How You Can Grow Food Organically

By Wesley Judkins and Floyd Smith.

Organic matter is extremely important for improving the physical condition and productivity of the soil. It makes plowing and cultivating easier. It also increases the nutrient reserve and water-holding capacity of sandy or clay type soils.

The gardener derives several benefits by mulching with organic matter. It reduces erosion caused by runoff of rain or irrigation,, increases infiltration of water into the soil, and conserves this moisture by reducing evaporation. Organic matter helps to suppress weed growth.

Some good organic materials to use as mulch are leaves, lawn clippings, fresh sawdust, fine wood shavings, pine needles, chopped straw, ground corncobs, shredded tobacco or sugar cane stems, peanut hulls, or cottonseed hulls. These materials do not add important amounts of nutrients or have a significant effect on the pH (relative acidity) of the soil.

The dead vegetable plants in your garden should be chopped down and left on the ground as a protective mulch during winter. This trash mulch reduces erosion and improves organic matter content of the soil when the garden is prepared for planting in spring.

Unmulched areas in gardens and fields, not occupied by growing crops, should be planted to green manure crops such as rye, ryegrass, millet, sorghum, or crimson clover. They will reduce leaching of nutrients and increase organic matter for the next crop as they are worked into the soil.

Organic waste materials such as leaves, manure from livestock and poultry, treated sewage sludge, and the organic portion of urban trash collections can be used as fertilizer, mulch, or compost.

Some cities accumulate leaves in huge piles during fall collection periods. After several months of composting, the material is available at little or no cost to gardeners. This is a practical way to reduce environmental pollution and supply organic material for gardens and farms.

The solid portion of sewage may be effectively salvaged and used as fertilizer. Composted sewage sludge has a composition of about 5 percent nitrogen and 2 percent phosphoric acid, and is an excellent organic fertilizer.

Insects, Disease

Time of planting is important in avoiding losses by diseases and pests in certain regions. Since seed corn maggots destroy early plantings of beans and corn, you should delay planting until the soil warms. Early maturing varieties of sweet corn can avoid the worst earworm problem. Delay plantings of summer squash to avoid early season activity and resultant damage by the squash vine borer.

During recent years, plant breeders have made tremendous contributions to agriculture by developing new varieties resistant to diseases. These allow large yields of high quality crops to be produced without the use of chemical sprays.

When planning for vegetable production in a home garden or commercial enterprise, consult your county Extension agent or seed catalog for information on disease-resistant varieties. Excellent new introductions are available each year. Comparable insect-resistant varieties have not been developed.

Some vegetable crops are highly subject to damage by pests or disease organisms. Others are relatively pest-free. The beginner should first plant only trouble-free crops, later trying the more difficult ones after gaining experience.

Attack by cutworms can be prevented by placing a simple collar of stiff paper (cut from a drinking cup or milk carton) around newly set tomato, cabbage, and pepper plants and even sweet corn. The collar should extend about 1 inch into the soil and 2 inches above ground.

Slugs that emerge at night from hiding places in wall crevices, loose mulch, piles of plant stakes or trash, can be trapped under pieces of board, shingles or flat stones laid in the garden. Lift them each day and destroy the slugs.

Slugs are attracted to shallow vessels partially filled with beer into which they crawl and expire. Slug baits moistened with a teaspoon of beer will be twice as effective.

An aluminum foil mulch around low growing plants reflects the ultraviolet rays from the sky and repels flying insects (including aphids, leafhoppers, thrips, Mexican bean beetles, and cucumber beetles) from landing on the plants. Summer squash, Chinese cabbage, lettuce, and peppers have been protected from virus infection transmitted by aphid feeding. Beans and cucurbits have been protected from chewing and sucking insects.