At least once a year I think about testing our garden soil to see what the pH balance is then I get onto something else and it slips my mind for another year.

I can dig in one spot of our yard and the soil is pretty good but move ten feet to the left or right and the soil can turn into such dense clay it’s hard to get the shovel into it. So it can vary from place to place in our own yard.

My previous understanding was that I would have to collect sample of the soil in our yard, mark down where I got them, and then send the sample away to be tested.

I put in a lot of work amending our gardens so the dense clay would drain faster than a couple of days. I did this by adding peat moss and compost each year since I started home gardening.

Bought A Garden Soil PH Balance Tester

Soil pH

The soil pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity in soils. pH is defined as the negative logarithm (base 10) of the activity of hydronium ions (H⁺ or, more precisely, H₃O+
aq) in a solution. It ranges from 0 to 14, with 7 being neutral. A pH below 7 is acidic and above 7 is basic. Soil pH is considered a master variable in soils as it controls many chemical processes that take place. It specifically affects plant nutrient availability by controlling the chemical forms of the nutrient. The optimum pH range for most plants is between 5.5 and 7.0,^[1] however many plants have adapted to thrive at pH values outside this range. Wiki – Soil pH

Get Down To Where The Roots Live

After reading and watching a few videos I know that it’s important to remove the top few inches of soil and debris to get to where the roots live as that’s where they will get their nutrition.

I saw someone trying to grow celery from the stalk ends of store bought celery. They didn’t do so well but it got me thinking that it was a good experiment so I gave it a try for myself. It helped me get through a long cold winter actually.

Here is a link to the first growing celery in water experiment which I admit didn’t do so good. You can check out the growing celery in water part two to see those results.

Because I was a bit sceptical that this would work I started a second celery stalk end in water on March 4th. After a week in the water I placed it in a container of well watered dirt to see if it would root.

Yesterday was the 14th and it still looked healthy so I pulled it gently from soil to check for roots and to my amazement there were roots around the base that were just over an inch long. I was so happy I did my little happy dance and then replanted it into a bigger container.

I am going to try growing roots on celery in water again but this time I will keep the water changed and do a better job of cleaning the base before putting it in water. This may be why the second experiment worked when I put it in dirt. So I’m excited to see the new results.

Because I didn’t make my own video I thought I would look on Youtube and found a re-growing celery experiment that worked to show you what I did.

For my next experiment growing celery in water I will document it better, take pictures and create a video of my own to share with my friends, family and new visitors.

Let me know if you’ve done this and share.

I started our first vegetable gardening in 2009 with a very tiny garden. At the time we gave growing potatoes a go but didn’t have the best luck as our garden was mostly clay so when it rained it held water and when it was dry the garden was like concrete.

We did get some potatoes but they were few and far between plus they were all on the small side.

The next year I grew potatoes in containers to see if I could do a better job.

We did better with containers but they presented a problem as well. They dried out constantly. We didn’t give up though and had more potatoes than the first attempt in the garden. This year I want to go with growing potatoes in bigger pots, a raised bed as well as in our veggie garden again, as we have been amending the soil for a few years now and it drains so much better.

I’ve Been Watching Some Youtube Videos

I love watching Youtube gardening videos and learn a lot of things without having to read the instructions. That was a guy joke in case you missed it. It’s also a great way to spend a day when it’s –27C outside. Ah, the benefits of working at home.

Below is a video that gave me hope with container gardening. He gets a much bigger yield of potatoes that I even did using containers, so I’ll follow his advice and give this a go this summer.

Growing Potatoes In Containers

The biggest problem I had with the potato growing videos I watched is that most didn’t show what happened with their technique. As I started reading through the comments I learned that most just didn’t work.

The guy in the video above actually showed his previous year’s results in the following video which was good enough for me to give it a try. Growing Potatoes In Containers – The Results

I am also looking into creating a 2×2 foot raised bed for potatoes and build the bed higher as it grows in order to lengthen the root system where the tubers actually grow. This is for another post because I need to learn more about it before trying this one.

It’s not very often we have temperatures in the minus 20s with it being caused by wind chill but this week it just keeps getting colder. This morning it felt like I was sitting outside when I came in to my office to turn on the computer.

