Organic myth 2!!!!!

[Sweepster]

When confronted with these ethical quandaries, I like to take the time to ask myself 'What would Geoff* do?'...

...and then, when thoroughly infused with the bright light of moral certainty, I go and buy whatever Wilko's has on offer...

*that's Hamilton, not the Geoff up our street who has animated conversations with the lampposts

[Welsh Wizard]

No real need to go and buy fertilizer when your urine has plenty of goodies concentrated in it. Collect it and dilute 10:1 and you have ready made organic liquid feed: totally sustainable and completely free. Also very safe (just stop feeding some time before harvesting).

[womble]

(just stop feeding some time before harvesting).

How long before harvesting my own water do I have to stop eating?

[Fluorescent green]

How many air miles does coir take up though? Where does the plastic packaging come from? What about the 'Local' aspect as well?

No answers here I'm afraid, cost is just one of many issues to take into consideration!

Since no one has mentioned coir, I am not sure why you have brought it up! Its peat free compost we/I am discussing. I would have thought that local councils make lots of compost, but since there is no requirement to indicate where it is from, it is difficult to "buy local".

FG

[FionaH]

Think you will find we are discussing all things organic FG. Which as far as I am aware is a free exchange of views and opinions.

[SarzWix]

Since no one has mentioned coir, I am not sure why you have brought it up! Its peat free compost we/I am discussing. I would have thought that local councils make lots of compost, but since there is no requirement to indicate where it is from, it is difficult to "buy local".

FG

My local council don't part with any of their composted green waste But I've had a rant about that before, so I won't do it again

[TonyF]

Ah, the unambiguous certainties of somebody that appears to be young. Perhaps when maturity and patience kick in and some of our fellow gardeners realise that, by and large, many of us are of a like mind - though our revolutionary zeal is tempered by experience and years of realizing that being aggressive and somewhat patronising doesn't attract people to your cause - and that we do try to live sustainable lives and that some of us have been doing it for longer than others on here have been alive.

[snohare]

I've had a rant about that before, so I won't do it again

Yes SarzWix, it would be wasted time.
I doubt somehow that coir has any airmiles, bit hard to make money on it stuffing it into a 747 at £2 retail for 4 bricks. copra is the old fashioned name for it and it is shipped by cargo ships, which have always used the money they make shipping it to offset the costs of their supply runs to remote Pacific islands, which would otherwise be unsustainable. So how organic is it to keep unsustainable communities going ?
Womble's right about the landmine idea. The peat bogs are giving off carbon into the water, turns out they have been for 20 years. The central continental forests are drying and dying, and will undoubtedly burn, at which point we will wish we had logged them all and built cheap homes rather than leaving them to spruce beetles etc. Compared to what we need to do about climate change, worrying about peatfree compost is rearranging deck chairs on the titanic - it's a start, but the attitude is just too tentative.
In My Humble, not-totally-organic-cos-broke, Opinion !

[TonyF]

Since no one has mentioned coir, I am not sure why you have brought it up! Its peat free compost we/I am discussing. I would have thought that local councils make lots of compost, but since there is no requirement to indicate where it is from, it is difficult to "buy local".

FG

FG, the point is surely that if you have the space, your MAKE your own, you don't buy it in at all. If it's from your local council, it's a fair bet that it's a locally produced pile of compost, ok it may not be bio/organic but perhaps we have to live with that if the material is free - I make my own but then I have the resources and time (and space) to do so.

Are you actually a gardener or allotmenteer? If either, why not ask at your local horticultural club/society or allotment to see whether they have a communal composting scheme or communal compost pile that you can access - for free or by donating some of your time or compostable material as payment?

[womble]

Womble's right about the landmine idea. The peat bogs are giving off carbon into the water, turns out they have been for 20 years. The central continental forests are drying and dying, and will undoubtedly burn, at which point we will wish we had logged them all and built cheap homes rather than leaving them to spruce beetles etc. Compared to what we need to do about climate change, worrying about peatfree compost is rearranging deck chairs on the titanic - it's a start, but the attitude is just too tentative.

