The Beginner Gardeners Guide To Organic Gardening And Growing A Healthy Environment

If you’ve ever tried to start a windowsill herb garden or vegetable patch with no luck in the past, you might think you just don’t have a green thumb. I’m here to tell you that building a bountiful ecosystem is possible even for beginner gardeners. By understanding the root of a healthy environment first and making informed choices second, you can be an organic gardening pro in no time. Think of me as your trusty guide!

You want to create a healthy environment for the plants in your garden but also for the entire ecosystem. When that’s in balance then it’s self-sufficient, benefitting all pieces of that system from the soil organisms, plants, and trees to the birds and beyond.

Where do you start when it comes to growing a healthy environment? A garden’s health begins at the roots, so let’s start there.

Getting Started With Organic Gardening

Going back to the basics can benefit gardeners of all types – from beginners or hobbyists to professionals or master gardeners.

The hard truth is that most gardeners are unaware of:

  • How to build healthy soil and the why behind doing so.

  • How to properly water a plant.

  • The importance of planting the right plant in the right place.

  • The pitfalls of not feeding organic.

  • Eco-friendly pest management techniques.

If you don’t understand these things but have tried to garden anyway, you probably get discouraged when things don’t work out as you intend. I want to help!

4 Simple Tips for Beginner Gardeners

In the weeds with persistent pests, stalled growth, or homegrown food that doesn’t taste good? Here are 4 tips to grow a thriving organic garden today.

1. Do your homework to understand your garden’s microclimate

Happy plants are less likely to be affected by pest problems. So to grow an abundant garden, you need to understand its microclimate to ensure the plants thrive. To understand the microclimate, you need to do a little homework… the fun kind!

Go outside and see how the sunlight moves across your garden. What times of the day is the sun shining directly on different sections? Based on what you find, select plants that are best suited for that level of sun exposure.

If you are located in Sonoma County, California like me, you are lucky enough to live in an area where you can grow food year-round. That’s due to the area’s unique geographical features that influence its microclimate!

2. Understand the relationship between water and soil

Once you know your garden’s microclimate, you can better understand how much water your plants need.

Go outside to see how quickly water infiltrates through your soil. Dig a 1-gallon-sized hole, fill it with water, and watch how quickly it drains. This will help you when it’s time to irrigate (AKA water) your plants.

The best time to water your plants is in the morning, during the sunrise hours when the soil and air temperature are cool. You want to water at the drip line of the plant entirely so the root will grow deeply and out wide. Don’t water again until the top few inches of the soil have dried out to allow for healthy root growth and to conserve water.

If you see a plant not looking perky or it seems to be a bit lackluster, it might be from fungus on your plant’s roots. In my experience, I recommend that you avoid watering:

  • Frequently and shallowly. This leads to a stressed plant, wastes water, and can cause more pest problems.

  • The crown, base, or trunk of the plant. This can lead to crown rot.

  • During the nighttime hours. This invites pests, such as slugs, snails, and earwigs – who love the cool, moist evenings – as well as rodents, raccoons, and other critters who are looking for water and plant diseases such as black spot and rust.

3. Make natural mulch your best friend

Natural mulch like wood chips, arbor mulch, bark chips, straw, and leaves are a plant’s friend.

Mulch provides several incredible benefits to the health of your plants. When you spread a 2-3” layer of mulch out like a blanket over the root zone and beyond, that plant will thrive more than without. Just be sure to always keep the mulch away from the plant's crown to prevent crown rot and other unfavorable issues.

4. Feed organic

To grow good food for yourself, you need to give good food to your plants.

I like to add dry organic fertilizer to the hole at the time of planting. As the plants grow, I feed them with a good quality liquid organic fertilizer that I mix with water in my watering can. Depending on the plant and the fertilizer’s application recommendations, I feed once or twice a month.

If you want to take it up another notch, amend the soil with compost. By adding compost to the existing soil, you introduce beneficial soil microbiology that assists with healthy plant root growth. Compost also grows a more resilient plant, which reduces the need for pesticides and assists with the water-holding capacity. All good things that help you grow happier plants!

