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Organic Gardening Made Easy DVD Trailer by Lee O’Hara
July 27th, 2009 | 
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I’m proud to present a preview of Master (Organic) Gardner Lee O’Hara’s Organic Gardening Made Easy DVD. While I usually spotlight organic pioneers in Texas, I realize not all the viewers live in Texas. Lee O’Hara is an organic gardener in California who has done what I dream of one day accomplishing- turning his yard into an organic vegetable garden which produces 80% to 85% of his food. Lee accomplishes this without chemical pesticides and herbicides.
I own The Organic Tomato and his organic gardening Made Easy DVDs and I highly recommend’em both. Lee steps you through the process of how to get started with simple directions that even *I* can follow.
This video is already posted on YouTube, but I wanted to highlight here to help spread the word about how important it is people learn how to grow their own food & feed their family healthily. This video is used with permission and I receive no money / commission for plugging it. I really enjoyed’em both and hope you pick up a copy at Lee’s website: http://www.organichomegardener.com/
About Lee
Our home is on a small hillside lot at the northeast edge of Los Angeles, between Glendale and Pasadena. We probably have one of the best climates in the US for gardening, but we do have our handicaps. Topsoil is rare. Its been scraped away for homes and buildings. We get virtually no rain from about mid-April through about mid-October or November.
We have June Gloom every year, starting about mid-May, and continuing sometime until the 1st or 2nd week in July. During much of that period, well get 2-3 hours of afternoon sun, with the rest of the day being foggy and over-cast.
Over the past 24 years Ive turned our front and back yards into raised planting beds. At first it was just with the intention of creating retaining walls, but soon escalated into growing vegetables organically. The term Organic, in farming or gardening, means using fertilizers and pest controls that come only from plants and animals.
One of my original actions was to keep records and statistics on what I did, and what the results were at the end of the season. I wanted to know exactly how effective my new methods were. The results were so consistent year after year, and more or less incomparable according to everything I could find about what one can expect from any given vegetable plant. Year after year I was getting 20-30 lbs. of foot long burpless cucumbers per seed, 30 lbs. of yellow zucchinis per seed, ¾ lbs. of green beans per seed, 100+ Japanese eggplants per plant, 40-50 bell peppers per plant, 30 lbs. of leaf lettuce from a planting bed of 15 sq. ft., etc.
As I comment on in the film, Organic Gardening Made Easy, we give away more than half of what I grow. The truth is that its more like 80-85%. After a few years, the habit of weighing and counting everything became boring. I stopped weighing and counting everything, unless I was trying something new. As in the case of last year when for the first time I planted two sweet potatoes Id bought at the supermarket. I can tell you that four and a half months later when I dug them up I had 20 lbs. of them, with the biggest sweet potato weighing in at 3.25 lbs. But I didnt quit keeping daily yield statistics in the case of my tomatoes!
For instance, the 7 Beefmaster tomato plants currently still growing on October 29 October, a few inches high on April 15th when I planted them in their 20′ by 4′ garden bed - produced 805 lbs. of “amazing” tomatoes between July 12th and October 20th. As they dont still have the full rich flavor they had in mid-summer, I quit counting with maybe another 20-30 lbs. still ripening on the vines. My wife protests that, saying that theyre still 10 times better than anyone can buy.
Be that as it may, having had to do without a decent tomato for many years, my standards for tomatoes are very high. I dont count or weigh anything Im not willing to confess that I grew.
The full statistics on the 2007 tomato crop were:
1) From an eighty square foot raised bed (20′ x 4′)
2) 7 tomato plants
3) 805 lbs. of tomatoes harvested
4) An average of 115 lbs. of tomatoes per plant
5) The total number of tomatoes; 1,386, or 198 per plant
6) The average weight per tomato; 9.3 ounces
7) The largest tomatoes: Several at 2.25 lbs each
While I may be a world-class braggart, the point I want to make is that anyone can do it. If tomatoes dont do well in your particular climate, vegetables that do well in your climate will do immensely better with the kind of gardening practices youre starting to read about.
-Lee O’Hara
Duration : 0:3:58
Interesting Organic Gardening Tips and Tricks
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Organic pest control begins with healthy soil. It produces healthy plants, which are better able to withstand disease and insect damage.
2. Organic fertilizers are safer than chemicals. Chemical fertilizers may, in time, build up salts.
3. Apply compost to your garden about two to four weeks before you plant, giving the compost time to integrate and stabilize within the soil.
4. Do not over-fertilize garlic or it will become leafy. Use a high phosphorus fertilizer (the middle number) to promote bulb formation.
5. New beds need soil amendments and double digging for that extra starting kick.
6. Soak finished compost in water to “brew” compost “tea,” a nutrient-rich liquid that can be used for foliar feeding or for watering plants in your garden, backyard, or houseplants.
