Let's Heal The Soil : How to start off with Kitchen Garden at home?

FAQ

"Hi, Uma! I am very much interested to start my small kitchen garden patch. But I have NO clue where to begin with. Could you please guide me?"

First of all, Congratulations on taking the decision to start growing Organic Food at home!

You will need time, dedication, patience and the whole experience is going to teach you all or make you better at handling them. :) I promise it will be a great spiritual experience in your life!

Yes, I have been there too and so I want give you the info I have gathered per MY experience.

Support Groups

First of all, this is not a post that will solve your gardening questions once for all. It is better to have a support system for us to get stronger on gardening skills day by day. So, these are some Eco-friendly groups on facebook that one MUST join! to keep you on your toes, for guidance, for motivation.

Once you get approved into it,

Read the PINNED posts
Visit the FILES section - you dont want to miss this abundant info seated there waiting for it to be read!
Search for the keywords (info you are looking for) in SEARCH field at top right corner of the page (can be done only from laptop and not from mobile phone.)

Where to buy Gardening related items?

Once you are part of OTG FB group, you will be able to view the OTG Commercial Page, where you can find many vendors selling gardening items.
My friend has a detailed blog about finding resources too.
OTG group organizes an event named "Oota From Your Thota (OFYT)" once in 3 months in Bangalore (N.E.W.S areas) and you HAVE to attend it, where you will find everything related to gardening. They also conduct workshops for beginners - this is a DO NOT MISS event for Urban Gardeners.
Read more about OFYT here. The next one is scheduled on June 7th 2015, infact!

What should be my potting mix?

We don't grow plants in simple plain soil. It is always a ratio of :

Red Soil
Animal Manure (Cow/ Goat / Horse; Some say Dog poop and Hen poop too, I have not used them)
Compost (home made, organic)
Vermicompost (home made or from Mysore Zoo, which we have locally termed as "Composta Exotica")
Cocopeat (I do not use it now; the compost made at home gives the same structure)
Honge Cake and Neem Cake are beneficial too.

Check out my friend's blog on what should go in and in what proportions, in your potting mix.

What nutrients to feed the plant?

Once you setup your garden, you obviously will need to feed nutrition to your plants, which is called as Compost. We swear by organic ways and it is a BIG NO to use chemical fertilizers on your plants. There is no point otherwise growing your own veggies right? You could as well buy it from the market. Why invest time and money to bring up non-organic veggie garden?

How to make compost at home?

Making compost is not a rocket science! See my below blog posts :

Dont forget to join Home Compost group (read details in the "Support Groups" section above)

Liquid Fertilizers

Organic Liquid Fertilizers could be made at home, which will act like steroids on plants, to boost their immunity. There are two kinds I tried :

Compost Tea : See the procedure at the bottom most part of the blog
Bokashi Leachate : This is the best fertilizer (due to high microbial activity) and requires little time and effort. I am using only this currently.

How to manage insects?

Dealing with insects and bugs in the garden is a vast topic. I will blog some known organic ways I use in my garden later on. But yes, be prepared for insects in your garden. It will show that your home is full of life! :)

Bugs are of 2 types : Beneficial and Foe bugs. Not ALL insects are bad for the plants. Did you know that by spraying pesticides, we are not only keeping foe bugs off, but also the beneficial ones away?

The most commonly used organic "pesticide" is Neem Oil, Ginger-Garlic Spray, Tobacco Spray. For now, you could either google about it, or details are in the OTG group FILES section again. Go, runnnnnnnnnn to join the OTG group!

All the best and enjoy the success and failures!