Have you wondered how gardeners can grow such a beautiful healthy garden naturally without chemicals or pesticides? This blog is for you! Learn how to transform your current garden to create a new garden the way nature intended it to be.
I love gardening! But if you’re anything like me, when I am putting so much time, energy, and money into something like gardening, I want to make sure I am doing it well, ensure I will be as successful as possible, and grow safe and healthy food for my family. This post will help you create such a garden in your own backyard.
This post is all about building a garden naturally.
1. Adding Nutrients to Your Soil
Building healthy soil is imperative to growing plants, whether they be flowers or crops. Soil gives the plant its nutrients (food). So, it is important that the soil contain those nutrients in the first place.
If you are gardening in a raised bed or a planter, you would typically purchase a bag of potting/raised bed soil to start off with. I like to ensure I am purchasing organic soil with 3 months of fertilizer mixed into it. After those 3 months, that soil will need to be amended (nutrients added back into the soil).
Even after the growing season is finished and plants are dormant or have died off, you don’t need to go back and purchase more soil for the next season. All you need to do is to add nutrients back into that same soil.
There are three main ways I do this that costs hardly anything at all: Building a compost, adding manure, and adding worm castings.
Building a compost from scraps
The first way to add nutrients to your soil is to add compost. There are a lot of compost options that are sold in stores, but you can create your own compost with little to no additional money required.
In order to do this, you will need to mix “green matter” with “brown matter.” Green matter are things such as kitchen scraps (think of whole foods here-potato peels, carrot peals, egg shells, coffee grounds…pretty much anything that came from the earth that can go back into the earth).
The kitchen scraps won’t cost you any more money than what you are already spending because it is just scraps that you would normally just throw away anyways. You could also mix in grass clippings, again, something you may have already when you mow your grass that won’t cost you a thing.
You mix this green matter with brown matter. Brown matter is dead leaves, straw, wood chips, etc.
You keep adding and adding to your compost pile, make sure it stays a bit moist, and you need to turn it occasionally. After a few months of all of this, you will have a healthy, natural, broken down soil that you can transfer to your garden.
You have created compost for basically nothing.
Worm Castings
Another way you can build-up nutrients in your soil so you can garden naturally is to add worm castings!
Worm castings is basically worm poop mixed in with soil. It works the same way as the compost method above, however, it uses a live animal to help break down all of the food and turn it into compost.
You can build something called a worm farm. There is a ton of ideas out there that you can search for and find the best one that fits your situation.
Basically, my worm farm was created by my mother-in-law with my daughters and they LOVED it! We got a small(ish) storage container with a lockable lid. They drilled some holes at the bottom of the container to allow for air flow. Then, they hot glued some breathable fabric at the bottom, over the holes, to prevent and escapees. Soil was added, a bit of water, then some worms!
The worms need to be fed occasionally and placed in the shade. What in the world do you feed worms, you may ask?
GREAT QUESTION!!
Kitchen scraps!
Just like in the compost method above, you carefully dig a hole, placed kitchen scraps in the hole, and cover it back up. Easy peasy and doesn’t cost you much more than what you already have spent.
When you are ready to harvest some of the worm castings, just feed them on one side of the container for a few days. They should all gather to that area of the container so you can get out the worm castings (it looks like the soil…no different) and mix it into your current soil.
You can also create a worm castings tea which will make the worm castings stretch further. To do this, you would let the worm castings soak in water, same to how you would make regular tea you drink. After it has sat overnight, put the tea into your watering can and add water until it’s a light brown. Next, water your plants!
Manure
The final, common way to help build up a healthy soil is to add manure from a cow, rabbit, or chicken.
You might not have access to this which is totally fine. The above methods will also work.
]However, if you can access these, it adds so much extra to your soil.
We have a rabbit, so we mix it’s manure into our soil. While an animal is obviously not a free resource (home, food, toys, etc.) my family would have a rabbit regardless if we gardened or not, so in that situation, having the rabbit just adds to our soil for “free.”
There is also some manure that is sold at stores such as this one:
2. Use Rain Barrels for a Natural Garden
We all know that plants need water. It’s a given. However, did you know that rainwater contains many nutrients that our hose water does not have?
Rainwater is so much better for our plants!
If you think about all of the filtering and additives that is in our drinking water, it would make sense that rainwater would be a better choice for plants.
PLUS, its free!
To have a rain barrel, you need a large container to catch the rainwater in. You can build your own…there are many designs on youtube that you can watch.
Alternatively, there are places where you can purchase a container, similar to the one pictured above.
You can just have a rain barrel setup to catch the rainwater, or you can also direct a rain gutter off your house and into the rain barrel to maximize the amount of rainwater you can get.
You can then use this water to water your plants or use elsewhere. There is commonly a spigot at the bottom of the rain barrel for easy access to the water. By using a rain barrel, you save money (water bill), add nutrients, and use a natural resource that is (hopefully) a common occurrence at your home.
3. Layer Gardening vs Tilling
Tilling
Tilling is a common way to loosen up soil, allow airflow to happen, and help mix in nutrients to the soil. However, there is so much research out there that shows tilling causes more harm to your soil then good!
