The Vegan Lifestyle

How To Grow Organic Vegetables At Your Backyard

Organic is the trend in vegetarianism nowadays. Vegetables sold in markets are not safe anymore. Commercially grown vegetables are sprayed with pesticides, and boosted with fertilizers that areloaded with chemicals harmful to health. And to preserve these vegetables fresh, they are sprayed with formalin.

A safe alternative is to grow your own vegetable at your backyards.When your backyards have limited spaces or no soil, you can plant them in flower pots or in plastic bags. Buy flower pots or plastic bags big enough to accomodate your plants when they grow. Among the vegetables that thrive well on pots are tomatoes, eggplants, raddish, pechay, okra, and bell pepper. You can also plant lemon grass, sweet potato, and lemon.

Use sandy, loam soil. Do not use soil mixed with clay – it becomes sticky when you water the plant, and eventually becomes hard, preventing the water to go down and to be absorbed by the plant. Cover the soil with rice husks to prevent it from drying.This will prevent excessive water evaporation, and maintain the soil moisture.

Before transferring the seedling, or the young plant, be sure to prepare the soil in the flower pot or plastic bag well. Put enough loam soil up to the level will prevent draining out or erosion when you water the plant. Put fertilizer around  the plant, especially the bottom part. Put more soil and fertilizer at the bottom for the roots to really absorb the nutrients. Then plant the seedling or young plant on the pot. Be sure that the roots are not damaged or cut, and the soil are not pressed hard around the plant.

Use home-made organic fertilizer. Make a compost pit. Put grasses and leaves in it, and let them decompose until ready for use. You can buy an organic fertilizer at the store. There are one or two varieties of organic fertilizer available in the market; choose those made by vermiworms. It is really organic and very good for the plants. If you can afford, you can make your own organic fertilizer from vermiworms. Look for stores that sell vermiworms. It is a little bit expensive, but it is a good investment. Cover these worms with dried grasses, and after a time you will have a pure organic fertilizer.

Be sure to put fertilizer in your plants from time to time, either once a month, or once every two months. It depends on the plants – how big it is, what kind of plant it is, how fast it absorbs the fertilizer, and of course, how much fertilizer is eroded with the soil when watering the plants. Do not forget to put rice husks as toppings over the top soil. This will prevent excessive water evaporation, and will maintain water moisture around the plant.

Do not forget to water your plants. Water them in the morning and in late afternoon before the sun sets. Like us, they need water to grow. When the soil are left dry for a certain period, the plant withers and die. So water your plants regularly.

Do not just water your plants – check them also for insects. Insects eat up the leaves of plants, and kill the plants eventually. Check for caterpillars and snails too. They also eat the leaves of plants. Caterpillars are hard to find. They crawl behind the leaves, and can mimic the color of the leaves. And the snails too. You cannot see them crawling on the leaves – you will only see leaves eaten up.

Check your plants for aphids too. Never use toxic chemical spray to control them. Put a little petrol in water-soap mixture, ansd spray on plant leaves to remove aphids.

Today, I have a nutritious raw vegetable salad for my breakfast. It was a mixture of bitter gourd, radish, cayenne leaves, okra, peppermint leaves, and gotu kola leaves garnished with calamansi (lemon) juice, and a pinch of salt to taste. All these vegetables and herbs I took fresh from our garden and flower pots.

You may wonder why from flower pots. Here at home, we plant our vegetables in flower pots. It is practical, and very economical than planting flowering plants on it. We do have flowering plants and orchids too, but we plant more vegetables for our daily consumption. Besides being practical and economical, it is safe and healthful too being free of toxic chemicals from fertilizers, insecticides, and pesticides.

Passers-by are amazed to see our concrete fence decorated with flower pots planted with vegetables such as tomatoes, eggplants, lemon, cayenne, bell peppers, okra, pechay, radish, and lemon grass. At our front yard we have a small uncemented space where we plant cucumber, bitter gourd (ampalaya), and sweet potato. All around the house, we planted horse radish and sweet potato. Our neighbors and visitors liked them, and they are  interested to plant vegetables on flower pots at  their homes too.

We also planted herbs on flower pots. We planted gotu kola, peppermint, oregano, and turmeric. We planted gotu kola outside our concrete fence for passers-by and neighbors who would like to ask for it. It thrives very well and more people ask and took some for the treatment of some ailments. One lady ask and took almost a sackful of gotu kola leaves. She said she uses it as tea to treat her husband who was schedule for heart by-pass operation.

Our vegetables and herbs at home are all organic. We use black sandy loam soil, and put organic fertilizer from vermi worms. We also use decomposed leaves as fertilizer for our vegetables. We do not use insecticides or pesticides to treat our plants. We make our own insecticide which we learn from a book about organic plants.

Our vegetables, herbs, and other plants grow very well, and their leaves are deep green. We ensure that they get much sunlight, and from time to time, we water them with rice washings. We do not over water them to avoid erosion of soil and fertilizer.

Planting vegetables on flower pots is very economical, and is not space-consuming. You can use the black trash bags as pots, or if you can afford, you can use flower pots made of clay. There is no problem with plants that grow tall – our eggplants, okra, and tomatoes grew tall and bear much fruits. Support them with sticks when they grow tall, or bear fruits to prevent them from falling or breaking.

Maximize your backyard space at home. Plant your vegetables on flower pots, and go organic. Save more money, and be healthy by consuming your own vegetables and herbs that are free from pesticides and other toxic chemicals.