Preparing your garden location

• Plan for your organic garden by first choosing the best garden site given your space availability. A well suited vegetable garden will have ample amounts of natural sunlight, good water drainage, well maintained soil full of nutrients and be close to a source of water or irrigation system. If your location is less than ideal, you can force a garden bed virtually anywhere, but you won't be able to re-create the sunlight.
  If water and soil quality are a challenge, don't worry, you can still garden where you want. Remove the top layer of grass, or sod, from your marked-off location and turn the soil to loosen the ground for seeds and seedlings. Good soil should clump when you squeeze it but fall back apart once you let go; it shouldn't be too sandy or too much like clay. If necessary, add organic garden soil or other additives such as peat or loam.
  
  

Choosing plants and seeds

• While many big-box garden centers offer hundreds of greenhouse-started seedlings, the more natural choice may be to start your own seeds. Organic seeds are available even at the big chain stores, but you can also find them at your local Mom-and-Pop nursery or online from Burpee or Ferry~Morse. Your local greenhouse may also offer organically started seedlings that haven't been started in chemical fertilizers or under unnatural conditions. Research the vegetables you wish to grow and the space requirements necessary to maintain them. Some plants are more than willing to climb upward while others want to spread out over the garden.
  
  

Routine care and maintenance

• Kkeep an eye on your plants daily to know how they are growing or what may be feeding on them. At the first sight of insects, fungus or disease, treat the infected plants with organic pesticides and fungicides. Several products offer more than one type of protection in one bottle. Two-in-one and three-in-one organic products such as Garden Safe Fungicide3 are available at most garden centers and are easy to apply. Another option, although debatable, is to try companion planting, the idea that some plants help ward off pests by mixing strong scents with the attractive scents of vegetables. Combinations such as marigolds near tomatoes will keep nematodes and beetles away.
  You may also want to try using natural predators to your advantage. If you notice aphids taking over your peppers, then try finding some ladybugs and set them directly on the pepper plants. Come back in a couple of days and you'll find the aphid population down and the lady bugs still there. Keeping an eye on the progress of your garden will also ensure that you know when your vegetables are ready to harvest. Keep a calendar to know just how well your garden performed and you will be ready for next year having taken your bumps the year before.