Ornamental and General Gardening Basics

Now that we covered the basics for any type of garden, there’s something you should know. There are different techniques gardeners use depending on whether they are growing an ornamental (designed for aesthetics) or food (designed for harvesting crops to eat) garden.

Let’s talk about what to consider, as far as the layout goes, for your ornamental garden:

  • Group plants with similar water needs.

  • Match the mature size of the plant to the space available to avoid overcrowding.

  • Opt for climate-appropriate plants (e.g. native-plant varieties require less water when established).

When it’s time to install plants that are climate-appropriate for your region, start with trees and larger shrubs. These are the foundation plants, the anchors that everything else will stem from. Of course, you also want to build healthy soils, plant the right plant in the right place, amend with compost, feed organic, water the root zones correctly, and use eco-friendly pest management solutions.

Ornamental gardens are fun to experiment with and admire, but maybe you want something more practical to help you feed your family. With over 25 years of gardening experience behind me, I understand what works and what doesn’t when it comes to growing food in your garden.

Growing Good Food in Your Garden

You want to grow good food and create a thriving ecosystem. The good news is that you can do both and I’m going to teach you how. Think of this as the beginner gardener’s guide to growing your food!

You’ve learned the basics of how to take care of the soil, water your garden properly, feed organic, and use natural mulch to benefit your plants. Now let’s dive into some of my other favorite topics – food garden layouts and integrated pest management.

What is integrated pest management (IPM)? It’s a decision-making process that looks at the home and garden as a whole system to develop scientific-based, environmentally safe strategies for pest management.

Companion plant

Companion planting is a traditional agricultural practice that involves intentionally planting different crops next to each other to enhance their growth, reduce pests, and improve the garden’s health. It’s a focus on creating a mutually beneficial relationship between the plants.

A classic example of this is corn, beans, and squash (“The Three Sisters”). Why do they work so well together? Because gardeners found that they have complementary climate, water, and pest-control needs that the other plants provide.

Do your research before going to the garden center. Don’t buy plants on a whim without matching their needs to your garden’s conditions. When you companion plant the right way, it naturally helps to prevent weeds and promote a balanced, biodiverse ecosystem.

Think about your vegetable garden layout

To determine the best layout for your vegetable garden, you need to do your homework. Have an idea of your garden’s unique microclimate, water needs, and the appropriate plant varieties for your area.

Be strategic about the location of your plants in relation to the sun. Be sure your vegetables that need full sun aren’t blocked by large trees or that low-light plants aren’t in direct sunlight during the hottest hours of the day.

You also want to include plants that offer nectar and pollen to the beneficial insects and pollinators. These animals are vital to keep our air clean, water purified, and erosion at bay. They play a key role in pest management as well.

Finally, I recommend you use plants that grow seeds and berries for the songbirds in the fall. Remember that your garden can be a mechanism to provide food for you and the ecosystem at large if you let it!

Organic Gardening Without Pesticides

In nature, everything is connected. Certain actions you take in your garden may have unintended consequences beyond it. If you struggle with pests, you might want to resort to pesticides as a quick solution. I get it.

But pesticides are dangerous, so I want to provide you with an alternative that’s not only beneficial to your plants but also the ecosystem at large – integrated pest management (IPM). Let’s dig in!

Health issues and environmental dangers caused by pesticides

Pesticides – eco-friendly, DIY, synthetic, or store-bought – are all designed to kill something. This should not be taken lightly.

However, synthetic pesticides are especially toxic because they have residuals that don’t break down and run off into local waterways or storm drains without getting filtered out. This type of pesticide use impacts beneficial organisms, pollinators, hummingbirds, and other important critters commonly found within a healthy ecosystem.

One of the most common myths about pesticides is that people think if they’re available for sale, they are safe to use. This is absolutely not the case. For example, Pyrethroids are one of the most common pesticides found in perimeter sprays, foggers, and fly sprays. There are several health-related impacts of using this kind of synthetic pesticide.

