Farming: Feed the hungry world

Companion planting for pest control and to encourage plants to grow with more vigor has fascinated men for centuries; however, few backyard gardeners know how to use these natural methods for organic sustainability and how to improve your garden. Plants that work together to help one another grow; plants that repel insects for organic pest management; and plants that repel other plants for natural herbicide control are of great value to both small backyard gardeners and commercial growers.
Certain protective botanicals don’t always act instantaneously, and must be planted several years or seasons in advance to be of utmost cumulative effect. For example, companion planting pest control using marigolds to prevent nematode growth should be done at least one season ahead before expecting to see great results.

It’s important to remember that both secretions and odors from various plants are valuable traits for organic pest control and companion planting where repelling or attracting certain aspects and effects is attempted.

Ten easy companion planting tips for to use now

Companion planting for chemical free pesticides and organic sustainability is a huge subject that can take years to master; however, there are a few easy things you can do in your own garden right now to make use of this intriguing method of gardening.

1. Protect carrots by planting them with leeks to repel both carrot and onion flies. They won’t even lay their eggs and your yield will increase tremendously.

2. Growing radishes or kohlrabi? Plant them with lettuce to repel earth flies that hate the smell of lettuce and make them take flight.

3. Aphids will injure almost all plants, causing headaches for gardeners everywhere. To repel aphids, plant nasturiums around broccoli and bunches of chives among sunflowers and tomatoes to discourage infestations.

4. Ladybugs are natural enemies to aphids and are excellent for use in organic pest management. Order ladybugs in bulk online or buy them from gardening centers. If you’re wondering how to improve your garden and reduce the aphid population, this is one of the most effective methods of doing so.

5. Asparagus and tomatoes complement one another and improve the vigor of both plants. Place a row of asparagus between two rows of tomato plants.

6. Beans and potatoes work in concert for organic pest control. Planting bush beans with potatoes in alternating rows protects the spuds from the Colorado potato beetle and the beans from the Mexican bean beetle.

7. Broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables belonging to the cabbage family do well when companion planted with celery, dill, peppermint, sage and rosemary; as well as potatoes, onions and beets.

8. Repel moles around a vegetable garden with a border of castor beans; mice with a border of daffodils; and yarrow makes a wonderful boarder for an herb garden as it encourages the growth of essential oils in the herbs.

9. Remember that companion planting for pest control includes keeping those cute little rabbits out of the garden. Onions repel rabbits and can be inter-planted with peas, beans, lettuce and cabbage.

10. If your garden attracts raccoons, plant corn and pumpkins together so that the large pumpkin leaves grow around the base of the corn stalks. Cayenne pepper sprinkled on the corn silk will also act as a deterrent.

Because some plants are poisonous, it’s important to keep unattended young children away from the garden. Natural organic pest control may be a complex subject; however, there are many simple things you can do in to improve your garden for increased vegetable yield and organic sustainability.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.ghorganics.com/page2.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companion_planting

http://www.seedsofchange.com

http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/companion-planting.html

Riotte, Louise. Carrots Love Tomatoes. Charlotte: Garden Way Publishing, 1975

Mayer, Dale. The Complete Guide to Companion Planting: Everything You Need to Know to Make Your Garden Successful (Back-To-Basics Gardening). OcalaL: Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc., 2010

About the author:
READ MORE OF JEAN (JB) BARDOT’S ARTICLES AT THE FOLLOWING LINKS:

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JB Bardot is an herbalist and a classical homeopath, and has a post graduate degree in holistic nutrition. Bardot cares for both people and animals, using alternative approaches to health care and lifestyle. She writes about wellness, green living, alternative medicine, holistic nutrition, homeopathy, herbs and naturopathic medicine. You can find her at The JB Bardot Archives at www.jbbardot.com and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/jbbardot23 or on Twitter at jbbardot23 or https://twitter.com/jbbardot23

Source of Article is Natural News, article published for only information purpose.

