Organic gardeners will often go to any length to keep their plants happy and safe but without the use of harmful chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
Here are some old tricks and a few new ones using common household substances that can make a gardener’s life easy and keep plants happy and healthy in a natural and non-toxic way.
Don’t be fooled by the strangeness of some of these organic garden remedies. As odd as they may seem, they are effective measures that have been put to the test over time!
To improve soil:
1. Use your pee to fertilize plants
Organic gardeners do not want to waste any of nature’s bounty, and that includes nitrogen-rich urine.
The composition of urine varies from person to person, but it generally has an NPK ratio of 11-1-2. The nitrogen found in human urine ensures lush foliage growth; hence, it is best for greens and grassy plants like corn.
The high salt content may scorch the plants if you pee directly on them, so it is better to do it a little away from the base of the plant.
Better still, collect the pee and dilute it with 10 times water before applying it to the root zone. For tender plants and seedlings, dilute it further.
2. Bury your kitchen waste in the garden
Whether you have a compost pile or not, you can utilize every bit of kitchen waste in the garden.
Make a long ditch 1 foot deep between rows of vegetables to receive the waste. Start dumping the kitchen waste of each day from one end of the ditch.
The soil from the ditch piled along its edge can be used to cover up the waste as soon as it is deposited so that there would be no bad smell or fly problem.
When the entire length of the ditch is covered up, you will have a slightly raised bed.
You can plant the vegetables on this raised bed the following year, making another ditch for the waste.