Pesticides should only be used when you have exhausted all other pest management options. If you do use them, only apply during a cool time of the day. The worry is that, especially when applied at a higher-than-recommended mixing rate, pesticides can burn leaves and branches. More is not better in this scenario!

Other occasions when pesticides should not be applied:

  • There is a breeze of 5 miles an hour to prevent drip.

  • Plants are not properly hydrated.

  • There is a heat, rain, or freeze event in the forecast.

  • Pollinators will be impacted (i.e. on flowers, plants).

  • You’re not wearing PPE to protect yourself.

If you need to use a pesticide, always choose the eco-friendly option. Use it according to the label, wear PPE to protect yourself, and only apply to the pest – I don’t advise that you apply to other areas “as a precaution.”

Why avoid synthetic gardening products: Risks and consequences

If you’re a Rachel Carson fan like I am then you know that consumers like you have a choice. Unfortunately, many of our options aren’t safe or the companies aren’t transparent about the product’s impact on our environment.

Take a look at companies toting easy-to-use insect killer products that offer “up to 12-month protection.” You also have herbicide and fertilizer products like weed ‘n feed that kill weeds and feed turf. Speaking of, there are recent studies about the negative effects of artificial turf.

Synthetic fertilizers are a gardening product I highly recommend you avoid. This is a short list of their unfavorable impacts:

- Feeds the plant directly, leading to dependence and having to feed more often.

- Invites pests.

- High in salts, which over time, can lead to more pests or a shorter lifespan of that plant.

- Contaminate waterways.

- Can burn plants if applied too much.

- Manufactured products extracted by a chemical industrial process produce toxins.

If we’re mentioning negative effects, we have to talk about systemic pesticides. They are super easy to use but are the most harmful to the environment. Neonics like imidacloprid are toxic to humans, pollinators, butterflies, and birds, with the ability to move easily through the soil to be absorbed by non-targeted plants.

It’s all smoke and mirrors with the pesticide industry – they have deep pockets and can manipulate data. There is so much we don’t know but I think Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, says a lot.

The alternative to pesticides is a holistic approach through integrated pest management

In healthy gardens, pests will only be present in small quantities – enough to feed beneficial organisms, insects, lizards, birds, and other garden allies. IPM shows us that there needs to be pests around to keep a balanced environment.

IPM also teaches us to dig into why pest outbreaks occur. Stressed plants are more prone or susceptible to pest outbreaks. When you take time to build healthy soil and plants, your garden will have fewer pests. If a pest outbreak does occur, that lets you know that something is going on. And the solution becomes much easier to identify when you know the intricacies of your garden setup.

Organic Gardening Books to Expand Your Knowledge

Despite hundreds of gardening influencers on YouTube and other social media outlets, not everyone provides accurate information. If you want my professional recommendations on books to read to grow as a gardener, I have a few.

A favorite from my collection is Rodale’s Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening. For California gardeners, I recommend the Sunset Western Gardener. For San Francisco Bay Area gardeners, Golden Gate Gardening is a good option.

For other books to expand your organic gardening knowledge, I suggest:

Grow a Healthy Environment by Making Informed Choices

I hope you can see by now that growing a healthy environment and managing pests without pesticides is possible!

We covered a lot of organic gardening basics in this blog, so here are 3 key takeaways I want to leave you with:

  1. Building a healthy garden ecosystem is achievable for beginners by focusing on fundamentals like soil health, proper watering, plant selection, feeding organic, and natural mulch.

  2. Companion planting, where different crops are strategically planted together, can enhance plant growth, reduce pests, and improve your garden's overall health.

  3. You can manage pests naturally with an IPM approach to avoid the harmful environmental and health effects of pesticides.

A healthy ecosystem starts at the roots. By covering the basics and making informed choices, you can grow the garden of your dreams.

Ways We Can Grow Together

Love my approach and want to me give a talk about organic gardening? With over 25 years of experience in the industry, I provide educational presentations on soil health, integrated pest management, being water-wise, pollution prevention, and more.

Book me for your next garden club, business group, organization, or lunch and learn event!

Suzanne Bontempo