I can’t see my breathe but I feel like putting on a my coat. Gotta turn the heat a little more this morning. Honey’s not going to want to go out there again this morning. On days like this she doesn’t take long and jumps around like a jack rabbit.

These are the days I am so happy I work at home.

So yesterday I started going through John Walker’s The Garden Planner looking for plants I’ve seen in other peoples yards and garden so I can put some of them in our yard. I can not only find the plants I don’t know the names of but also get enough info on the plant to know where to plant it and how tall it will grow.

We will have annuals as usual but this year we want to add a few more perennials to the yard. We will do that each year so that little by little we will have the yard we’ve dreamed about. I’d like to have wild flowers growing along our north property fence. It would give us more privacy.

I actually don’t get a lot of exercise when I go for walks because I spend most of that time taking pictures of flower, trees, shrubs and vegetable gardens.

A friend gave us The Garden Planner by John Walker. It’s full of trees, shrubs and flowers. This book is cut into five section and I mean cut. The sections flip individually. The top section is the taller trees. The left side of the book gives the detail while the right side shows a picture.

Well Casey and I had planned a musky fishing trip for today but after Casey checked out the weather conditions for next week we decided it might be better to hold off until Monday.

Today was going to start at minus 10C and only go up to about 3C but Monday is looking like double digit temps on the plus side. I was actually happy he called to see if I wanted to change dates as I take heart meds that thins my blood and makes me feel the cold so much sooner than I used to.

When I took our pit bull Honey out at 5:30 this morning she didn’t take long doing her business and to start barking to come back in. I didn’t wait outside with her either. It was a chilly morning.

Trimming The Grass Back From Our Garden Beds

Rather than sitting here thinking about the fishing we didn’t do I decided it was better to turn my thoughts to my trusty garden spade and the grass that has grown from the edges of our gardens into them.

It’s great that the ground hasn’t frozen yet which makes this task a lot easier and faster. Hopefully this year I do a better job at keep those lines straight around our vegetable garden.

We have a couple of flower beds that have edges in need of trimming but we are still building and shaping these. Once we get them to the size and shape we have in mind I would like to put a nice border around them so they will be easier to maintain.

For the time being we will continue to use the garden spade to trim the edges and keep them clean looking but once we have the veggie garden dug up to about 10×20 feet I plan to put a fence with an arbour around it. Then we will have the idea spot to put the patio swing or garden bench Judy and Jean gave us, which are sitting in the garage waiting for that spot.

I’ll talk quietly as our veggie garden is sleeping for the next 5 or 6 months. I wish I could hibernate for that time as fishing is over until mid April.

To help avoid the bad case of cabin fever I seem to get every winter I need to do more to occupy my time and this year it’s going to be indoor vegetable gardening.

We do have a couple of house plants but they seem to do just fine on their own as long as I water them every couple of weeks. That’s not going to help me deal with cabin fever though.

This Year I’m Growing An Indoor Veggie Garden

Once I started growing herbs indoors I became spoiled. It is so great to be able to walk over to a kitchen window and snip off a bit of basil to add to dinner or maybe some chives. Plus it’s a great way for us to keep all the milk cartons we go through from being dumped in the local landfill.

I use our kitchen windowsills to grow our herbs and the milk cartons fit the windowsill perfectly. The thing is there is no room left on the sill to grow anything else.

Fortunately we purchased a mini greenhouse to start our last year’s vegetable garden and flowers, from seeds. Now I can use the greenhouse to start seeds for our indoor vegetable garden.

I have watched a few videos and it seems totally doable so I am ready to start. Well almost. After watching the videos I realized there are some things I still need to pickup.

Our Mini Greenhouse Is Great

The mini greenhouse is two feet by three feet by six feet high and has four shelves or racks. The thing is the greenhouse sits on the floor and two of the four racks are below the windowsill and won’t get any light.

Not a problem because I have two old wooden orange crates I can put under the greenhouse to lift it into a position that will allow us three racks that will get sunlight. So glad I kept those old crates.

Note: By purchasing the mini greenhouse and starting our vegetables and flowers from seed we easily saved enough money to pay for our greenhouse.

We Still Have Limited Sunlight

The mini greenhouse will be great for short plants with shallow root systems like radishes, peas, lettuce, and cucumbers. We don’t want to plant anything that will grow too big and block out sunlight like the tomatoes and peppers we plan to grow. For those bigger plants we have the second kitchen window.