So while it might be a common practice, that does not mean it is the best way. When tilling happens, you are disrupting the topsoil layer of your soil. That means it basically destroys it and the nutrients that have been built up there.
Also, seeds lay in the top layer of the soil. So, when that top layer is tilled under the ground a bit, those weed seeds are planted. They will most likely sprout, causing more weed problems than we need.
Layer Gardening
There is an alternative way to build up healthy soil and still have the benefits that tilling brings. It actually goes by many names…layer gardening, no dig gardening, lasagna gardening, back to eden gardening…they all are referring to the same method.
The basics of this method is creating your own soil which contains healthy organic matter.
No matter what kind of soil you have (sandy, clay, etc), you are able to grow in it by the layering garden method.
In order to build up your own soil, you first cover your gardening space with cardboard. You want to make sure there is no tape on the cardboard. Use the pieces with the least amount of ink as possible. (Remember the goal is to have a healthy soil…adding plastic tape or ink into that isn’t adding to our goal).
Next, water that cardboard so it can break down easier. After that, you add 6-8 inches of compost. This is the part of the layer gardening that you plant in so you want to make sure there is plenty of space for roots to develop.
Between the cardboard layer and the compost layer, you can add some of those kitchen scraps. They will just break down over time, adding more nutrients. You can also place some of those scraps under the cardboard too. It will do the same thing. The purpose of all of this is to build a healthy, organic, natural garden, right? We are just adding as much nutrients as we possibly can do this soil.
Water some more. At the very top of the layers, you should mulch. I’m not necessarily referring to the mulch you would purchase at a store, even though that would work.
But if you can’t tell, I am into building up my resources for my garden with as little cost as possible.
So an alternative way to mulch is to use whatever resource you have available to you…pine needles, dead leaves, grass clippings, hay, straw, etc.
My daughters love collecting the grass clippings and adding it around our plants when needed. If you have kids, add them into the gardening experience too! It is healthy and fun for them!
Your layer garden is ready to plant in!
When you are finished with the growing season, add 3-4 more inches of compost to the top, mix into the soil a little bit, mulch again. The longer you can maintain this layer gardening method, the healthier your soil will be!
4. Pest Control
Just like tilling, using pesticides on your plants is a common practice that does more harm than good. Using pesticides to get rid of pests is kind of like the easy way out.
However, when using these pesticides, the chemicals can’t tell the difference between the pests and the beneficial insects. This means, all insects are killed which is not great.
In order for pollinations to happen, we need the insects. There are various ways to get rid of pests, depending on what those pests are.
Ladybugs or Other Predatory Insects
One way to help control some pests is to create an atmosphere that ladybugs love! Ladybugs (as well as wasps and yellow jackets) eat the aphids that quickly multiply and devour your plants. Creating an atmosphere (or even ordering them online) for ladybugs is a wonderful way to keep your garden natural and still getting rid of pests.
Trap Plants
Another way to help eliminate pests is by planting certain plants (or herbs) around those specific plants you’re concerned about.
An example is the pest called a hornworm. These pests are truly pests because in an extremely short amount of time, they will devour your tomato plant. All that hard work down the drain!
However, these hornworms are attracted to dill. If you can plant some extra dill plants far from the tomato plant, it could entice those pests away from the plants you value.
Another little tid-bit about hornworms…if you go out at night when it’s dark and use a black light, they will glow under the light and you can easily remove them from your plant. During the day, they are exactly the same color as a tomato plant, making them SO hard to spot! Using a black light resolves that problem.
Other Safe Methods
Spraying plants with a warm soapy water also helps eliminate pests.
Diatomaceous Earth will dry out caterpillars naturally without harming plants.
There are SO SO many ways to get rid of these annoying pests without adding more harmful chemicals to our gardens!
5. Weed Control
Similarly to pest control, weed control does not need to happen by adding harmful sprays and chemicals. We want to garden naturally and in a healthy way. Let’s look at some ways we can control the weeds!
First off, weeds need space to grow, just like any other plant. When you are choosing where to plant the plants you want to grow, make sure they are close together. When the plants are fully grown, you want there to be as little space as there can possibly be for the weeds to grow.
Next, most weeds have seeds that are developed by the flowers. When you see a weed that has a flower, make sure you pick off that flower head before the seeds develop, then spread throughout the rest of your garden.
Another option is to create your own weed killer spray. Combine 1 gallon of white vinegar, 1 tablespoon of liquid dish soap, and 1 cup of salt. Put it into a spray bottle and spray away!
And lastly, you need to just get on your hands and knees occasionally, and pull those weeds out! There are specific tools that are made designed to help get rid of weeds, depending on the type of weed.
Conclusion to Building a Garden Naturally
I know these simple tips and tricks will help you grow your garden naturally, the way it is intended. There are so many resources available to us to have a safe garden. There is no need to use chemicals to achieve what can be done in a healthy way.
If you enjoyed this post, you will enjoy reading about how to plant an herb garden or 20 basic gardening terms for beginner gardeners.
This post was all about building a garden naturally.
