Many people know about the benefits of eating organic fruit and vegetables. However, not many people regularly eat organic food. The biggest disincentive is usually the price. Organic veggies are invariably a lot more expensive at the local supermarket.

Fortunately, anyone with a vegetable garden can grow organic vegetables of their own for much less than they could buy them at the store.

This is great if you have the lots of room in your yard, but many people feel that an organic garden takes more space, time, or skill than they have. This isn’t necessarily true. Growing an organic garden isn’t as hard as most people believe.

Are you wondering what an organic garden is? Most gardeners describe organic gardening as simply avoiding the use of anything chemical or artificial as fertilizer and insect control. They instead use natural materials and methods to maintain the health of the soil and the food, as well as their own.

Organic gardeners will tell you that vegetables produced by this method contain better nutrition than those sold in supermarkets. That’s because natural materials like compost help keep the soil healthy, instead of the routine depletion and artificial fertilization used in conventional methods. Since organic fruits and vegetables grow in healthy soil and ripen naturally, they also taste better.

An organic garden can also help you feel safer, since you control what goes into your food. You’ll feel the satisfaction of having produced your own organic vegetables and fruit, get the physical benefits that come from fresh air and exercise, and help to make the environment a lot better.

Mulching is one of the main secrets. The regular incorporation of old organic matter helps keep the soil functioning well. Mulching helps the soil retain moisture, suppresses weeds, reduces temperature fluctuations, and can prevent soil crusting. Many organic gardeners find that plant disease problems decline as the health of the soil improves.

Of course, the main reason for growing organically is to avoid the use of chemicals and commercially produced fertilizers and pesticides. This helps to maintain healthy soil across numerous growing seasons. More importantly, you can be sure that the food your family is eating is free of pesticides and herbicides.

While avoiding synthetic chemicals, many organic gardeners approve of and use sprays and other preparations containing naturally occurring materials. Other pest control methods include the use of mechanical devices such as traps. Another favorite is to encourage other animals into the garden which like to eat the pests.

If organic produce prices stay high and people remain concerned about the food they eat, you might even be able to make a little extra money from your garden. Neighborhood and community gardening projects are also getting a lot more popular.

At the very least, home grown, organic vegetables definitely taste better.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 5:17 pm and is filed under Organic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.