Our garden that enriches our hands and protects our health

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'Garden' is a familiar word to us, but 'home garden' is a somewhat unfamiliar word. Many of us planted beautiful flowers, exotic grasses, Stones and kept the yard very clean and beautiful.
But now 'home gardening' is rapidly gaining popularity. Home gardening is flourishing not only in Gamegoda but also in urban housing complexes today.
There are several reasons why home gardening has become so popular. At the forefront of this is the growing interest and change of attitude towards a clean, non-toxic, nutritious diet in the past.
In this situation home gardening is being carried out with a more productive land use instead of the traditional garden that existed at that time.
But how many of us know the importance of home gardening? It is impossible to describe in words the value that will accrue to oneself personally and to society in general, if one does home gardening with a proper understanding, rather than being discouraged and offended by the doers.

What are the most important and beneficial benefits of home gardening?

1. The most important benefit of home gardening is the availability of nutritious fresh vegetables and fruits that are non-toxic for the daily family meal.

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1. Ability to keep the garden clean and produce high quality organic manure 'compost' through waste management in the garden and kitchen.
2. To be able to maintain physical and mental health through the exercise that comes from working in the garden on a daily basis.

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1. Saving money by being able to reduce the cost of buying vegetables and fruits and by selling surplus produce.
2. Opportunity to use their time productively by engaging in home gardening as a hobby.
3. The home garden will be a place of pleasure and by enabling their children to engage in home gardening, they will have the opportunity to gain a better practical understanding of the environment in which they live and to produce people who are fond of agriculture in the future.
4. To create a healthy population in the country in all respects as a whole.
   As mentioned above, there are many benefits to gardening. But here we must emphasize that the above positives in home gardening can be obtained only if it occurs without poisons. Otherwise, home gardening using chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides will not produce any healthy food.
   How to grow a poison-free crop?
   Organic fertilizers should be used for a hygienic garden free of toxins. It is also more effective and cost effective if you make organic manure from garden and kitchen waste.
   There are several benefits to using organic fertilizer at home.

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1. Ability to keep the garden clean by using the leaves that collect in the garden.
2. Opportunity to properly manage kitchen waste.
3. Saving money on purchasing organic fertilizer for home gardening.
4. Reducing the huge cost and time incurred by the local authorities for garbage disposal. (This is an invaluable service to your country)
5. Ability to have a healthy diet free of toxins.

How to make simple organic fertilizer in home gardening?

This can be considered a very important point. We are often tasked with collecting fallen leaves from the trees in the garden at the top of a tree or stacking them in a corner of the garden. This is not an effective treatment. This can sometimes be something that damages the trees. Therefore, it is extremely important for the scientific community to produce organic fertilizer.

Why is organic fertilizer important in cultivation?

Organic fertilizers play a vital role not only in home gardening but also in any field.

1. Provide basic nutrients to plants.
2. Create a favorable pasture environment.
3. Grow a strong plant.
4. Helping to retain soil water.

Raw materials

To prepare organic fertilizer, an organic liquid mixture should be prepared in the following proportions.

1. 30 percent of dry leaves.
2. 30 percent of the raw material.
3. Manure / poultry manure / goat manure 30%.
4. Yeast 10 percent.
5. Water.

How to make

1. First mix the dried leaves and raw leaves together and moisten the mixture with water. (About 60 percent)

2. Take manure, chicken manure, goat manure mixture and put it on the yeast pile and mix well.

3. Place the above mixture in a non-washable place 3 feet wide and 3 feet wide and stack the desired size. This should not be crushed or trampled. Spread the (yeast) manure or old compost evenly on it.

4. Stack the edge of the compost pile at a 45 degree angle.

5. Cover the surface of this mound about an inch with soil and then cover the surface with straw or coconut twigs.

6. Mix the pile only once in 15-20 days and mix again.
   If you fertilize in the right way this way, you can make a better compost in 25-30 days.

Growing work? Why is that?

Over the past few decades, we have become accustomed to herbicides and pesticides, and pesticides have become commonplace in our land. Therefore, one of the main grievances of home gardeners is, 'Oh, no matter how well we planted and cared for, not a single flower came. Worms of one species came and destroyed them. '
You should never use pesticides (insecticides and weed control chemicals) that harm your garden, and if you do, your efforts will be like cutting a needle in a haystack, so you may be interested in using 'organic pesticides' for home gardening. Should be.
What are the organic pesticides that can be used for home gardening?

