Planning an organic is slightly different from planning a garden that depends on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. You'll want to design your organic garden to encourage nature to take care of the problems. If you already have a garden, but want to switch to organic gardening, you'll need to change your garden slightly. If you're just starting your garden, you can design the organic features right in. I'll be discussing what to include in the organic garden, but not how to create a beautiful garden.

First, you need to know how much sunlight you have. Plants that receive too much or too little sun are more stressed. For flowers, you just need to know whether you will be planting in full sun, partial sun or shade, and pick your flowers appropriately. For vegetable gardening, most vegetables need at least 6 hours of sun a day. To find out how many hours of sun you have, go out on a sunny day and check. You'll need a drawing of your yard and a day when you'll be home. Every hour, take a walk around the yard and write down where it is sunny and where it is shady. At the end of the day, tally the hours it was sunny in each area of your yard. Wait until your trees have leaves before you do this.

Organic gardens should be close to the house or along a path you frequent. You'll be more likely to check your garden for problems this way. Even if you don't do anything in the garden at that moment, you can make a mental note to take care of the problem later.

As an organic gardener, you'll depend on beneficial animals to eliminate pests. Therefore, you need to include homes for the pest patrol. In flower gardens, you can pick your flowers to attract beneficial creatures. In your vegetable garden, you need to include room among your vegetables for flowers. For every 4 feet of vegetables, leave about 1-2 feet in which to plant flowers that attract beneficial insects to these areas. Birds need plenty of protein while breeding, so they will eat insects at breeding time. If you want to include some mammals in your garden, install a bat house.

I recommend rotating organic garden crops. I would even rotate annual flowers you include in the flower garden. Rotating crops can decrease pests and disease. Some pests overwinter in the soil. By moving your crops and flowers, you can keep the newly emerged pests from having immediate access to their favorite food.

Organic gardeners need a compost pile. I can't stress enough how important a compost pile is for an organic gardener. Visit the article on composting for all the information on how to start your own compost pile.

Organic gardeners also have to take time into account when they plan a garden. Chemical gardeners just dump more synthetic fertilizers and more synthetic pesticides on the garden to "control" the problem. We organic gardeners have to learn to let time take care of the problem Every year that you spend improving your soil and encouraging beneficial organisms to inhabit your garden, will make your garden a better one.

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