I Need Some Tin Foil, Duct Tape And A Light

This morning I learned that by putting tin foil around the sides and back of the mini greenhouse I will be able to reflex a lot of light so I will have to pick some up. While I’m out I will pick up another roll of duct tape to hold it all in place.

I will also pick up an energy efficient fluorescent bulb that will screw into an existing fixture to give my veggies the extra light then need because we won’t get enough direct sunlight during the winter months.

Well I guess summer is really gone for another year and now it’s time to get ready for the long winter.

It was minus 6 yesterday morning and I guess that was just the right temp for leaves to start dropping.

I work from home so I got to watch the leaves falling from the big maple trees in our neighbours yard yesterday. It was non-stop leaves falling like rain, for hours.

Very cool to watch but I didn’t get a lot of work done. Well I guess I did get inspired to write about it.

Maple Tree Losing Leaves Rapidly

I don’t care so much for raking up those leaves but I do like the fact they make such good compost plus they look very cool while falling and our driveway never looked so pretty. The leaves will end up in our vegetable garden or in the compost bin, eventually. Right now I just want to watch them fall.

Our Driveway Filled With Fallen Maple Leaves

I saw this blue jay out in the backyard. It looks like he is playing in the leaves but I would imagine he was really looking for breakfast.

It looked like he was playing hide and seek looking for something as he was lifting leaves and dropping them. Probably looking for some food he hid earlier. The think is the squirrels and crows watched him hide the food and quickly stole it once he was gone.

All summer long our property fence was covered with grape vines and gave us some privacy in that part of the yard.

The leaves started turning from green to yellow a week or two ago and yesterday they all dropped off, just like the maple tree leaves.

As we clean up the fence and get rid of some other invasive plants I want to plant more grape vines so we can have more grapes for ourselves as well as the birds.

Watching the maple trees dropping leaves reminds me of home on the farm. We had about a dozen huge maple trees lining the driveway and it was always a beautiful scene when they changed to fall colours and filled our driveway with leaves.

If we rake any leaves up this year I want to put them into our vegetable garden and dig them into the soil. The rest we will put into the compost bin and make more compost to use later.

The compost bin we have right now is great but as we keep increasing the size of our gardens I’m thinking we need another compost bin. Maybe we will find some old palettes and make a bigger compost bin. The bigger that better and the less goes to the local landfill.

We are so glad that we joined Mike The Gardener’s Seed of the Month Club because we get 4 packages of vegetable seeds each and every month like clockwork.

Last winter we received Cayenne pepper seeds which excited me because I love my hot peppers which are usually dried.

I started the cayenne pepper seeds in the house a month or so before I would be able to transplant them into our vegetable garden. A couple of weeks before transplanting them I moved them outside to my mini greenhouse so they would toughen up a bit.

I knew they were suppose to turn red but I waited and waited and by the end of August I just assumed I was wrong. But just when I gave up hope I noticed something shining in the sun and when I looked it was a cayenne pepper turning red from the bottom up.

I think the reason the cayenne peppers took so long to start maturing was due to me picking them before they had the chance to mature.

As soon as they were about 4 inches long I couldn’t resist eating them. I’ve been adding them to meals and preserves and love the taste and heat they add. It wasn’t until there were so many peppers growing that I couldn’t eat them all which gave come the opportunity to mature.

Today, in a world where the cost of living is constantly increase, vegetable gardening is practiced more and more in backyards all around the world.

It’s a way Jenny and I save money, get some exercise and best of all we are eating better.

Now that Jenny and I have started vegetable gardening I want to turn most of the lawn into vegetable gardens and save even more money. Plus there will be less lawn to care for.

It’s Not Difficult Being A Vegetable Gardener

By following just a few simple vegetable gardening tips pretty much anyone can start their own vegetable garden.  It all starts with a plan and the first step in the plan is LOCATION. Where does the summer sun hit your yard the best and for the longest period of the day?

Although it’s great to have a yard, for some it might mean using a balcony high off the ground for their garden, as long as it gets enough direct sunlight each day.

Pay attention to the trees that block direct sunlight. The picture on the left shows our little vegetable garden with towering trees behind it, which is the east, so our garden doesn’t get direct sunlight until after 10am.