<wagfingermodeon>At last someone is noticing my brilliance, the rest of you please take note </wagfingermodeoff>

My honest view is that we are really royally bu**ered. Nothing of any importance is going to be done before it's too late.
Green people like me who recycle everything they can, live a good life, but are not bonkers about it, are still not doing enough.
And that's a pin prick of a dribble in the oceans of ungreeness.

[zazen999]

Since no one has mentioned coir, I am not sure why you have brought it up! Its peat free compost we/I am discussing.

FG

Because Coir is a constituent of many peat free composts that you can buy in the shops....

[jimbojetset]

just came back from the garden to find a grapevine bunfight, marvellous!
i have to agree with most of you that there is absolutely no point getting "preachy" about environmental issues, it really is counterproductive
educating those gardeners who use peat is the only real way forward, until we have a government who find it in their time to ban the stuff
anyway when i was in the garden i sat for fifteen minutes marvelling at a bumblebee pollinating my broad beans, i think it was a bombus ruderatus in case anyone is interested. it's not just a visit from a friendly little helper that filled me with joy, nor was it the soil fauna tilling the earth, the fungi's tendrils nourishing roots, or the hoverflies ready to pick away any sap suckers...
anyway to say that we are reliant on mother nature in her myriad of help to actually manage to get a crop is an understatement
i managed to sow a few more seeds, in peat free compost, and was pleased to see that all the stuff i sowed a week or two ago had ALL germinated, in peat free compost
peat bogs don't sound too pretty but they are as important to biodiversity as the amazon rainforest, yet we tell developing countries to stop hacking down their forests, while decimating our own natural heritage
a natural heritage teaming with astonishing flora and fauna, a heritage that if you cut into it a metre deep you'll find deposits laid down the last ice age, it's not something that will come back once its gone
it's easy to be nihilistic and say that it's too late, but the world is a lot nicer place with a bit of optimism, does anyone remember how we turned around a big whole in the top of the earth's atmosphere?
so do make a choice, but do make the right one, while there is still a choice

[womble]

I sat in my front garden with my DD the other day for 10 minutes and watched a mason bee (I think) look for a home in the front of my house, fascinating. I was so happy she could see it, because I don't think I know many people who know what they are.
It's a wonderful world jimbo I agree with you. I promise to hide my pessimism from now on.

[snohare]

CFCs invented in the 50s, banned in the 80s...and the ozone holes are getting bigger again because of all the greenhouse gases keeping the heat in are now cooling the upper atmosphere where the NAT/CFC reactions take place only at sufficiently low temperatures.
The Industrial Revolution started two centuries ago, increasing emissions to this day and no doubt long into the future, and we are beginning to notice the effects of what the early Victorians did to fuel their locos, while Hill and Knowlton (the Ad agency that funded the tobacco "controversy" for so long - "We would have Satan as a client if he would pay us" was their boast) use their old idea of "there is a lot of debate" to muddy the waters. Everything you read in the papers about climate change is years out of date and laughably optimistic, the climatologists acknowledge they are running after an accelerating train.
So yes, we need to enjoy the birds, the bees, and the wildlife. Because as that old consumerist society saying goes, "When it's gone, it's gone !"
This, believe it or not, is me on an optimistic day. Thirty years of reading about climatology will do that to you !

[King Carrot]

CFCs invented in the 50s, banned in the 80s...and the ozone holes are getting bigger again because of all the greenhouse gases keeping the heat in are now cooling the upper atmosphere where the NAT/CFC reactions take place only at sufficiently low temperatures.
The Industrial Revolution started two centuries ago, increasing emissions to this day and no doubt long into the future, and we are beginning to notice the effects of what the early Victorians did to fuel their locos, while Hill and Knowlton (the Ad agency that funded the tobacco "controversy" for so long - "We would have Satan as a client if he would pay us" was their boast) use their old idea of "there is a lot of debate" to muddy the waters. Everything you read in the papers about climate change is years out of date and laughably optimistic, the climatologists acknowledge they are running after an accelerating train.
So yes, we need to enjoy the birds, the bees, and the wildlife. Because as that old consumerist society saying goes, "When it's gone, it's gone !"
This, believe it or not, is me on an optimistic day. Thirty years of reading about climatology will do that to you !

15 pages 3 more bannings - top thread everyone, really enjoying this one