Organic Gardening – What are the Benefits?

An organic gardener promotes natural ecosystems, focuses on soil health, composting and biodiversity.  They also avoid synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and genetically modified organisms.  What are the benefits of gardening this way?  Can I still get a bountiful crop of food from my home garden if I use these methods? Here's some guidelines!

Environmental benefits include building the soil, avoiding harmful chemicals, using nature as a teacher and protecting our pollinators.  Did you know that our pollinators are responsible for 1 out of 3 bites of food that we eat!  

What about soil building?  Using compost is an excellent way to introduce organic matter into the soil.  This feeds the microorganisms in the soil and helps the soil to be healthy and full of the nutrition your plants need to thrive.  What about using nature as a teacher?  We learn from hands-on experience, our successes and our mistakes.  

In the Treasure Valley, organic gardening offers unique regional benefits due to the area’s semi-arid climate and alkaline soils. By incorporating organic matter like compost, gardeners can improve soil structure, increase water retention, and reduce the need for frequent irrigation during hot, dry summers. 

Mulching is especially helpful in conserving moisture and regulating soil temperature. Additionally, choosing drought-tolerant and native plants can lead to more resilient gardens that thrive with fewer inputs. 

What about insect and disease control?  While there are safe, organic products to use in your home garden, there are also things you can do to prevent diseases and manage the insects in your garden.  Timing matters when planting and when using organic products to help your plants thrive.  Prevention is also key.  Pay attention to your garden, this way you can stop a small problem from becoming a big problem.  Educate yourself on what to look for.  Practice, experience and learning from others will help you to start implementing some of these practices in your own home garden.

Organic gardening is a great way to familiarize yourself with how things grow, when plants might need some help to thrive, and why our pollinators and our soil are so important to the success of gardening. 

Organic Pest Control For Your Home Garden

The definition of Organic Pest Control is very broad. Generally, organic pest control means discouraging or destroying insects or pests without using manmade or synthetic chemicals that will be harmful to humans or animals. There are many means of pest control beyond the use of synthetic or natural chemicals. The following methods can reduce or eliminate the expense, preparation, storage and general need for any chemicals.

Crop Rotation
Crop rotation is an excellent way to manage pests, enhance soil health, and has been used for centuries. Since many pests rely on specific crops as a food source and for reproduction, removing or moving a crop can eliminate the food source and habitat for those pests. The simple act of moving a crop or plants from one area to another every year can confuse pests and reduce their population when they lose a favorite or familiar spot.

Companion Planting
Couple crop rotation with Companion planting for double duty! This method of planting not only enhances nutrients available, but can attract pollinators, and deter pests of surrounding plants. For example, planting nasturtiums near kale, cabbage or other brassicas. Nasturtium’s beautiful and edible blooms naturally draw in pollinators. Nasturtiums also draw cabbage worms to feed on blooms and leaves that helps keep those pests away from nearby brassicas. Nasturtiums are self-seeding and easy to grow too!

Biological Pest Control
Another chemical free method, biological pest management, is achieved by using natural enemies to regulate pests. A classic and well-known example would be the use of ladybugs, which feed on aphids, to control aphids that are destroying plants in the garden. The focus of biological control is minimizing the damage caused by pests by reducing or suppressing them. Another benefit to biological pest control is eliminating the potential of developing pesticide resistant pests. Biological pest control can be implemented to control insects, weeds or pathogens that affect plants or animals.

Mechanical Pest Control

There are many methods of mechanical pest control that provide a targeted approach to removing pests. This method of physical control can be time-consuming, but also very efficient. Handpicking harmful insects from plants can take significant time and energy but can be the quickest and most direct option for removing pests. An example would be removing visible squash bugs from spaghetti squash plants along with eggs laid on the underside of plant leaves. Locating and removing the pests before damage is done to plants can be a bit difficult.

The use of covers, barriers, or screening are mechanical options that can also be very effective if implemented before pests, or their larvae, are present in the garden. These barriers can save the time of hand-picking pests, but since some insects are very, very small, barriers may be breached by those very determined pests!

Often it is the combination of one or multiple control options that can reduce or eliminate garden pests, allowing the usage of any type of chemicals to be the last resort.