When we started our garden we didn’t even think of the trees as they were fairly small back then. Now we have to remove a few trees along the fence because I’m not relocating our vegetable garden and in a couple more years it will be noon before they get direct sunlight.

Follow the vegetable gardening tips below and you’ll do fine:

1.  Start With A Vegetable Garden You Can Manage

Of course I knew I had a desire to start a vegetable garden but I also needed to know it was something I would stick with so rather than start big and wish I hadn’t I started with a very small vegetable garden.

The following year I doubled the size, which was still not very big and each year since I have increased the veggie garden size and plan to increase it again next spring or even this fall. But first I have to be sure I remove the problem trees that are blocking the early morning sun from our garden.

2.  Have The Right Tools For The Job At Hand

I have used old garden tools before and they can make gardening hard than it has to be. In the years since we started gardening we have purchased at least one or two new garden tools each year so that it’s not too costly.

Get yourself good quality gardening tools then be sure to take care of them so they will help you tend your vegetable and flower gardens for years to come.

Some Basic Gardening Essentials Include:

• a spade
• a garden fork
• a hoe
• a hand weeder
• a wheelbarrow
• a rake
• a garden hose
• rain barrels

I think the first thing we bought was a cheap hoe for weeding the garden. I should have known better but it was on sale and they were pretty much giving it away. Turned out it was a piece of crap hoe and every time I tried to use the pointed corners of the hoe the head would spin inside the handle making it pretty much useless. It was returned right away.

It’s not the first thing I’ve bought that was cheap, just to save a buck. My advice is to buy quality tools and keep in mind they will last for years. It took me time and cost me money returning the hoe and then going somewhere else to buy a good one, so I was wasting both time and money, just to save a buck.

Get yourself a quality garden hose that will be able to reach your vegetable garden. You might even want to get a soaker hose for the days you need to really give your garden a soaking.

It’s a great investment to buy a couple of rain barrels and collect rain water rather than using the city supply, which likely has chlorine in it. We have found that the city water tends to leave a white powdery residue on the leaves when we go for stretches without much rain.

We have been looking for a wheelbarrow that has two wheels that would be easier to balance than a single wheel but then we borrowed our neighbours wheelbarrow, which has a single wheel and it worked just fine, no balancing issues at all, so now we are just waiting for a good deal this fall.

Extra Gardening Tools Tip: I never thought of this but this morning I read a vegetable gardening tips that suggested painting the handles of our tools with a bright color that contrasts heavily with green.  It immediately reminded me of the times I looked around the yard to find a tool and have walked right past it.

3.  Get Your Garden Seeds From A Good Source

Learn your growing zone or plant hardiness zone so you know the types of vegetables and fruit that will thrive where you live. Just do a search in your favourite search engine. You can enter a search string such as:

plant hardiness zone +’your location and country’

For example: plant hardiness zone +New Brunswick +Canada

Using this search text I found a map that showed us we are in zone 4. Next I did a search for vegetables that grow well in hardiness zone 4.

I get most of my vegetable garden seed from Mike The Gardener’s Seed of the Month Club and for just a couple of bucks a month I have all kinds of great quality seeds that have provided us with plenty of good veggies over the past few years. Give them a look and see if it’s something you can benefit from.

Find locals who already vegetable garden in your area and pick their brains for helpful tips. Most gardeners are quite willing to share what they know if you’re ready to listen.

Save your seeds for next year like have started doing and even trade seeds with friends and neighbours so that you can get seeds you haven’t tried before.

4.  Learn How To Keep Pests And Weeds at Bay

It can be a bit depressing when you work hard to have a great vegetable garden and then pests and/or weeds take over. There are ways to protect your vegetables from these garden pests, without using chemical pesticides I might add.

Try growing plants that tend to repellent insects such as onion, garlic, and chives. Plants these as a border around the edge of your garden to help keep pests away.

Having your garden soil well tilled so that there’s a good balance of microbes and earthworms which will help your veggies to grow strong healthy root systems which will keep your plants stronger and more resistant to pests.

Using an an inch or two of untreated mulch around each plant will also keep the dirt away from vegetable leaves and will also help to keep weeds from getting any sunlight which will keep them from growing.

