January Week 1

Organic Gardening Calendar
By: Kathi

What better time to start this year’s gardening than the first week of January?
If you intend to change over to organic gardening, there is no time like the present. My experience has been in the US agricultural zone 6. You should adjust the timing of these posts to your particular climate.
For our purposes, April 15th is the normal frost free date, and October 15th is the normal first frost date.
If you have never tried organic gardening, you will find it easy and immediately rewarding. You will be improving your soil and reducing the toxins in your environment, and you will not believe how much better home grown organic fruits and veggies taste than corporate grown, pesticide ridden, picked green produce.
Each week I will post a new installment on the tasks that need to be performed for a successful garden. The most important thing to get started is your bulk composting routine. If you are an urban gardener, spend the $200 to get a high quality tumbling composting unit. Gardeners Supply. has a fair selection of composters. If you can afford it and have room, get two. Or, if you can’t afford one, a large black garbage bag will do, or a 3’x3’ wired in container. If you are a rural gardener and have the space, an open pile is fine, especially if it can be accessed to be turned by tiller.
The reason for two compost bins (and two compost piles), is that when you get your first pile sufficiently large, or the tumbler full, you will need the second pile or tumbler to add new compost material to. Never throw anything in the trash that you can compost!
In the kitchen, get a bucket or a pail, or a zip lock bag. Anything you can put vegetable waste in, and seal it up. Save everything that you normally throw in the trash that is fresh, canned, or frozen produce. Never add meat/dairy products to your compost. When the kitchen bag gets full, take it out and throw the contents into the tumbler or compost pile. Tumble or stir.
In your office, shred all that wasted paper, taking off any plastic labels. Here, you can either be a purest - or like me, rationalize that any ink on the paper might not be vegetable based, but it is better to compost the paper than send it to a land fill. If you are a purest, be sure to get your paper to a recycler instead.
Continue to add all your yard waste, leaves, small twigs, grass clippings, last year’s annuals, and weeds to your compost pile. This process will be ongoing for as long as you garden. This is why you should go ahead and spring for the good quality compost tumblers. If you don’t, you will regret it, and most likely end up purchasing them in a few years anyway.
Also this week, go to Garden’s Alive. It is a mail order organic gardening company that has good products, and their catalogs are very informative. They are not the only suppliers of organic garden products, in fact big box stores like Home Depot, Walmart, and Lowes are carrying organic gardening products. Use the Garden’s Alive catalogs to educate yourself on what to look for before you buy.
Finally, if you have any fall bulbs that you haven’t planted yet, get them in the ground now, before it’s too late. They will be stunted this year, most likely, but will survive to be beautiful next year.
Until next week…