The Earth’s population continues to grow, but the amount of land available for growing food is disappearing rapidly. Erosion, development, pollution, dwindling water supplies, and other human-induced and natural disruptions  threaten safe food and water supplies. Plant and animal species continue to disappear at alarming rates as humans damage and encroach on their habitats.
Many gardeners work to improve this grim picture by making personal choices that, at the very least, do as little harm to the environment as possible. The way you choose to grow flowers and food and to maintain the landscape can actually improve the quality of the soil, air, and water, as well as the lives of the organisms that depend on them.

Protecting wildlife
Organic gardeners strive to maintain a balanced ecosystem in which all creatures, even garden pests, play a role. They rely on nontoxic techniques, such as row covers and repellents, to manage pests, not eradicate them. By allowing the presence of some pests, organic gardeners encourage the pests’ natural predators to take up residence. And when pests and predators are in balance, everyone wins.
Sometimes, even organic gardeners may choose to use pesticides as a last resort. When they do, they keep in mind that, while pesticides kill pests, they can harm innocent bystanders as well. When possible, organic gardeners choose products that affect only the pest they’re trying to control.
Most organic pesticides break down quickly into harmless substances once they’re exposed to air, sunlight, and/or water. Many synthetic pesticides, on the other hand, are formulated to keep working — killing — long after the need is passed. These long-lasting pesticides not only continue killing pests, they can also accumulate in the bodies of animals, harming them over a long period. In the case of the infamous DDT, which was banned in the United States in 1972, the chemical accumulated in fish, rodents, and other animals. When predators such as hawks and eagles ate those animals, they accumulated increasingly larger quantities of DDT, too. As a result, they laid eggs with thin shells that broke before they hatched, destroying generations of birds and sending many species to the brink of extinction. Even today, tens of millions of birds are killed each year as a result of pesticide use.

Helping pollinators
Pollination occurs when pollen is moved within flowers or from one flower to another of the same species, leading to fertilization and successful seed and fruit production. Some plants, like corn, are pollinated by wind. However, nearly 80 percent of the world’s crop plants, including alfalfa, apples, blueberries, cotton, and melons, depend on insects or other pollinators to transfer their pollen. According to the North American Pollinator Protection campaign, 30 percent of the foods we eat require the presence of a pollinating insect.Although concern for the welfare of pollinating insects has been growing among scientists for decades, it wasn’t until a crisis dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) caught the media’s attention that the general public took notice. During the winter of 2006 2007, U.S. beekeepers reported losses of 50 percent to 90 percent of their hives. Researchers are still trying to determine the cause, but many think that a combination of disease-related and environmental factors may be involved.Whatever the cause, CCD has awakened us to our utter dependence on the honeybee — a non-native species that was brought here from Europe by  early settlers. Before that, plants relied on native pollinators, such as solitary bees, bumblebees, wasps, butterflies, and beetles. Unfortunately, the  populations of these native pollinators have dwindled, due at least in part  to pesticide use.
Using organic growing practices can help reverse this trend. By growing diverse plants, choosing plants specifically to attract and feed pollinators, and minimizing pesticide use, home gardeners can play an important role in increasing the populations of pollinating insects.

Article Taken From http://www.homegrownfun.com/

By Home Grown Mom - Cindy

Look around the house and locally for materials you can use to make your own fertilizers. If you like to recycle, also check out “Funny Ways to Recycle Human Hair to Stay Green”.