5.  Water Your Veggie Plants Regularly

We can go a few days without water before it really starts to show but your veggies are likely to show lack of water in just one day. Be sure to give your veggies enough water to establish strong healthy roots. Keep in mind that mulching will not only help to keep dirt of the leaves and weeds from growing, it also helps to keep moisture from evaporating and being wasted.

Don’t flood your garden thinking more is better because it will cause your veggies roots to rot and drown. It’s a balance and good draining soil will help keep your garden drained of excess water.

Take the time to check each vegetable you’d like to grow with online sources or seed guides to see how much water they require each week.

We like to water our gardens before the sun is high in the sky so that there is less evaporation which takes less water getting the job done. Watering done early mornings helps to stave off mildew and other fungus due to water on the leaves.

There may seem to be a lot of things to do for a successful vegetable garden so starting small is the way to go. We have found that starting small allowed us to deal quickly with any problems so we learn how to avoid problems before our garden gets too big.

It’s a great time to get yourself a copy of Food4Wealth and learn how to be the best vegetable gardener you can be and this package includes videos which is my favourite way of learning next to actually have a pro in my garden showing me hands on.

Be sure to share your vegetable gardening experience with our readers.

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• Vegetable Gardening for Beginners Made Easy (homegardeningtipsmoncton.com)
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• Ideas and Inspiration for a Modern Vegetable Garden (pottedplantsociety.wordpress.com)

This is the first year I’ve grown pumpkins. Usually we just buy a pumpkin for Halloween. As part of my membership with Mike The Gardener’s Seed of the Month Club I received winter squash and pumpkins.

You can see in the image on the left that our pumpkins are looking like pumpkins. It was only about a week ago they were still green and I was wondering why they were green and not orange like pumpkins I’ve seen my entire life.

I was so happy to see them changing.

You can also see one of our winter squash in the background of the image above. It’s a few feet behind the pumpkin and looks small but it’s nearly as big as the pumpkin.

Our son Steve moved from Moncton to Saskatchewan for work in the welding field. It’s the first time he’s moved so far from home, making it tough to come home for a good home cooked me or pumpkin pie.

As soon as he saw the pictures I have of our pumpkins he was asking us to mail him a pumpkin pie. Pumpkin just happen to be his favourite kind of pie.

See our tiny little vegetable garden on the left. Those trees on the east side of the garden and block direct sunlight until well after 10am so they have to go.

However, I am 60 and haven’t cut a tree down in many years so I feel it’s better and safer for me to hire someone who does know how to remove trees safely.

I have mentioned those trees in a few other articles I’ve written and received a response from Paul Lee who offered to write about the risks of DIY tree removal. Enjoy.

The Risks of DIY Tree Removal

Safety – One of the main risks that come with DIY tree removal is the safety factor. If you do not know what you are doing, then you run the risk of being hit by falling branches, being crushed or even hurting others. This may sound melodramatic, but it does happen. A professional Arborist will have been trained in order to ensure their safety and the safety of those around them.

Damage – Due to the fact that parts of the tree will be falling at some point during the process, there is the very real risk that you could damage your property if you do not know what you are doing. Obviously, this can be incredibly expensive, especially if the tree that you are removing is a large one.

Machinery – A professional tree removal service will have access to the tools necessary to remove the tree safely. However, it is very unlikely that you will have access to these types of tools yourself, which again, makes the process a very dangerous one.

Legality – In some cases, it is actually illegal to remove a tree, depending on where it is. A professional tree removal service will know whether or not certain trees are allowed to be removed. This means that they will not face legal issues, and neither will you. If you are not a professional tree removal specialist then it is unlikely that you will be knowledgeable in the laws surrounding the removal of trees.

There are so many other reasons as to why you should use a professional Arborist. If you do have a tree on your property that needs to be removed then you would be very wise to contact a professional.

By doing this you can ensure that the removal process is completed properly, and that you will not run into any problems at all. There are many professional services out there who will be able to offer you a very good deal.

Found Some Tree Removal Services In Moncton

I see a few truck going by our home that say tree service on the side but never get a phone number or see a website listed. So, even though I won’t get those trees removed until later fall or winter, after we harvest our little veggie garden, I took a few minutes to look through the yellow pages for Moncton. I have only listed those with a website because I like to see what is offered before I call someone.

• Arbor-Tech Tree Service Inc.
• Martel Tree Service
• Kevin Anderson Tree Care

This is going to make me so happy and I’m sure I’ll be able to grow even more veggies in 2012.

