“How to Start Gardening – Growing Organic Vegetables – How to Design a Garden”
Growing Organic Vegetable is easy and simple. With a little thought on how to design a garden is just one of the steps on how to start gardening. The Bird Man is your one stop shop for growing organic vegetables, picking seeds and plants, how to design a garden, and preserving foods.
Get out a pad of paper and a pencil and answer these questions:
- Do you plan to grow in pots or in your yard?
- Is there space to install raised garden beds?
- Which direction do your gardening areas face; north, south, east, or west?
- Is this area flat and if not what direction does this area slope?
- Which growing zone are you in?
- What is the yearly average moisture your area receives in inches?
- What vegetables & herbs would you like to grow?
- How many hours per week do you have for gardening?
- Do you plan to hand water or use irrigation?
- Are you composting now?
- Are you on city water or on a well?
- Have you had your soil tested in the past year for pH, salts, soil texture, and nutrient levels?
- Do you have rabbits, deer, voles, or squirrels in your yard?
- Is growing organic vegetables important or a priority for you?
- Does your area normally have hail storms in the late spring or summer?
“When it comes to how to design a garden planning is everything. The last thing you want to do is build a garden and then realize you really need to move it.”
Answering the questions above in your planning stage will definitely provide much better results at the end of the season. These are just a few questions I go through with my customers before we start building a garden or planting.
For personal on-site help with how to start gardening, growing organic vegetables, or how to design a garden contact The Bird Man. We have over seventy years of combined gardening experience with growing organic vegetables, how to start gardening, and how to design a garden.
Growing organic vegetables and herbs is growing food without genetic engineering, also called Genetically Modified Organism or GMO. In addition certified organic food does not contain any synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, or irradiation. The USDA National Organic Program, NOP, sets all the rules and regulations for commercially growing and selling organic certified food. This includes not only the certification program for growing organic food, but also the labeling of organic food.
While the NOP sets all the rules there is another organization, Organic Materials Review Institute, that certifies all the inputs that can be used in organically grown food. When you see this OMRI Seal on any product such as fertilizers and pesticides you can be assured they are approved for use in growing organic food. Inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides are limited. The NOP sets the rules and does all the certification of soils to ensure they meet the strict guidelines.
Organic Gardening is essentially nothing more than growing a garden without the use of toxic chemicals and pesticides and recycling everything possible back into your garden soil. There is a lot of debate whether GMO foods are good or bad for human and animal consumption. We are not hear to debate this issue, but logic says a pesticide free food is a much safer choice.
The two simple rules when it comes to growing organic vegetables is to buy certified organic seed and plants and make sure your inputs are OMRI certified. When you buy plants, seed, fertilizer, or any other input for your garden you want to buy plants and seeds that contain the USDA Organic seal show above. When you want to add any fertilizer, compost, lime, sulfur, top soil, manure, or any other input you want to make sure the product has the OMRI Listed seal on the package.
Please see our other links to growing organic vegetables:
What customers are saying about The Bird Man:
“Once The Bird Man educated us on growing organic vegetables we switched to organic practices. It was much easier than we thought and now have a much better understanding of the Benefits of Organic Food. The Bird Man installed raised beds for us and also helped us find the right products to amend our garden soil to keep within the organic food standards.”
Dave – Elizabeth, CO
“For years I have struggled with how to design a garden for optimal production. Growing organic vegetables is a lot easier with the help of The Bird Man. Attending one of his classes was very beneficial especially the part of the class on how to plant a garden. I now have a much better appreciation of organic gardening. Thank You Bird Man!”
Jim & Elizabeth – Monument, CO