Organic Gardening
natural Organic Gardening Works With Nature
The definition of natural organic gardening is that it works with nature instead of against it. The opposite is so-called scientific, or chemical farming.
History
The history of chemical farming started off innocently enough. Scientists had discovered elemental chemistry, so they tried analyzing plants, and were delighted to find that the same chemicals were in plants and animals.
They set themselves a new target - to design a food pill from the basic chemicals in our bodies and do away with hunger for ever. Of course, over the years they realized that they had set themselves an impossible task. Nobody is going to drink a glass of ammonium nitrate!
But plants don’t have a choice. So they tried spreading Nitrogen fertilizer on the fields. They were delighted when plants grew bigger and greener and were more juicy.
The world war came along before they could test their discoveries any further. They persuaded the government to use fertilizers as part of the war effort without further testing. That was the innocent beginning of today’s all-embracing chemical combines.
Factory Farming Lies
- Produce is the same as organic produce (but more juicy and healthy)
- Increases farming profits
- Better than natural garden pest control
- Safer than unhygienic organic farming
- The hope for future generations
1. The same people who insist that chemical farming produce is the same will tell you that a non-organic vegetable is more juicy. That is another way of saying that there is more water in their product (less nutrients), and more goodness in sustainable horticulture.
However, when a vegetable is forced to absorb nitrates in the soil, it stores them unchanged. We eat them and the nitrates react with Chlorine in tap water to become toxic nitrites.
Artificial fertilizers make your fields of grass look good to competitors. Unfortunately livestock knows the difference, and refuses to eat it if there is a choice. If they have to eat it, they become less healthy.
2. Several decades ago I read a book about an organic dairy farm written by a businessman. Because he was trained to study the bottom line he kept full accounting records of everything he did when he changed over from chemical farming to organic farming. The first thing he noticed was that the labor needed to spread natural organic fertilizer cost less than chemical fertilizers and he didn’t need insecticides. So he made more profit.
The next advantages of organic farming were slower to appear. Infertile prize cows would need to be sold at butcher’s prices. However his infertile cows became fertile.
A cow costs a lot of money to raise from birth before she can produce any milk. He discovered that he could buy pure-breed infertile cows for butcher’s prices and take them back to the farm to breed them, thereby saving all the cost of raising them from calves.
3. An organic gardening association in China found a way to let farmers discover for themselves the lie about better pest control. They created light tubular cubes and located half of them in organic fields and half on chemical fields. A very colorful beetle pest was chosen for the test, because it was so easy to see.
All the farmers had to do was count the number of the pest in each cube regularly.At the start the organic count was reasonably low, and so was the chemical farming count. However after each spraying with insecticide the count dropped drastically, then rebounded in the next few days to very much higher levels.
That is because insecticides kill predator insects which take longer to multiply than the pest insects. Farmers could see for themselves that agricultural chemicals were costing them money to increase their pests.
4. Another demonstration for the farmers was for safety. They were given white coats and some die powder, and told to spray some crops with it. At the end of the experiment not only the white coats had changed color but the faces of the farmers. Fortunately the die was not as toxic as agricultural chemicals.
A friend of mine died because her farmer husband asked her if the chemical tank was nearly empty yet. She lifted the lid and dropped it again, but must have breathed during that time, because it poisoned her.
5. Supposedly the Chinese habit of using human faeces as fertilizer is dangerous. Really?! That means that the Chinese people will soon be extinct does it? I see no sign of that happening!
Native Indians in the USA were encouraged to accept a free offer to convert them to scientific farming. Those that objected moved up the mountain away from the chemicals.
A few years later the downhill children started failing all their exams, while those who had moved kept their intelligence. Further testing proved that although each of three agricultural chemicals was safe by itself, the three working together were destroying the minds of these children.
That rather spoils the claim that the chemicals industry is the hope for the future of mankind. But it isn’t even profitable. Dust bowls in the USA were the first indication of how factory farming destroys the hopes of mankind for the future.
Now farmers are walking off their land in Australia because of salination of their land.
Erosion is another major problem. I have seen flame from horizon to horizon as I drove through wheat country. They were burning straw after harvesting the grain. If they had chopped the straw to mulch as they harvested the grain, it would have slowed down erosion, and eventually rotted into the soil. Three inches of mulch won’t allow the wind to blow it away, and it even slows down water erosion.
Learning About Natural Growing
You can easily find a magazine of organic gardening or book to learn the organic gardening basics. Even to grow a lawn natural garden will avoid building chemical resistance in pests.
Better still, follow a permaculture plan for sustainable growing. Replace your lawn with more useful plants such as herbs. Don’t have a lawn at the back of your house. That is a place for vegetable organic gardening for your health.
They say that experience is the best teacher. Find out about the WWOOF organization. Be an unpaid Willing Worker On Organic Farms. Most farmers don’t ask you to work too hard, but if stinging blisters and aching muscles make you give up, this is a cheap way to discover that you are not suited to farming. If you choose a biodynamics farmer you might find that this most stringent of organic methods might suit you.
Where can you get organic supplies?
Look on the web, and in magazines, and in newspapers, and talk to members of clubs.
Natural organic gardening is becoming so popular now that food producers are claiming that their produce is organic when it isn’t, just to be paid more. The government has just given them permission to do so.
That means that your own sustainable food garden may soon be your only source of food that you can be sure isn’t poisoned. Food from certified organic farms is safe if you can get it.