Vegetable gardening is definitely a growing experience and it’s not always a great experience, especially when you wake to find the tomato plants in your vegetable garden are lying on the grown after a night of high winds.

I looked at them in horror expecting them to be broken right off at the ground and my dreams of canning tomatoes smashed. It was such a let down.

I was so stressed I didn’t even think of taking a picture and I usually snap pictures of everything. Not the best way to start New Brunswick Day.

This is what my tomato plants looked like yesterday.

I rushed out to see if I could salvage anything at all. As I looked closer I couldn’t find any damage. Not a single plant had broken off, no branches broke and not even a single tomato feel off. I was amazed and ecstatic to say the least. New Brunswick Day felt pretty good all of a sudden.

Over the next half hour or so I retied my tomato plants and then I noticed one plant was still standing. How strange but when I looked at it I noticed the stake wasn’t like the other stakes I had bought. This one was a small tree branch I used because it looked rustic and I like it.

The tree branch had bumps from other smaller branches I’d cut off and they kept the tie strings from slipping down. That’s when I realized what had happened to those with the square smooth stakes.

I’m thinking the small smooth stakes had allowed the strings to slip down the stake as the wind agitated them throughout the night.

The good news is this happened gradually over night letting the tomato plants collapse slowly, thus nothing was broken. I will definitely remember this for next year and may just use branches for all my stakes as they look great and work well.

I started a second garden plot this year, right over the lawn. I put cardboard down and piled dirt about a foot deep over it. I just planted things to keep the soil from washing away and the weeds down.

I planted four tomato plants there and they were still standing. I had used branches for those as well because I ran out of the other stakes. I have to say New Brunswick Day is looking a whole lot better now and it’s only 10:30.

Last minute I decided to include growing squash in our vegetable garden even though I was a bit worried they would take over the garden, but did it anyways.

I spaced each squash plant about 3 feet apart in the row, east to west, and gave them about 3 feet on either side, north and south.

It’s still very limited by my plan is to get them to grow in a spiral so they will stay in the space provided. Hopefully this will work and they won’t sprawl into the rest of the garden and hinder other veggies.

I planted beans on the north side of the squash and peas on the south side so when they are done the squash will have an extra six or eight feet of elbow room.

I started them from seed and transplanted them once I felt the threat of frost was gone. Once they started to spread their vines I started to peg them in the direction I want them to grown, which is in a spiral.

You can see from the image on the right that I used two small sticks. I stuck them in the ground on either side of the vine to hold them in place.

Note that I didn’t force the vines and pegged them while they were still very flexible.

The Slugs Had To Go

When I first started growing zucchini we didn’t get much. They would flower and the next morning the flowers were gone. For a while I thought that was natural but when I didn’t get any zucchini I started to read up on what might be the cause.

I found that it was most likely slugs so I started going out at night to see if that was the case. I saw slugs and picked them out of the plant and soil but couldn’t keep up with them.

I started looking for home remedies but didn’t find any that really solved the problem. We didn’t get many zucchini but the next year I was prepared because I went to the local nursery and bought some Slug-B-Gon, which did the trick.

I looked on eBay a few minutes ago. I didn’t see the same brand I bought but did find a few other products that will help get rid of slugs and snails.

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You’ve probably heard the gardening cliché “it starts with the soil.” The things is, clichés are often right on the money, and this is no exception. The soil is one of the most important factors in determining whether or not you’ll grow healthy plants.

One of the most important aspects of the soil is its organic matter content, and that’s what I’m covering in this blog post today.

First, What Is Organic Matter?

While organic matter makes up a relatively small part of the soil, it is vital. It’s kind of like how you can make bread without yeast, but it won’t work very well. You just need that teaspoon of yeast in there. So organic matter is as important in the soil as yeast is to bread. You just need perhaps 3% to get you started.

It includes anything that is living or was once alive. When looking at the soil, we’re mostly referring to fallen leaves or needles and twigs, dead and living plant roots, and dead and living microbes.

All of these can be fresh and whole, or in the process of being broken down, or already broken down into its most stable form – humus – perhaps in a compost pile or mulch or right in the soil.

Humus is what we’re ultimately after, but having some coarser organic matter mulch layer on top is important as well.

