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Organic gardening is a wonderful way to keep a healthy supply of fresh produce on hand. Starting your first organic garden takes a little more work at the beginning, but the rewards are as bountiful as your harvest is sure to be! Here are some basic tips for starting your organic vegetable garden.

Pick Your Spot
For vegetables, you need a plot that will get a minimum of six hours of sunlight each day. You also need to make sure it has good drainage, because those beautiful heirloom tomatoes you have been so excited to plant will not grow in a swampy garden.

Make Your Bed
Figure out what size and shape your organic garden will be, and start digging. Stake out your plot with a garden hose, or stakes and string, or even paint. You then need to clear the area of any gravel, grass or other plants.

Soil Check
Send samples of your soil to a testing service, so you know what the composition is and what, if anything, you will need to add to it so it forms a good, healthy base for your vegetables. Add as much compost as you can to your soil, either from your own compost heap or compost from the garden centre.

Choosing Seeds
Yes, I said seeds…not plants! For a truly sustainable organic garden, find non-hybrid seeds and heirloom seeds that you can germinate and plant yourself. Why? Because non-hybrid seeds and heirloom varieties are seeds that are in their natural state…they have not come from plants that have been bred for certain traits, such as disease resistance. This ensures you get vegetables that contain all of the nutrition that nature intended, and that you can collect seeds from your vegetables as they mature, save them, and then replant them the following season…giving you a perpetual organic garden. Seeds form hybrid varieties often do not grow as well, and are often sterile.

Good non-hybrid and heirloom varieties can be found for tomatoes, corn, cabbage, beans, radish, peas and other common, easy to grow veggies.

Planting
After you plant your seeds, cover the whole garden in a thick layer of organic mulch. You can use hay, chopped leaves, grass clippings, or shredded bark. Mulch helps keep the soil moist, and the weeds to a minimum. After you plant, label your garden so you know what is where!

Starting an organic garden is a great way to keep yourself stocked up with healthy food, and it’s also good survival insurance against national food shortages and economic disaster. when you look out the window at your vegetables, you’ll know that you are doing your part to protect your family’s health.