Video: Organic Gardening For All

I’ve been really excited about shooting a video about organic gardening because it’s such an important topic. I tend to mention it in other videos and posts, but never really focused on it as a main topic.

Organic gardening involves avoiding chemical pesticides and herbicides and instead adopting healthy methods. It applies to so many aspects of growing a garden. I think a lot of folks worry that it’s either too complicated or perhaps expensive.

As someone who has used organic methods for decades, I’d like to reassure you that’s not the case at all. The best thing you can do is adopt an approach of what you can do to keep your plants healthy. And I make several suggestions along those lines in this video!

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• Why insecticides are such a bad idea. (hint: did know know they also kill beneficial insects?)
• Why using weed & feed products on your lawn is also a bad idea. (hint: those grass clipping can kill your vegetables and flowers)
• The importance of monitoring your garden regularly. That way, you’re ahead of the game if problems come up.
• Know your insects so you don’t kill the good guys! You’ll get to meet three amazing beneficial insects, damsel bugs, assassin bugs and robber flies. While those might sound ominous, they are fantastic predators.
• What OMRI means on organic product labels and why you should look for them.
• Learn my secret for protecting plants that don’t need to be pollinated but insects love them!
• How to keep your plant unstressed. This involves appropriate watering and spacing, as well as keeping up with the weeds.
• Why we make our own compost.
• Which organic fertilizers we use during the growing season.

OK, here’s the video!

Chances are, you might be looking at the above photo and thinking “Good grief, she uses a lot of covers!” I took this photo in early spring , so the there are two types of row covers in it. The three in the foreground are agricultural insect netting. The floating row cover on those other beds was mainly to protect very young seedlings from the quail. Those birds LOVE to nibble on freshly-sprouted seeds so I have to take that into account.

Did you enjoy this video? I’ve got over 600 on my YouTube channel. If you’re primarily interested in edible crops, here’s a link to my vegetable gardening video playlist. Just choose what appeals to you and go from there! I also have an index of my 2025 garden videos, which I add to every week.