Why Is Organic Matter So Good?

Organic matter does a lot of good things for us in the garden. It:

• Increases the water-holding capacity of porous soils so your plants can drink and you can water less.
• Increases drainage in finer soils so your plants and soil organisms can breathe.
• Promotes air in the soil and resistance to compaction by encouraging bigger pore spaces.
• Holds onto minerals because humus is loaded with positive and negative charges that attract them.
• Provides fertility because it is composed of nutrients and other substances.
• Provides habitat for beneficial soil microorganisms and insects that make the garden work.

How To Increase Your Organic Matter

Nature will increase organic matter on its own, but that takes hundreds or thousands of years. You can drastically speed up the process. Here are the best ways to increase your soil organic matter content:

• Compost. Incorporating high-quality, aerobic compost is one of the best methods. I’ll use as much as 6 inches in a new garden if it’s obviously low in humus and then less than 1/2 inch per year after that. Here’s more detail on how to use compost.
• Mulching. Humans compost, but nature mulches. And you won’t see 2 inches of bark on the forest floor. Leaves are actually the best mulch for your gardens. Straw is okay if you don’t have enough leaves.
• Humates. This is a product derived from Leonardite that is very concentrated in humic acids, which provide many benefits for the soil. It would be expensive to buy a lot, but a little goes a long way.
• Cover crops. Planting cover crops will improve organic matter because the roots are always dying and growing back, adding to the soil. Plus of course you can chop it down for a nice mulch in the spring.

My main goals are increasing the organic matter content and biological diversity of my soil through compost, mulch, humates and cover crops.

A few years of this and your soil will be so beautiful you’ll almost want to eat it! I advise against that, but if you grow food, that food will taste better, and you can eat it instead. It all starts with the soil.

Any questions? Feel free to ask below.

Phil Nauta was an organic landscaper and an organic fertilizer business before starting SmilingGardener.com to teach innovative methods for organic gardeners.

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Home gardening which includes flower gardens, container gardening as well as vegetable gardening can draw many garden bugs both good bugs and garden pests.

We know that not all bugs and insects in our gardens are beneficial so it’s important to know which are your friends and which you should get rid of.

The five insects or bugs listed below are beneficial to your garden so be careful not to kill them like I was doing before I realized what I was doing.

1. The Common Ground Beetles

I see the common ground beetle in my garden and yard but usually only when I turn something over that they are hiding in for the day as they are mostly nocturnal.

I remember as a kid on our farm I would catch them and put them in bottles to take to school to show my friends.

Why do I like the common ground beetles today? Well they help me keep the slug population under control, although I have to help them if there has been too much rain as slugs seem to multiply a whole lot more in damp conditions.

More info on the Common Ground Beetle.

2. Ladybugs

Ladybugs are one garden friendly bug people actually purchase for their gardens as they are great helpers when it come to garden pest control.

Part of their diet include such pests as aphids, mites, white flies and other harmful insects. Keeping ladybugs in your home garden will help to keep some of your garden pest problem at bay.

For more info about the garden friendly ladybug.

3. Honeybees

The bees in your garden aren’t going to eat other garden pests but they have another talent that helps your garden.

As honeybees and bumblebees fly from flower to flower eating nectar they can’t help but to collect pollen on their legs and body which helps to pollinate the flowers in your garden.

I love watching them go from blossom to blossom on our rhododendrons by the dozens.

In recent years there has been a noticeable decrease in honeybee numbers which could quickly become a real issue for the farmers needing bees to pollinate their crops. Going green and staying green is a great step in helping the bees.

4. Dragonflies

I really don’t ever see dragonflies in our gardens but I do see them where people have some kind of water feature or when I go fishing of course.

I can sit and watch them buzz around like little helicopters and how they hover and land on things. However, they are more than just great to watch as they love munching down on garden and yard pests like those mosquitoes I love to hate.

5. Lacewings

The lacewing is another garden friendly insect who loves to eat aphids for breakfast, lunch and supper. So they are a good insect to have in your home garden.

They don’t stop at just aphids though. They also like caterpillars, mealy bugs, and leafminers, and can eat hundreds of pest every single week.

It’s good to know and learn that not all garden insects are pests or harmful but instead are beneficial and help you avoid using harmful pesticides in your garden.

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