How To Turn Toxic Soil into Safe Soil

Growing vegetables in your own garden is a great way to save money and eat more healthily.  However, many of us grow our own veggies so that we will have less chemicals, only to find our soil is already polluted. Before you start a new garden, the first step is to be sure your soil is safe to grow consumables in. Here are ten quick ways to help make your soil safe for your family.

1.  Location, location, location!  Different areas of your yard may have different chemical content.  If you plant near a busy road, or an old building, you’re more likely to have chemicals leaking into your soil.  Try to plant away from these and other hazards that might contain toxins.

Home soil testing kit. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)2.  Test your soil.  You can’t get rid of harmful chemicals until you know what they are.  You can collect samples of your soil (how many you need depends on the size of your garden) and send them to be tested.  If you don’t know where to get soil tested, ask at your local nursery.

3.  Add mulch.  When you add mulch, this not only helps conserve water and keep the soil from overheating, it also breaks down into organic matter.  The organic material binds with harmful materials like lead instead of it binding with your plants.

4.  Plant things that "eat" the bad stuff.  For example, mustard will take lead out of your soil.  Instead of eating the plants, just pull them and throw them away.  This will take lead out of your soil and can be used for other harmful chemicals.  This is actually a common practice called phytoremediation.

5.  Avoid using chemicals.  It may go without saying, but if you don’t want unnatural chemicals in your food, don’t put them on your garden.  There are natural and safe ways to repel pests and fertilize your garden.  This will help your soil stay healthy and make beautiful tasty veggies for years to come. 

6.  Use elevated beds.  Toxic chemicals like lead generally leak down into the soil.  So, if you put, fresh, clean soil on top of your old soil, it will remain safe as long as long as toxic chemicals can’t come in from the sides.  Building an elevated bed will take some extra work in the beginning, but it will remain safe through the years.

7. Start a compost pile.  It’s fairly simple to do:  just throw all your organic waste, like grass clippings, fallen leaves, and kitchen waste, into a compost bin in your yard and turn regularly.  Eventually this will break down into great organic material that will bind with the harmful chemicals to keep them out of your food.

An early July new garden containing a variety of vegetables to help condition the soil and test the environment for susceptibility to wildlife pests. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)8.  Plant some mushrooms.  Mushrooms are decomposers, which means they break down old matter.  In addition to turning trees to soil, they may also help break down toxins in your soil.  You can do some quick research to determine which ones are right for you.

9.  Choose the proper veggies.  Some veggies are perfectly safe, even if they’re grown in toxic soil.  If you have toxic soil, or are in the process of cleaning it up, you can still grow above ground veggies, as long as you don’t eat the leaves.  Avoid eating below ground vegetables like carrots.  And always wash your vegetables before you eat them.

10.  Grow veggies outside the soil.  If nothing else works and your soil just isn’t safe for growing food, you can always grow fruits and veggies in pots and other small-space garden solutions like garden socks and hanging vegetable gardens. There are also a number of other gardening systems which don't use soil at all, like the new hydroponics and aeroponics systems that are becoming popular.

In most cases, most toxins can be removed from your garden soil within just a few years, if you follow the tips above. Maintaining a clean and healthy garden environment will make your garden sustainable and productive for years to come.

Video - Make Your Own Compost Tea

Here is a short video on how to make a rich, nourishing compost tea for your garden. You can use this to water your plants, or even dilute it and feed it aerially by spraying it on the leaves to really pump up your plants. This recipe shows a couple of extra additions, but really for the most basic compost tea all you need is water, compost, and a sugar (such as molasses) to really get the bacteria growing. You can buy a cheap air pump like he mentions for less than $10, and I love the pantyhose trick!

Compost tea can be an awesome way to get your garden off to a great start, so check this out to learn how to make your own:

How To Make Compost Tea The Easy Way
Thought I would share with all of you how I make compost tea in a five gallon bucket. Compost tea is one of the best ways to feed your plants and also the soil they grow in as your adding millions of beneficial micro organisms into the soil. Hope you...


Materials For Making Compost Tea:
   

Building Peat-Free Soil for a Sustainable Garden

Many sustainable gardeners believe potting soil should be peat free. I've heard several arguments on both sides, and while peat is an organic substance, there are several good reasons for building a peat-free garden.  Let’s discuss why you might want to go peat free and what you can use instead.

What is Peat?

Peat is a collection of partially decayed vegetation matter, which forms a soft, spongy mass which is light, yet holds water well.  This rich matter forms in wetlands and bogs and really is a rich soil additive that’s good for plants.  However, there are three big drawbacks to peat.

Bog at Derryloughan The peat is being harvested for garden compost. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)1. The first drawback to peat is that in order to make it to your garden or houseplants in most areas it has to travel thousands of miles.  When there are so many other alternatives to fertilize your garden and enrich your soil, there’s really no reason to ship something by airplane and truck thousands of miles across the globe.  That wastes fuel, as well as wasting resources harvesting the peat - thus defeating the purpose of sustainable gardening to begin with. 

