Article by: Sought After Seedlings
Designer of the Bryanston Organic Food Garden
Supplier of Franchi Sementi Heirloom Seeds & Victory Ticket Organic Seedlings

You will start off the season preparing the seasonal home for your organic vegetables with all the right food so that you can ensure sufficient nutrition for your plants to not only grow, but also to produce an excellent crop from your Franchi Sementi vegetable seeds.

Preparing your beds encompasses adding organic compost, which hopefully is your own home made organic compost. If you don’t have any compost yet, start making it right away! Select a spot close to your vegetable garden if possible, and start off by laying twigs and sticks, followed by greens, which could be grass clippings, without seed please, dog hair from your vacuum cleaner, bone meal, etc. and continuing your pile in this manner. We layer greens and brown material, that is for example cardboard or fallen autumn leaves which are abundant right now. Sweep them up off you pavement if you don’t have trees on your property. A sprinkling of manure would also be a great addition.

You can add your kitchen peelings (but not cooked food) into your pile to keep up with your recycling efforts. Your compost pile can also get your Bokashi bin contents. Bokashi bins are available at your favourite GardenShop. This is where your cooked waste food goes before finding its way into your garden or compost heap. A wonderful clean system, from Japan, that uses a sprinkling of enzyme powder in layers in the bin which decomposes and produces compost. To find out much more about compost and everything else, attend an Organic Vegetable Growing course by Linda Galvad (as seen on DSTV), by registering on www.soughtafterseedlings.co.za

Then you can add your Vita Veg which is 6:3:4 containing lots of natural micro and macro nutrients which grows the soil that requires the production of nutrients and humus. An excellent organic preparation also available at your GardenShop. Promoting humus and beneficial bacteria in your soil is vital to the absorption of the plant to help it grow with a strong immune system. Remember that the virtue of growing organic vegetables is this most important component – the immune system of the plant builds the immune system of your body, these are the salvestrols from the plant. Your root vegetables do not really need Vita Veg, this is more useful for your produce above ground.

Biogrow Biotrissol liquid fertilizer made from sugar beet extract is another excellent product  from this range to add to your soil which is also organic and highly recommended which ferments and promotes microbial activity to strengthen the growth of your plant.

Fertilis, which is the produce of worm castings harvested from worm farms, is an excellent food, but due to the relatively high cost, you would use this sparingly.
Why not start your own worm farm?

A simple basic method requires a container with a tap or drip opening with a container under it, at the bottom for the worm tea that will form from within the container, and drip into the receptacle.
Worms from worm farms in South Africa, are usually red wriggler worms, they are not the earth worms in the soil.

Feed them with peels, cut up newspaper, etc. These worms live in the upper soil and are therefore no good to put them in your garden, they will simply be picked off by happy birds. Earth worms, which are a valuable gift in your soil, live at deeper soil levels.
Remember enough place is needed for your worms to migrate either side ways or upward as they eat through the food you provide for them.

Give your soil a good watering, set up your watering system, consider the new Eco smart watering system, and you are ready to plant. A yummy nutrient rich soil to welcome your seeds and seedlings. Look forward to a bountiful, health giving winter crop.