• BANANA PEELS  - Eating a banana helps replenish lost potassium. Roses love potassium too. Simply throw one or two peels in the hole before planting or bury peels under mulch so they can compost naturally. Get bigger and more blooms.
• COFFEE GROUNDS  – Acid loving plants such as tomatoes, blueberries, roses and azaleas love coffee grounds mixed into the soil, sprinkled on top of the ground before watering, or poured on top of the soil. If using as a soil drench, soak 6 cups of coffee grounds in a 5 gallon bucket of water. Let it sit for 2-3 days and then saturate the soil around your plants.
• EGG SHELLS  – Wash them first, then crush. Work the shell pieces into the soil near tomatoes and peppers. The calcium helps fend off blossom end rot. Eggshells are 93% calcium carbonate, the same ingredient as lime, a tried and true soil amendment! I use eggshells in my homemade potting mix. This gives me healthy, beautiful fruits fit for seed saving. Get the 7 Secrets to Saving Tomato Seed in the Home Garden.
• SEAWEED – Fresh seaweed should be washed well before use to remove salt. Asian markets sell dried seaweed. Both fresh and dried versions are considered excellent soil amendments. Seaweed contains trace elements and actually serves as a food source for soil microbes. Chop up a small bucket of seaweed and add it to 5 gallons of water.  Let it sit for 2-3 weeks loosely covered. Use it to drench the soil and foliage. 2 cups work well for a small plant, 4 cups for a medium plants and 6 cups for a large plant. Experiment with amounts. Combine seaweed with other tea fertilizers.  
• WEEDS  – You’ve got your own fertilizer growing under your feet!  Nettles, comfrey, yellow dock, burdock, horsetail and chickweed make wonderful homemade fertilizer. There are several ways you can use them to make your own brew or to speed up your compost pile. If your weeds have not gone to flower you can dry them in the sun and chop them up to use as a mulch. They are high in nitrogen and won’t rob your plants of nutrients. Borage (starflower) is an herb but for some people it’s a weed. It has many of the same nutritional properties as comfrey. I dry the entire plant, root and all, and put it in my compost tumbler. It helps break everything down and gives the pile and extra dose of heat. For this next brew, get out the bucket and your bandana! The bandana you’ll need for your nose because this technique gets stinky! Place a bunch of weed leaves and roots in a 5 gallon bucket. Weigh down the leaves with a brick to ensure the plant matter is covered and add water to cover. Stir weekly and wait 3-5 weeks for the contents to get thick an gooey. Then use that goo, diluted 1:10 or more as a soil drench fertilizer. To make it even more convenient, you can use two buckets and make a hole in the bottom of the bucket that contains the plants. The goo will seep through to the lower bucket.  It’s always best to apply the liquid fertilizer diluted – it should look like weak tea.
• MOLASSES – Using molasses in compost tea increases microbes and the beneficial bacteria that microbes feed on. If you want to start out with a simple recipe for molasses fertilizer, mix 1-3 tablespoons of molasses into a gallon of water. Water your plants with this concoction and watch them grow bigger and healthier.
• HUMAN URINE – Sounds disgusting, but urine is considered sterile if the body it’s coming from is healthy and free of viruses and infection. High in nitrogen, urea contains more phosphorous and potassium than many of the fertilizers we buy at the store! If serving tomatoes that have been fertilized with pee gives you the “willies”, try it in the compost pile. A good ratio of urine to water would be 1:4. You can collect a cup of urine and pour it into 4 cups of water in a plastic bucket used outside for fertilizing plants. Pour 2 cups around the perimeter of each SMALL plant. For MEDIUM plants add 4 cups and LARGE plants deserve a good 6 cups of your personal home brew.
• GRASS CLIPPINGS – Rich in nitrogen, grass breaks down over time and enhances the soil. Fill a 5 gallon bucket full of grass clippings. You can even add weeds! Weeds soak up nutrients from the soil just as much as grass. Add water to the top of the bucket and let sit, covered for 3 weeks. Stir it once a week. Dilute your grass tea by mixing 1 cup of liquid grass into 10 cups of water. Apply to the base of plants using the same amounts as listed above in the urine recipe.
• MANURE – Chicken, horse, cow manure. With a little effort, you’ll find folks that are giving away composted animal manure for free. Add the composted manure to a small permeable bag made from recycled cloth, e.g., a t-shirt or old towel. Let it steep in the shade for a few days and apply it to your soil to condition it before planting. Bury or discard the used bag. Some people use manure tea to soak bare root roses!  Click here to read my 5 tips for using manure.
  
• CAT AND DOG FOOD – Depending on the dog food you recycle, this soil amendment may not be organic.  However, even the cheap stuff contains protein and micro-nutrients that benefit the soil. To prepare a garden plot for planting, sprinkle dry pet food on the bed, turn the soil and water. Let it decay naturally. To discourage wildlife from visiting for a snack, cover with cardboard until the food decomposes. The cardboard will also trap moisture and discourage weeds. Make sure the cardboard get wet all the way through and cover with mulch. Water thoroughly every week for four weeks. Soybean meal and alfalfa pellets from the grain store work great too. Sometimes grain stores will sell for cheap or give away spoiled grains. Check the feed for salt content and try not to add pet or animal food considered high in sodium. The AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) recommends dry dog food contain a minimum of 3% sodium to support normal growth and development.