7. Specimen plants which need a warmer climate zone than you have do well in sheltered, south-facing walls. The wall acts as a solar collector, absorbing heat during the day and releasing it at night, creating a small zone that is warmer than the rest of the garden.
8. Begin deep watering your trees and shrubs in the spring if you don’t get a soaking rain every 10 - 14 days.
9. When planting trees, don’t give them too much organic matter in the hole they’re going in. If the hole is filled with rich organic matter and compost but the surrounding soil is hard and compact or less nutritious, the roots are less likely to spread out into the soil. When the tree isn’t anchored well by large roots, it is more likely to be blown over and be less healthy and less able to resist drought.
10. Outdoors potted plants and baskets are the only plants that need daily water on the hottest, driest days of the summer.
11. Once a seed sprouts it must be kept watered. If it dries out, it dies. If seeds are lightly covered with soil, they may need to be gently sprinkled with water once or twice a day to keep them moist.
12. When planting in clay soil, cover seeds with vermiculite instead of clay. Clay absorbs heat and may bake the seeds and stop germination. Clay also forms a top crust, forming a barrier for the young seedlings.
13. Trees and bushes placed carefully in the middle of flower beds add height and variety to the entire landscape.
14. Low-growing ornamental grasses can cascade over walls, edge low borders, and taller varieties can stand in for a row of shrubs.
15. A small extension curtain rod is an excellent support rod for plants. The length can continually be adjusted without disturbing the plants.
16. Native trees are low maintenance; they have developed natural defenses against insects and disease over the centuries, and they rarely need pruning or feeding.
17. Throw a handful of finished compost in the hole for a flower or vegetable transplant before transplanting. The compost gives the transplant a bit of an extra boost that lasts throughout the season.
18. Check moisture in container plants often with your fingers. Potting soil is often lightweight and dries out quickly.
19. Short on space but like vining vegetables? Train your squash, melons, and cucumbers onto a vertical trellis. Support the fruiting vines gently and thoroughly.
20. Watering is necessary when transplanting, but be careful not to over water.
21. Water your gardens and plants in the early morning or dusk to save water. Watering during the heat of the day burns plants and increases evaporation and loss of water.
22. Picking off flowers frequently encourage most annuals to flower more abundantly.
23. To continue blooming, container plants need large amounts of nutrients and water. Since water tends to wash out the nutrients, use finished compost or a good organic fertilizer as top-dressing.
24. Whenever possible use natural and organic fertilizers such as compost. Chemicals build up toxicity in soil, which leaches into drinking water.
25. Botanical insecticides are plant derivatives, and can be more toxic than some synthetics. They are, however, better in the long run because they break down rapidly and do not accumulate in the food chain as synthetics do.
Duration : 0:3:15
Posted in organic gardening | 
Tags: and, bed, beets, beginner, beginners, bin, broccoli, build, cauliflower, celery, compost, composting, corn, diy, do, fertilizer, flower, flowers, food, foods, garden, gardening, germinating, grow, guide, how, it, miracle, natural, organic, pile, raised, seed, seeds, soil, tips, to, tomato, tomatoes, tricks, vegetable, vegetables, watermelon, worm, yourself | 
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Vegetable garden from seeds. Easy and fast way to start your vegetable garden.
Vegetable garden tips. I started my vegetable garden just 1 week ago look at the results!. The best & cheap way to start your vegetable garden it’s shown onthe video. I will keep uou posted about my vegetable garden results.
Duration : 0:6:55
Posted in organic vegetable garden |
Tags: back, bed, cheap, easy, fast, garden, organic, raised, seeds, start, vegetable, vegetables, yard |
6 Comments »
OG Garden Tour 2
Pam Ruch, Research Editor and Test Garden Manager of Organic Gardening Magazine, demonstrates some of the plants and techniques from the organic gardening test garden.
For more information visit www.organicgardening.com
Duration : 0:6:3
Posted in organic garden |
Tags: bed, garden, gardening, organic, Pam, planting, Ruch, test |
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OG Garden Tour 1
Pam Ruch, Research Editor and Test Garden Manager of Organic Gardening Magazine, demonstrates some of the plants and techniques from the organic gardening test garden.
For more information visit www.organicgardening.com
Duration : 0:4:12
Posted in organic gardening |
Tags: bed, garden, gardening, organic, Pam, planting, Ruch, test |
No Comments »
Ray Ritchie Organic Raised Bed Vegetable Garden
Ray Ritchie of http://bit.ly/atl8R show us how to construct a raised bed organic vegetable garden
Duration : 0:2:21
Posted in organic vegetable gardening |
Tags: bed, garden, organic, raised, ray, ritchie, vegetable |
3 Comments »
Organic Gardening Magazine: Your First Garden Bed
Scott Meyer, Editor of organic gardening Magazine, gives you step-by-step instructions for creating a new garden bed where grass is currently growing.
For more information visit www.organicgardening.com
Duration : 0:2:51