“Caring Roses”

Taking proper care of your roses can seem like a very taxing, and time consuming thing to do, but the results of such care far more than make up for it. Unfortunately, roses are the most difficult flower to manage and keep healthy; however, all good things require high maintenance.

There are many small things that have to be done to keep your roses looking their best, but all of those small things add up to one very large one. Here are some great tips for the regular upkeep of your roses.
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“Organic Gardening”

Organic gardening is the exact same as regular gardening except that no synthetic fertilizers or pesticides are used. This can make certain aspects difficult, such as controlling disease, insects, and weeds. Organic gardening also requires more attention to the soil and the many needs of plants.

Organic gardening starts with the soil. Gardeners must add organic matter to the soil regularly in order to keep the soil productive. In fact, compost is essential to the healthiness and well being of plants grown organically. Compost can be made from leaves, dead flowers, vegetable scraps, fruit rinds, grass clippings, manure, and many other things.

The ideal soil has a dark color, sweet smell, and is full of earthworms. Some soil may need more natural additives than regular compost can give, such as bonemeal, rock phosphates, or greensand. A simple soil test will tell you the pH balance and which nutrients you will need to use.

One thing that makes even gardeners that are very serious about organic gardening reach for pesticides is insects on their plants. The best way to defend plants against insects is to take preventative measures. One thing that can be done is to make sure plants are healthy and not too wet or dry because insects usually attack unhealthy plants and if healthy, they can often outgrow minor insect damage. A variety of plant types is a good idea to keep pests of a particular plant type from taking out the entire garden.

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“Organic Gardener Guide”

Weeds? No problem! Except where germinating seeds, the mulch layer is thick enough to prevent weed seeds from sprouting. Should a weed begin showing through the mulch, this is taken as an indication that spot has become too thinly covered and a flake of spoiled hay or other vegetation is tossed on the unwanted plant, smothering it.

Oh, how easy it seems! Pick a garden site. If you have a year to wait before starting your garden do not even bother to till first. Cover it a foot deep with combinations of spoiled hay, leaves, grass clippings, and straw. Woody wastes are not suitable because they won’t rot fast enough to feed the soil. Kitchen garbage and manures can also be tossed on the earth and, for a sense of tidiness, covered with hay. The mulch smothers the grass or weeds growing there and the site begins to soften. Next year it will be ready to grow vegetables.

If the plot is very infertile to begin with there won’t be enough biological activity or nutrients in the soil to rapidly decompose the mulch. In that case, to accelerate the process, before first putting down mulch till in an initial manure layer or a heavy sprinkling of seed meal. Forever after, mulching materials alone will be sufficient. Never again till. Never again weed. Never again fertilize. No compost piles to make, turn, and haul. Just keep your eye open for spoiled hay and buy a few inexpensive tons of it each year.

Stout, who discovered mulch gardening in Connecticut where irregular summer rains were usually sufficient to water a widely-spaced garden, also mistakenly thought that mulched gardens lost less soil moisture because the earth was protected from the drying sun and thus did not need irrigation through occasional drought.

I suspect that drought resistance under mulch has more to do with a plant’s ability to feed vigorously, obtain nutrition, and continue growing because the surface inches where most of soil nutrients and biological activities are located, stayed moist. I also suspect that actual, measurable moisture loss from mulched soil may be greater than from bare earth. But that’s another book I wrote, called _Gardening Without Irrigation.

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“Sheet Composting”

Decomposition happens rapidly in a hot compost heap with the main agents of decay being heat-loving microorganisms. Decomposition happens slowly at the soil’s surface with the main agents of decay being soil animals. However, if the leaves and forest duff on the floor of a forest or a thick matted sod are tilled into the topsoil, decomposition is greatly accelerated.

For two centuries, frontier American agriculture depended on just such a method. Early pioneers would move into an untouched region, clear the forest, and plow in millennia of accumulated nutrients held as biomass on the forest floor. For a few years, perhaps a decade, or even twenty years if the soil carried a higher level of mineralization than the average, crops from forest soils grew magnificently.

Then, unless other methods were introduced to rebuild fertility, yields, crop, animal, and human health all declined. When the less-leached grassy prairies of what we now call the Midwest were reached, even greater bounties were mined out for more years because rich black-soil grasslands contain more mineral nutrients and sod accumulates far more humus than do forests.

Sheet composting mimics this system while saving a great deal of effort. Instead of first heaping organic matter up, turning it several times, carting humus back to the garden, spreading it, and tilling it in, sheet composting conducts the decomposition process with far less effort right in the soil needing enrichment.

Sheet composting is the easiest method of all. However, the method has certain liabilities. Unless the material being spread is pure manure without significant amounts of bedding, or only fresh spring grass clippings, or alfalfa hay, the carbon-nitrogen ratio will almost certainly be well above that of stable humus. As explained earlier, during the initial stages of decay the soil will be thoroughly depleted of nutrients.

Only after the surplus carbon has been consumed will the soil ecology and nutrient profile normalize. The time this will take depends on the nature of the materials being composted and on soil conditions.

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“Mulch”

Mulch is generally used at the beginning of the season but there is no hard and fast rules so even if the season is well under way, it’s still not too late to improve the soil with organic matter. Its important to make sure that the garden will perform well right through the season. In hot locations just a 4-inch (10cm) layer of mulch drops the soil temperature from 105 o to 80 o F. At the same time, it contributes organic matter and nutrients to the soil as it decomposes. Regardless of where you garden, you can still improve soil even once you’re growing in it.

Organic Mulches:
There are so many ideas for the best material with which to mulch; one that is particularly effective is kelp meal. Kelp or seaweed is a great source of trace minerals and growth elements. Just apply 1 pound per 100 square feet at any time during the growing season. Adding seaweed triggers an increase in microbial activity and fuels the decay cycle of organic matter in the soil.

Some of the most commonly used organic mulching materials are manures; bark chips, sawdust, grass clippings, leaves, and newspapers (shredded or in layers). Organic mulches allow some flexibility in fertilizing and watering since they can be raked back from the plants. They should normally be applied uniformly 2 or 3-inch (5cm-7.5cm) deep around the base of the vegetable plant.

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