OTHERS

CORNMEAL – Contains lots of phosphorus and nitrogen and acts as an effective fungicide. Add a cup of cornmeal to 5 gallons of water. Let it soak for several hours, then strain the liquid so you can add it to a spray bottle. Spray the leaves of plants that are susceptible to fungus. You can combine this cornmeal tea with compost tea for even more benefits. I use the leftover water from cooking corn on my vegetable garden.

WORM POO – Making my own worm tea is easy. I started with a handful of red wiggler worms about 6 years ago and haven’t stopped since. Check out our video below on composting with worms to see how easy it is to make this amazing fertilizer!

For Original Article Visit: http://www.homegrownfun.com/

Saturday, July 20, 2013  By Alicia Bodine

Although plants will grow as long as they have soil, water and light, fertilizer can be used to help the plants grow faster and appear more vibrant. Store bought fertilizers contain chemicals that can burn the plants if not used properly. It is much safer for the plants when you create a homemade fertilizer to use. This fertilizer should contain baking soda, which eliminates the growth of fungal diseases that will hinder the plant's growth. Instructions

1. Pour 1 gallon of hot water into a small bucket.

2. Add 1 teaspoon of baking soda and 1 tablespoon of Epsom salts to the hot water. Stir until both ingredients have dissolved.
3. Pour 1/2 cup of molasses and 1/4 teaspoon of ammonia in the bucket. Stir again to combine all of the ingredients.
4. Set the baking soda fertilizer aside until it cools to room temperature.
5. Pour 1 cup of the homemade baking soda fertilizer into the soil of each plant. Repeat monthly to encourage your plants to grow healthy and strong.

Source: eHow

By Eddie Funderburg

What is Organic Matter?
Many times we think of organic matter as the plant and animal residues we incorporate into the soil. We see a pile of leaves, manure, or plant parts and think, "Wow! I'm adding a lot of organic matter to the soil." This stuff is actually organic material, not organic matter.

1. trees produce a much smaller root mass per acre than grass plants, and
2. trees do not die back and decompose every year. Instead, much of the organic material in a forest is tied up in the tree instead of being returned to the soil.

• Nutrient Supply
  Organic matter is a reservoir of nutrients that can be released to the soil. Each percent of organic matter in the soil releases 20 to 30 pounds of nitrogen, 4.5 to 6.6 pounds of P₂O₅, and 2 to 3 pounds of sulfur per year. The nutrient release occurs predominantly in the spring and summer, so summer crops benefit more from organic-matter mineralization than winter crops.
• Water-Holding Capacity
  Organic matter behaves somewhat like a sponge, with the ability to absorb and hold up to 90 percent of its weight in water. A great advantage of the water-holding capacity of organic matter is that the matter will release most of the water that it absorbs to plants. In contrast, clay holds great quantities of water, but much of it is unavailable to plants.
• Soil Structure Aggregation
  Organic matter causes soil to clump and form soil aggregates, which improves soil structure. With better soil structure, permeability (infiltration of water through the soil) improves, in turn improving the soil's ability to take up and hold water.
• Erosion Prevention
  This property of organic matter is not widely known. Data used in the universal soil loss equation indicate that increasing soil organic matter from 1 to 3 percent can reduce erosion 20 to 33 percent because of increased water infiltration and stable soil aggregate formation caused by organic matter.

• Reduce or Eliminate Tillage
  Tillage improves the aeration of the soil and causes a flush of microbial action that speeds up the decomposition of organic matter. Tillage also often increases erosion. No-till practices can help build organic matter.
• Reduce Erosion
  Most soil organic matter is in the topsoil. When soil erodes, organic matter goes with it. Saving soil and soil organic matter go hand in hand.
• Soil-Test and Fertilize Properly
  You may not have considered this one. Proper fertilization encourages growth of plants, which increases root growth. Increased root growth can help build or maintain soil organic matter, even if you are removing much of the top growth.
• Cover Crops
  Growing cover crops can help build or maintain soil organic matter. However, best results are achieved if growing cover crops is combined with tillage reduction and erosion control measures.