensions of your plot so you can reach far enough in to plant without stepping in it, which will depend if the fence is making up one of the long sides or one of the short sides. If it's the long side, you might have to do two beds, and make each 2.5' x 10'

Growing your own real organic food is good for you and good for the planet.

My next hubs will be about companion planting and composting, the methods that allow you to grow your garden without using pesticides or chemical fertilizers.

Check back for my next installment!