Ecological Gardening: Your Path to a Healthy Garden

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Return to Book Page. Preview — Ecological Gardening by Marjorie Harris.

Your Path to a Healthy Garden 4. Marjorie Harris returns with a completely updated edition of her sixteen-year-old classic guide to gardening with the environment in mind. In her witty and accessible style, Marjorie Harris — who has been an organic gardener since the s — encourages the Canadian gardener to get back to basics. With a society intent on leaving as small a footprint on the earth as possible, there is no better time than now for this important and vital book.

Paperback , pages. Published March 3rd by Random House Canada first published To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Ecological Gardening

To ask other readers questions about Ecological Gardening , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Jun 25, Nanci rated it liked it Shelves: Well written book with lots of valuable knowledge. One to buy for my personal library. Jami rated it really liked it May 13, Robyn Herman rated it really liked it Jun 07, Ben Grupe rated it liked it Jan 07, Vivianne rated it liked it Oct 30, Hania rated it it was amazing Jan 11, Julaine rated it it was amazing May 21, Carol rated it it was amazing Aug 05, Sampsonsghost rated it it was amazing May 01, Lee rated it liked it Feb 17, Adina rated it liked it Feb 02, Paula Norman rated it it was amazing Nov 04, Zeid Zabaneh rated it it was amazing Jan 16, Busra YE rated it really liked it May 18, Kate Ann rated it really liked it Sep 01, Leigh rated it it was amazing Apr 18, Erin Jonasson rated it it was amazing Aug 10, Niki Jabbour rated it it was amazing Mar 27, Cait rated it it was amazing Jan 22, Catherine rated it really liked it Feb 18, Bonnie Zink rated it really liked it Mar 06, Tina rated it really liked it Feb 25, Koko Hasegawa marked it as to-read Nov 04, The colours have a wide range, from brilliant red to almost purple.

Good drainage is essential. Water generously for the first few months. Use something like English daisy Bellis perennis or blue-eyed grass Sisyrinchium or any little flowering spreader native to your area.

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This needs mowing, but only occasionally — usually at the end of June before dandelions and other sun-loving weeds get a head start. Set your blades about 3 inches 7. In spring, mow around the nicest clumps until plants go dormant. Lungworts add a silvery touch. For hepatica, new leaf growth shows up after it blooms. It has ferny foliage and tiny white flowers with yellow tips; plants go dormant in summer.

Trout lily — a subtle beauty with an orchid-like flower — spreads by root shoots and grows into a dense patch. There are three wild gingers Asarum to choose from: Virginia bluebells, trillium, wild blue phlox, Labrador violet an enchanting little violet and the ubiquitous Johnny-jump-up, which will naturalize everywhere, especially in slightly acidic soil. Be careful with this one; it will go everywhere. Let a clump bloom, then cut back. Asters bloom through the fall, as do black-eyed Susans and goldenrod, a terrific plant that does not cause hayfever.

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Identify plants using a good weed book and try out a section of your garden in this style for more ideas, see Chapter Soil originally came from rock. Since soils and plants evolved at the same time, using the minerals from rocks will feed them when they need the nutrients. Many organic producers swear by rock powders. When you read about the extraordinary results produced by them, you realize that they are among the best of organic fertilizers.

They will also keep nitrogen in the soil and make nutrients available to plants. You should apply them with organic matter since they do not supply any nitrogen. They last from 5 to 10 years. Superphosphate is treated with sulphuric acid. This makes it more soluble but also more expensive because it uses so much energy in production. It can cause imbalances in soil microbes and a build-up of salts. I used it with great abandon until I found this out. It has trace elements and is a lot cheaper than chemical potash fertilizers. You can use it as a top dressing. Apply with organic material straight into the soil or the compost heap.

I use composted sheep manure, which has a higher nitrogen content than cow manure — sheep digest more efficiently than cows. We now know, however, that the gases produced by cows burping methane are adding to the greenhouse effect. There is a never-ending supply of animal manure: Manure contains a high content of bacteria.

Cold manure cow, hog manure has a high water content and ferments slowly. Hot manure sheep, poultry, horse is richer in nitrogen and more easily fermented. These should all be well rotted.

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There are now sources for goose, chicken and mushroom manure. Worm castings are among the most gorgeous-looking and best stuff to use on your soil. They are richer in calcium, potassium and phosphorus than any other organic product. Manure is far more valuable: Organic matter turns into humus. Humus makes nutrients available to plants. Fresh animal manure can burn plant roots. It should be well composted to make it safe and to destroy any weed seeds. Add it as you prepare your beds. Side dress near plants; top dress around plants when you have put them in the soil.

