Gardening is a wonderful hobby. It is beneficial for the mind, soul & body. It needs a lot of physical activates. It gives you the opportunity to spend time with nature. But most people use various chemical fertilizers & pesticides to develop a garden. So it makes such a wonderful hobby questionable because gardeners do not do this for livelihood. So why should I need those chemical or synthetic inputs when we can take care of our garden by using natural inputs. Okay, if you have a flower garden then still it is justified. But many people also use chemicals in their kitchen garden too. Why? Actually many people think nobody can build a beautiful garden without those harmful & expensive inputs. I also thought so. But it is absolutely wrong. So I had to unlearn everything to learn something about natural gardening. It makes my gardening simple & plants healthy. So here is the list of 5 natural gardening tips that I learnt.
Natural gardening is one step ahead of organic gardening. Here you do not need to buy expensive insecticides or fungicides. You do not need even costly organic micronutrients too. Anybody can make those at home by using collecting ingredients from nature.
I have already shared the recipes of fertilizers, pesticides used for natural gardening in my earlier posts.
Also read:
Why expert gardeners can not produce organic vegetables?
Basal dose of fertilizer for organic vegetables to grow in pots
5 natural gardening tips
- Unlearn that you can not grow vegetables/fruits/flowers without applying synthetic fertilizers to your plants. You should accept the truth that anybody can grow a good amount of vegetables without using any synthetic fertilizer. I have experienced that if I add enough compost to the potting mix then I hardly need any other fertilizer to apply. Almost half of my compost fertilizer I made at home by using kitchen waste. You also need to make natural micronutrients prepared with various lentils (dal).
- Unlearn that application of insecticides is essential for a garden. You should understand that you can grow your plants without applying insecticides because homemade natural insects repellents are super effective. I use various homemade natural insect repellents like dashparni ark, neemastra, brahmastra, agniastra. Though I mostly use dashparni ark what I make for the whole season at a time.
- Unlearn the myth that you need to apply expensive medicines (fungicides/bactericides) to keep your plant disease-free. But I am applying months old sour buttermilk, dashparni ark and vermicompost tea (jeevamrit works better if fresh cow dung is available). Still, my plants are healthy. If you want to play smart then add Trichoderma viride to vermicompost and use it to make vermicompost tea. Once you use vermicompost, then add some fresh vermicompost & jaggery to the residual vermicompost (charged with Trichoderma viride). So you won’t need to buy Trichoderma regularly.
- It needs very strong knowledge & years-long experience to develop a beautiful garden. But it is actually a myth. You just need to know about 5-6 gardening/farming inputs and its usage. All those are naturally prepared at home. It is not rocket science. If you want to grow fresh & healthy vegetables then you can easily learn those within a day. If you see insects/diseases on your plant then you need to apply pesticides more frequently. That’s it. It is all about hard work. If you are not ready for hard work then it is not your cup of tea.
- Gardening is a costly hobby. You will get fewer harvested products but your spending will be more. It is a wrong lesson. Just unlearn it. You should adopt natural gardening. It is easy and less costly. If you have cow/hens/ducks/goats, then you can use those manure and make compost to fertilize your plants. It will make your gardening almost free.
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