2. Additionally, when peat breaks down, it emits carbon.  Yep, that matter contributes to greenhouse gases and it sucks up the oxygen around your plants, thus decreasing their environmental value. 

3. Finally, to harvest the peat, the world’s wetlands are being destroyed.  Inside these bogs, moors and marshes, valuable wildlife lives and thrives.  Take away their wetlands and they suffer.  Harvesting peat is an environmental disaster - although in some areas of Canada, I've heard they are starting to use more sustainable practices now.

Alternatives to Peat

With those three important drawbacks, many sustainable gardeners have opted to utilize peat-free alternatives. They include composting your own soil and soil fertilizers. 

Composting at home doesn’t need to be a large production.  If you try vermiposting, you can create wonderful fertilizers with just a small box in your laundry room or under a sink in the kitchen. Or for a more traditional compost, many of the newer compost tumblers are very space-efficient and easy to use. (We've got a lot of good compost articles on this blog, so just browse the archive if you need to brush up on this topic.)

Another idea is to enrich your soil with worm tea (or compost tea).  Worm tea is made by adding water to worm compost.  You can also buy it at your local farmer’s market or at your local nursery.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)If composting and worm tea aren’t your thing, you can buy peat-free organic potting soil at your nursery.  Many of these are made from a larger scale composting operation and are rich and sustainable products - often made locally - just ask the nursery to be sure.

While there are still people who believe peat is an okay product for gardens and plants, many are beginning to become more conscious of sustainability practices.  To make your garden and houseplants thrive you don’t need to use potting soil harvested from a bog in Russia.  You can make it yourself or buy it from a local operation, thus reducing carbon emissions and improving the health of the planet - and your garden.


A Few Resources For Making Your Own Compost:
   

10 Tips For A Healthy Organic Garden

Organic gardening is the healthiest way to grow flowers, fruits and vegetables. When you consume your homegrown fruits and vegetables, you ingest whole, fresh foods at the peak of nutrition that are free of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers.   Additionally, organic gardening is environmentally sound and keeps those toxins out of the soil and water supply.  Here are a few organic gardening tips to help you get the most out of your organic garden this year.

Cover via Amazon#1  Rotate crops.  Different vegetables and fruits absorb different nutrients from the soil.  If you plant tomatoes for example, in the same spot every year, eventually they’ll deplete the soil of the nutrients they need - and they'll also attract pests who think they've found a restaurant serving their favorite food year after year! However, if you rotate your garden, planting flowers where you plant veggies and veggies where you plant flowers, or different vegetable families in succession, or simply rotating where you plant your veggies then you’ll have healthier and tastier produce. Additionally rotation also helps prevent attack by disease and pests. (We'll post a longer article on crop rotation next week, so be sure check back to learn more.)

#2  Use friendly insects as natural pesticides.  Ladybugs are a great tool to eliminate aphids from your garden.  You can buy wiggly bags of them at your local nursery or even order them online.  Place them in your garden and prevent infestation.

#3 Organic insecticides can be used to prevent things like beetles and worms, when absolutely necessary. But don't overdo it - remember the principles of organic gardening are to keep everything in balance, which means not trying to kill off any particular species, but keeping things in harmony. 

#4  Use specific plants to attract or repel insects.  For example, Sage repels cabbage moths and black flea beetles and marigolds repel a variety of insects.

#5  If you’re sowing your own seeds, then you’ll want to sow them from organic fruits and vegetables.  If you’re buying plants to start with, you’ll want to make sure they’re organic. Otherwise you are starting your plants off right away in an unhealthy and artificial environment.

Organic vegetables (Photo credit: Wikipedia)#6  Plant vegetables in a rich soil. Compost is a wonderfully sustainable and nutrient rich way of providing everything your plants need to grow and survive. 

#7  If you’re sowing seeds, sow several times more than you think you’ll need. For example if you’re only going to plant one tomato plant in your garden, sow 3 or 4 seeds.  Seeds don’t always grow well and you can then choose the strongest looking to plant in your garden. 

#8  Read the information on the back of the seed packet or the tag.  This information will tell you how much sun and water the plant needs. This is all good information that will help you grow the healthiest plants. 

#9  Label your plants.  Use the tag attached to the plant when you bought it or make your own.  Mid-season, it can be easy to forget what plant is what, and you'll also want to write down what is planted where, so that you can practice crop rotation properly.

#10 Prevent fungus and disease. The biggest killer of most vegetable gardens in damp areas is fungus and mold.  Keep your plants pruned and keep the soil damp but not soaked.  Additionally, you'll want to mulch most plants to keep soil from splashing up on the leaves when it rains, which can cause some fungal diseases. But make sure there isn’t too much of an accumulation of mulch right around the plant stems - mulch only up to about 3-4 inches away from the stems to avoid the mulch holding water too close to the plants, which can foster mold or other fungal growth.

Organic gardening is a fun and easy way to bring fresh produce into your home.  You can grow flowers, herbs, vegetables and even fruits organically - knowing you're doing something good for both yourself and the planet!


Organic Gardening Resources:
   

Video - Why Native Plants Are Great for Beginning Gardeners

Here is a short video on some of the benefits of growing native plants, and why this can make starting a garden easier for beginners, and help you grow a sustainable and low-maintenance garden right in your backyard, no matter how much space you have available.

