Organic gardening is the gardening of the future, rooted in our immediate past. Humans have been gardening organically throughout 99% of our existence, but in the 20th Century we took a wrong turn towards chemical based gardening that has had serious consequences on our health and environment.
Organic gardening is gardening without man-made chemicals. It is more in harmony with nature. Organic gardeners routinely say that they feed the soil, not the plant.
Conventional gardeners add chemical fertilizers to the soil, spray insecticides to fight insects and protect plants, and use synthetic herbicides to root out weeds. Organic gardeners take a more simple and nature friendly approach. They use natural fertilizers like green manures as cover crops to plow under and add nutrients to the soil. Or they add minerals like calcium and potassium by mixing the soil with shellfish and wood ash.
Organic gardeners use insect predators and traps to protect plants and vegetables and make use of crop rotation and other methods to control weeds.
Home produced garden compost is the organic gardeners best friend. The compost is balanced between wet materials like kitchen waste and dry materials such as egg crates. A good mixture of material in the compost lets nature take over and do all the work. The best time to apply compost is when plants are growing. Compost supplies the soil with nutrients and gives it structure.
You can taste, see, and feel the difference between organic and conventional produce. Studies have shown that organic produce has higher levels of minerals and antioxidants than conventional produce. The resurgence in organic gardening is symbolic of the reawakening of our society to health issues associated with food.
In a world with such high levels of disease and serious environmental problems, organic gardening is a great working alternative.
