So, after considering all the pros and cons (are there any cons?), you have finally decided to start an organic garden. Congratulations! You have made an excellent choice, one that will give you many great experiences and happy moments in the years to come.

But how do you start? How do you know what actually makes a garden organic, compared to a non organic garden?

Is it what flowers and vegetables you choose? Or is it the way you design the outline of your garden, where you have flower beds, beds with vegetables or other components in your garden?

Actually, it is all of that, plus a great deal more. But don’t despair, there is one ground rule to follow when you get started, and then you can approach all the rest in your own good time.

The Soil

This is where you want to start, on ground level, right down there in the dirt.

It’s no fun having a garden with bleak, wilting plants, that don’t look at all like the pretty pictures in the catalogue (or in your dreams for that matter). Risk is you will get really disappointed and blame the failure on your decision to start an organic garden, as you will no longer apply any artificial fertilizers.

Nothing could be more wrong! And this is where your garden soil comes in. The soil is SO important, as it is the home and the cupboard of your precious plants. This is where they will expand their root system, where they will find all the nutrients to build a healthy, thriving plant that will produce an abundance of flowers or give you a good harvest.

The very best way to improve your soil is to add lots and lots of compost. This will add plenty of nutrients to your soil, delivered in a manner that will allow your plants to get access to them over a long period of time, as they will be slowly released into the soil as the organic components decompose.

But for many gardeners there is a serious problem with this: As a newbie on organic gardening, you simply don’t have any compost! Heck, what to do?

The only way, to start with, is to buy your compost, or rather your soil conditioner improvement. This can be composted bark, composted horse or cow dung (lots of nutrients!), or regular planting soil. If you buy really cheap planting soil, make sure you mix it well with the soil in your own garden, as it will contain large amounts of peat, which is good when used as soil conditioner improvement, but no good when used as it is. And hey, make sure the soil conditioner improvement you buy is organic!

For your future garden endeavors, you should make your own compost. Even composting for beginners is really easy, and very gratifying, once you get the hang of it. Just put all your plant residues (not dirt or regular tree branches) in a container or just make a pile, place it in the shadow (but some sun during the early morning hours is good!), and make sure it doesn’t dry out. Turn it over once in a while to prevent oxygen depletion. To help you keep your compost moist and check it is warm (if it’s not it’s probably time to turn it over) you can use a thermometer and a moisture meter. To make sure the compost process starts up quickly and safely you can also add compost activator, a mixture of micro organisms and nutrients.

In a year you should have your first compost ready to use in your organic garden!

But why wait? You can get compost ready-to-use in just a few weeks if you invest in a rotating warm compost! The rotation ensures that your compost are always well supplied with oxygen as well as getting thoroughly mixed. And it looks tidy!