Check it out and learn a bit more about why growing native plants is so beneficial and can help your gardening efforts go so much smoother:

Basic Tips for Beginner Gardeners : Planting Native Species in your Garden
Learn how to plant using native species for a unique flair in your garden from anexpert in this free gardening video. Expert: Allan Watts Contact: www.anythinggrows.com Bio: Allan Watts has been the owner of Anything Grows, a store for Gardeners for ...


Helpful Resources for Finding and Growing Native Plants:
   

Want to Try Native Gardening?

Avid gardeners take great pride in their flowers. They plant them with loving care, water and fertilize them frequently, and work diligently to prevent pests and disease from harming them. For a large flower garden, this can be a near full-time job.

I think it's a Lavatera species. Not sure though. It was cultivated in a California native plants garden in San Diego, California, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)But planting a garden doesn't appeal to everyone. Many flower lovers would like to have beautiful plants adorning their property, but they don't have enough time to spend tending them. Even those who do have gardens often find themselves wishing they didn't require so much work. But in many cases, they're creating more work for themselves by planting the wrong kinds of flowers.

Many of the seeds and bulbs we buy from stores or online come from far away. They will usually grow in different places, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're well suited to your environment. Similarly, the plants that grow in nature in your neck of the woods might not be able to grow in another state or country.

When you look at it this way, it's not hard to see why native plant gardens have become so popular. These gardens incorporate plants that have grown naturally in the surrounding area for centuries - meaning they are much more sustainable. Here are some of the advantages of going native in your garden:

* Native plants generally require much less maintenance than non-native ones. Their sunlight and water requirements are in line with what nature provides in the area. And the soil has provided the nutrients they need for many years, so there is little need for fertilizer. All garden plants require some care to flourish, but native plants require much less than those introduced from faraway lands.

* Using chemical fertilizers and pesticides to maintain non-native plants that don't grow well in your area without artificial encouragement can cause cancer, birth defects and other health problems for those who are exposed to them. The reduced need for these chemicals when growing native plants is better for your health, as well as the health of others in your community.

Dahlia is a genus of bushy, tuberous, perennial plants native to Mexico, Central America, and Colombia. There are at least 36 species of dahlia, (Photo credit: Wikipedia)* Planting a native garden is a great way to celebrate what's unique about your part of the country! Plants that grow where you live might not often be seen in surrounding states.

* You can sometimes get native plants for free. People who have wild plants growing on their property are often happy to let you have them if you're willing to dig them up. Keep in mind, however, that transplants usually need special care until they are well established.

* Native plants tend to attract birds, butterflies and other wildlife more than non-native plants. If you love watching wildlife, a native garden is great for bringing it close to your home!

Native gardens are beautiful, and their maintenance takes up much less time than that of your average garden. Whether you're a life-long gardener or a novice, it's certainly worthwhile to give native gardening a try, especially if you're interested in a sustainable, natural, low-maintenance gardening experience.

How to Plant Your Own Flower Meadow

Spring is so amazing - there's nothing like a blooming field of flowers waving in the wind! Flower meadows are so beautiful. And although you may think of a flower meadow as something that only occurs on wild, untrimmed banks beside the road - not in your own garden - they really aren't too hard to plant yourself, assuming you have some space available. Here are some tips on how to plant a pretty flower meadow of your own.

- (Photo credit: Wikipedia)1. Find out what grows in your area. You will have a much easier time and better (and more sustainable) results if you choose plants that grow well in your local climate. If possible, choose native species.

2. Interestingly, wild flowers (especially native ones) will do best in poor soil that is basically bare. Wildflower meadows work well in areas where you have trouble growing grass. This is good - there will be less competition for the wildflowers.

3. If there is already grass growing on the site, you can still plant wildflowers as long as it is not the dense, manicured sort of grass. If it is, you will need to till the ground first. This is best done in autumn or very early spring.

4. Choose your seeds. If you have checked into finding the proper species in Step 1, this shouldn't be too hard. You can actually collect your own seeds at various times of the year, too. But probably the best advice is to purchase seeds of a wildflower mix. Something to consider is blooming time - plant both spring and summer blooming flowers to have flowers for a longer period.

Also think about what you want to accomplish with the wildflowers. Do you want color? How about attracting wildlife? Do you want to provide flowers for bees or seeds for birds? Once you determine the purpose, that will help you narrow down the seeds.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)Choose perennials that will not need to be replanted each year - unless you want to replant them each year!

5. Scatter the seeds evenly and broadly, covering the whole area in a single layer.

6. Rake the seeds into the soil, or just walk over it. These are wildflowers, after all - in nature, they simply land on the ground and sprout without any help.

7. Scattering the seeds can be done in autumn or spring, depending on the nature of your mix and how much traffic is in the area.

8. Water the area lightly, then wait. You will need to cut back some of the weed growth that first year so that weeds do not take over (weeding the whole area by hand would get tedious). But once the flowers are established, you will not have to do much of anything year after year.