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There are a number of herbal organic pesticides that are easily available for you.
Margosa seeds.
Margosa leaves
Cow dung
Wild sunflower.
Coconut milk extract.
Temple flowers.
Garlic.
Tobacco stalks
Tomato stalks.
Cinnamon leaves.
Red onion bulb extract.
These herbal organic pesticides can be formulated as follows.

Margosa seeds

Finely grind 50 g of kohlrabi seeds per liter of water and leave it in a dark place for 12 hours.
It can control fruit and stem borers, leaf-eating caterpillars / worms and mites.

Margosa leaves

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Finely grind 1-2 kg of margosa leaves, mix it with 4 liters of water, leave it in a clay pot for 3 days, add a little soap or tea leaves and apply it on the crop.
It can control aphids, mites, aphids, snails, whiteflies, snails, scaly insects, and leaf-eating worms.

Cow dung

Leave in the sun for two weeks and dilute 6 times. It can control insect and fungal diseases.
Chop 250 g of leaves and roots and dilute in a liter of water and spray. This can control bacterial infections.

Anoda seeds

Anoda seeds can be chopped and diluted in a liter of water and filtered to control sap-sucking bugs, plant / leaf miners.

Anoda leaves

Heat 250 g of Anoda leaves in a pan with two liters of water and let it sit up to a liter of water. Cultivation of this solution can control aphids and whiteflies.
Tobacco stalks
You can control the worms (larvae) in your crop by taking a bunch of tobacco leaves and putting it in a liter of water and spraying it.

Wild sunflowers

Chop 1-2 kg of Valsuriyakantha leaves and spray it with a liter of water. It can control worms, including the diamond moth and the red mite.

Papaya milk extract

Mite, aphids and chilli leaf control can be controlled by spraying a large papaya fruit with a liter of milk water.

Temple flowers

Mix one kilogram of temple flowers with 3 liters of water and leave it for 4 days. This will help control the pests that are harmful to your garden.

Garlic

Grind 100 grams of garlic, mix it with 03 teaspoons of kerosene, mix 10 grams of soap per liter of water and leave it for 24 hours. Then dilute it 4 times and spray the crop. This mixture can control insects such as aphids and leafhopper caterpillars in all crops.

Tomato stalks

Finely chop the tomato stalks, stems or plant parts, add water one by one, boil over low heat and spray before planting. The insect repellent properties of this solution can repel insects.

Cinnamon leaves

Adding a liter of water to 250 g of cinnamon leaves and grinding it well and spraying the extract can control the diseases of avocado cultivation.

Red bulb extract

Put a liter of water in a clay pot and boil it well. Add a kilo of red onion and leave it for 24 hours and strain it with a cloth. Then mix 10 liters of water and spray it on the crop. It can control ants, scale insects, mites and fleas.

The correct remedy for crushing chili leaves

In almost every one of our backyards you can see a few chili plants. Also, there is a special interest in chillies in home gardening. But the chili plants that you grow so passionately do the most damage in the garden.
The biggest damage to chilli cultivation is caused by 'leaf blight'. You can easily follow the following methods to control this condition.
Mix sulfur, ash, wood ash and perumkayam evenly and mix well. Then take a piece of netting cloth and put all the above in it and make a pot and tie it to a wooden stick and go to the damaged trees and use another stick to tap the wood with the pot. Doing this once a week can help control the leaf blight of your valuable chili plantation.

What are the considerations in the preparation of organic pesticides?

Choose only healthy plant parts.
Use only the recommended amount of the ingredient.
Use clean water.
Use the equipment reserved for processing.
What should be considered when using organic pesticides?
Harvest the mature crop before applying to the crop.
Successful results can be obtained by applying it in the evening.
Apply to rain. Absorption takes about 3-4 hours.
Use the prepared mixture only once.
Keep it safe from small children and pets.
There are several benefits to using organic pesticides that you can prepare yourself with the above formal methods.
Plant extracts do not contain long lasting toxins and do not require a long post harvest period.
Avoidance of pesticide resistant varieties.
Being eco-friendly.
Reducing the cost of cultivation.
No harm to the person applying.
No harm to biodiversity.
As mentioned above, managing your own backyard is not only guaranteed that you will be a healthier citizen, but also a responsible citizen who will secure the world for future generations.
Source by Department of Agriculture Sri lanka