Add manure to the extra leaves in plastic bags; then add a bit of soil, moisten and tie up the bags. Store in a work shed. My hort guru Juliet makes what she calls Eau de Chickshit, which she swears by. Like other eaux de vie, it must sit and ferment properly. Put chicken manure in a bucket of water. Strain and put the solid wastes into the compost and the liquid into a bottle.

Measure about 5 inches Add the liquid to the channel. Tomatoes love this treatment. So does just about everything else. Make your own fish emulsion: Cover top with wire screening to keep out animals and insects; put in an isolated location to ferment for 8 to 12 weeks. This stuff can get pretty high — add citrus oil or scent to mask some of the odour. Skim off the oil and store in a special container.

Dilute 1 cup millilitres in 5 gallons 22 litres of water. Dried blood is 10 to 12 percent nitrogen. Steamed bone meal is 1 to 3 percent nitrogen, 10 to 15 percent phosphorus. Hoof and horn meal is 10 to 16 percent nitrogen and about 2 percent phosphorus. If you have meat scraps and fat, or fish scraps: Also look for products based on composted manures and natural minerals in pelletized form, which condition soil and provide nutrients. This is feeding plants through their leaves by spraying. As well, use when plants are flowering or setting fruit. Use a kelp-based product derived from marine plants.

Organic matter is the most important: Straw, alas, encourages mice. Another method of enriching the soil is to dig down and fill the hole with layers of aged leaves and manure. Earthworms do most of the work of breaking down these materials into compost. Build up the soil with compost or make your own organic fertilizer as recommended by garden writer Eliot Coleman: If you add bone and blood meal to coir, it will act as a fertilizer.

Your Path to a Healthy Garden

Coir products are made from coconut fibre from outer husk and are used as an alternative to peat moss. Leaf mould is an excellent amendment. Bag leaves and place them in a corner to break down, or dig them into a big hole and let them rot, or shred them and add to the compost heap. Maple leaves tend to mat if you put them on the ground without letting them break down first. Since the leaves of Norway maples contain alkaloids, they should be well composted before you add them to the soil.

Oak and beech are acidic and will take longer to break down than other leaves. But they are great if you are building up acid areas in your garden. Black walnut leaves contain juglone, which is toxic to many plants, so you should probably not use these leaves as soil amenders. Add masses of compost and keep adding as often as possible. Over time the soil will improve.

Dig a trench as wide as your spade, and as deep. Pile the soil from this first trench on a sheet of plastic. Loosen and amend the soil in the bottom of the trench to another spade depth. Dig another trench directly beside the first trench and put the excavated soil in the first trench; continue until you hit the last trench and then put the soil on the plastic sheet from the first in it. In all my years of gardening I have never done this, but some people swear by it. Double dig the soil and add enough moistened coir and compost or manure to raise the soil at least 8 to 10 inches 20 to 25 centimetres above ground level.

By adding lots of compost and manure, you can decrease lead absorption. By maintaining neutral soil of pH 6. If you have a lot of rocks on your property, you can use them in the garden. Position plants that like hot, dry conditions near large rocks. Place smooth, flat rocks near plants that like cool, moist conditions — put rocks over the roots of clematis, for instance.

Try to find out where it came from. Of course, it is likely to have come from the nearest housing development. The valuable topsoil is removed and sold, leaving new homeowners with nothing but subsoil and clay. Use huge amounts of compost and manure to create healthy soil and keep it that way. Instead of buying soil, you can prepare your own potting soil mix — particularly if you have fears about vermiculite, which may contain asbestos, in commercial mixes. After all, the most beneficial life in the soil is in the top inch 2.

To create a healthy, balanced soil in your ecological garden, use every alternative to cultivating that you can find. Be sure to mulch and otherwise keep the soil covered. If you want to see what will happen when you fail to protect the soil, take a chunk of bare earth and aim your hose at it. Return what you take from the garden to the garden leaves, dead and dying plants — unless they are diseased. Feed with organic matter. Find out what was added to your soil before you took possession.

If the area has been stripped of topsoil or if chemicals have built up in the soil, you will have to improve the soil over a period of time. Learn to treasure the soil and approach it as a living creature rather than some dead stuff you clunk plants into. The more you are aware of the symbiosis between yourself and the soil, the more careful you will be with this miraculous substance. The root systems of plants fill out the air holes between the grains of soil.

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