101 Organic Gardening Hacks

Eco-friendly Solutions to Improve Any Garden

Shawna Coronado

• Publisher: Cool Springs Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780760350898
• Topic: Scienze biologiche
• Subtopic: Orticoltura

Shawna Coronado, one of America's most creative gardeners, gives you her library of clever gardeningtricks in 101 Organic Gardening Hacks.

If you ask garden author Shawna Coronado what a hack is, she might just wave her hand toward her own back yard. She could be pointing at the garden bench she created from leftover wood posts and a few cinder blocks, or the rows of wine bottles buried soldier-style along a winding pathway, or even the garden soil itself, which is blended by hand from an organic soil recipe she devised.

In 101 Organic Garden Hacks you'll find the top tips, tricks, and solutions Shawna has dreamed up in her career as one of America's most creative gardeners. Some are practical timesavers; others offer clever ways to upcycleeveryday items in your garden.

One characteristic every hack shares is that they are completely organic and unfailingly environmentally friendly. Divided into a dozen different categories for easy reference, each hack is accompanied by a clear photo that shows you exactly how to complete it. With these hacks, discover how easy it is to:

• Fertilize your soil the all-natural way with tips on using manure, mulch, epsom salt, coffee grounds, and different types of compost made from kitchen and garden waste.
• Maintain your garden with eco-friendly tricks for repelling pests and conserving water, including making earwig traps and harvesting rain water.
• Attract pollinators with plant selections and DIY feeders and homes.
• Transform your outdoor space into an elegant retreat with garden decor from recycled items like an old chandelier.
• And much more!

If you are looking for resourceful ways to improve your garden and promote green living values right at home, you'll love paging through this fascinating, eye-catching book.

DIRTY, ROTTEN HACKS

HACKS IN THIS CHAPTER

1 No-till gardens

2 Rotted manure gold

3 Gratis groundcovers

4 Water-retentive soil mix

5 Cactus and succulent soil mix

6 Home percolation test

7 All-purpose potting soil mix

8 No-cost soil pH test

9 The art of composting

10 Leaf mold compost

11 Grass clippings compost

12 Turn your compost

13 Hack your compost hacks

14 DIY compost bin

15 Compost: the browns

16 Compost: the greens

1
RETIRE YOUR TILLER

If you love your soil, stop flipping it over

SOMETIMES THE BEST way to improve something is to let it be. A no-till garden is a perfect example, and creating one also means less work for you.

Imagine building a large garden without having to turn over the soil in your garden beds. Turning soil kills the microbes living beneath the ground that contribute to a healthier root system by living symbiotically with your roots. There are billions of bacteria, millions of fungi, thousands of protozoa, and scores of other nematodes and organisms found in one small tablespoon of healthy soil. Hacking your garden soil with a few simple no-till tips can make for hugely successful growing because you keep those vital creatures alive and happy in your garden beds.

A no-till garden has other benefits. Because you are consistently smothering weeds with mulch or compost, they struggle to grow there. And undisturbed, enriched soil requires far less fertilizer in order to support successful plants. The no-till technique works in almost any garden space and can help grow extremely healthy organic vegetables and herbs.

This front lawn vegetable garden was grown with the no-till method. Organic fertilizer was placed in the planting holes at the time of planting, but no other fertilizer was added afterward.

HOW TO CREATE A NO-TILL GARDEN

Instead of turning of your soil over for a garden, start by removing all the grass either by stripping the sod or smothering the grass (see Hack 80: “Hack Away Unwanted Grass by Smothering It”).

1. Put down a 2-inch layer of rotted manure or compost on top of the bare soil. Do not turn the soil over.

2. Dig holes to plant your plants.

3. Mulch the garden the first year with wood chips or another natural mulch, such as pine needles, rotted leaves, or straw.

4. After the harvest at the end of the season, do not pull out the vegetable or herb plants by the root; cut their stems at the base of the soil and leave the roots in the ground to overwinter and eventually rot. Compost the cut plant matter.

5. Next planting year, cover the garden with another 2-inch layer of compost.

6. When planting new vegetables and herbs, only pull out roots from the previous year if they block an area for a new plant. Be sure to rotate the crop so that no plant from the previous season is planted in the same location in the current year.

7. In your third planting year, follow the same practices, but add a layer of mulch instead of a layer of compost.

8. In your fourth planting year, follow the same practices, but add a layer of soil instead of a layer of mulch.

9. In the fifth planting year, follow the same practices, but add a layer of rotted manure instead of a layer of soil.

10. In the sixth planting year, follow the same practices, but add a layer of compost instead of rotted manure.

11. Continue every season layering up the compost, mulch, soil, and rotted manure without ever turning it over.

Here you see a layer of organic soil being added to the front lawn vegetable garden.

Follow the initial garden planting with regular water and occasional, as-needed weeding.

2
PUT WASTE TO WORK

Composted manure is garden gold

HACKING YOUR OWN garden soil is not as hard as it sounds: all you need is some amazingly rich, composted, all-natural material to toss in your garden beds. Layering the compost and other organic materials eventually transforms your garden soil into a wonderland of healthy microbes that your plants’ roots love.

Rotted manure is an excellent addition to your soil. It increases microbes and generally creates a more stable environment for your roots (don’t worry, composted manure has no foul smell). The only issue is how to get your hands on some. Try searching for manure at a local horse or cow farm. Always ask how long the manure pile has been sitting—it takes at least six months for weed seeds and pathogens to be killed in a pile that has a core temperat...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Dirty, Rotten Hacks
• Maintenance Hacks
• Pollinator Hacks
• Seed and Seedling Hacks
• Blooming Hacks
• Edibles Hacks
• Container Hacks
• Landscape Hacks
• Outdoor Living Hacks
• Tool Hacks
• Dedication & Acknowledgments
• Conversions
• Index
• Meet Shawna Coronado
• Copyright