If you want to improve your diet, you may want to get into organic gardening. Growing an organic garden does take some planning, though. This may make you wonder how you can begin to grow your personal organic garden.

Using a shovel in clay soil is a lot of work, not only is the clay hard, but it will stick to the shovel and make it twice as hard to handle. Use a thin coat of floor or car wax on your shovel, then buff it with a nice clean cloth to make dealing with clay soil easier. Not only will the clay slide off the surface, but it will keep the end from rusting.

Use your tool handles as rulers in the garden. Tools that can be used for more than one task are quite handy to own. Lay the tools down on the floor, then place a measuring tape along the handle. Then, transfer the measurements to the handle using a permanent marker. When you decide to work in the garden again, you will now have a ruler at your disposal.

When gardening in the fall, you need to be watching for stink bugs. This insect will gladly devour your tomatoes, beans, and peppers, as well as a variety of other fruits. If you do not check, they do a lot of damage to plants so try to get rid of them if you can.

Cooling weather of early fall signals the opportune time to plant seasonal edibles. A hollowed out pumpkin can become a festive container for kale and lettuce. Once you’ve cut its top and scooped the insides out, spray the edges and inside with Wilt-Pruf to prevent rotting. You can now use it to plant in, as you would a pot.

When mowing your lawn, be careful not to cut the grass too far down. Higher grass sends roots further down, increasing lawn strength and viability. If you keep your lawn too short, the roots will not go deep enough to survive in case of a heat wave.

If your soil has high alkaline amounts, mix some coffee grounds into it. The coffee grounds are a very inexpensive way to add acid back into the dirt. This simple act can lead to vegetables that taste better and look more appealing.

If you want a strange, yet successful, green answer to getting rid of weeds, boil them to death. A pot full of boiling water is an effective herbicide, yet it is, chemically speaking, completely harmless. Just douse the weeds directly with boiling water, taking care to avoid damaging nearby plants. Boiling water will actually hurt the roots, and it will prevent the weeds from growing.

Do you enjoy fresh mint, but don’t like how they engulf your garden in their growth? Contain their growth with a garden container or large pot instead. You can bury the container so the top is flush with the ground if desired, but the container’s walls will prevent the roots …