Organic gardening.

[womble]

Did anyone see Tropic of Cancer this week? It had a little clip of the organic gardens in the Cuban slums.

I saw it, veg patch bursting with vegetables! All very green and healthy, every space used. Put mine to shame.

Interesting thread. Very good posts from everyone

I remember watching a Tonight program I think it was where they "proved" that organic veg didn't taste any different to normal. A whole program wasted, I was shouting the whole way through at the tv that it didn't matter, that's not the point.

[HeyWayne]

I'm not academic, or learned enough on the subject to provide an educated answer.

However, I was surprised/swayed by the programmes Jimmy Doherty presented which put forward a case for a mixture of the two.

He was talking on a global scale of course.

[pigletwillie]

I expect the vast majority of people garden like I do, as a pragmatic semi organic gardener. My soil is fed with lots of compost, manure, leafmould and the like. I dont use insecticides but companion plant, I very occasionally use round up and then apply it by hand if I get bindweed in amongst the raspberies. The odd manufactured chemical is used such as sequestered iron to keep the blueberries sitting in acid conditions.

There are those who veer towards total organic status, there are those who veer towards buying shares in ICI but I suspect that most of us lean towards the organic end of the spectrum. My soil is fabulous, its full of worms and even the three beds that I do dig are full of creepy crawlies and I am happy that the healthy soil is providing me healthy veg. On the taste front, If I pick a carrot and munch it straight out of the ground, well there is no better carrot in the world, if I leave it in my pantry for three days it tastes only marginally better than a supermarket one and that difference is probably the psycological fact that its mine and I know it lived in luxury as a free range carrot, not a battery one fed on ready meals.

[zazen999]

I've seen your soil PW - and I have to concur - it is bursting with life. The day my clay lottie beds look anything like that I'll be a happy bunny.

[oldie]

I've been reminded that a farming programme shown sometime in the past couple of years, don't remember exactly, showed a piece of film made in early 1950's showing a farmer ploughing his field and there were dozens of birds following after him feeding. They then showed the same field being plowed in 2003 - not a bird in sight.

[Alison]

I cook 90% of my food from it's contituent base ingredients as I don't want to put loads of unnecessary rubbish into my body. I treat my plot in the same way. By taking an organic approach I am endeavouring to manage my soil (not feeding etc the plants) in the best way I know. I haven't used any weed killer on my abandonned plot, not pesticides or chemical feeds. I don't spray my potatoes as I agree that bordeau mix is horrible stuff although I did have to cross my fingers a lot when some of my outdoor toms got blight last year (luckily didn't spread to the spuds nearby). However, it's not simply a case of natural fertilizers etc v chemical ones, you need to ensure that you get the balance right otherwise you can end up with an unhealthy soil due to excessive addition of, for example, comfrey tea too. It's early days on my plot but I'm comfortable with my approach and the worms seem to like it too as I have far more of the little things this year than when I started last spring.

[organic]

sarraceniac...
...in your peach tree case I'm inclined to agree that Bordeaux Mixture was the right move rather than cutting it down, burning it (digging up the stump and roots?) and starting over.

I'm also in agreement with those who don't really agree that organic is/should be something defined from the top down. That's more "what can we get away with and still give the product a name that can attract a premium price".

My view is more inclined towards being able to grow crops without particularly relying on oil prices (obvious exception made for buying seed at the moment, but eventually I'll be saving my own and that will pretty much cease to be a problem) and being able to improve the soil with every season that passes rather than taking from it. If it doesn't involve monoculture, all the better.

[King Carrot]

I saw it, veg patch bursting with vegetables! All very green and healthy, every space used. Put mine to shame.

Interesting thread. Very good posts from everyone

I remember watching a Tonight program I think it was where they "proved" that organic veg didn't taste any different to normal. A whole program wasted, I was shouting the whole way through at the tv that it didn't matter, that's not the point.

So they proved that the same variety of vegetable grown organically and non organic tasted the same

It would have been interesting if they tested commercial varieties against homegrown heritage/open pollinated varieties - when people taste my veg it really blows their taste buds if they're not used to garden grown - suprising how many people don't realise what they're missing and begin growing veg themselves.

Just like to say top thread - lots of good points and info and no bannings so far, well done everyone

[Flummery]

I can't decide if I'm organic or just tight! I don't buy chemicals for my plot but I add any herbivore poo I can get. I feel my soil is better for it. I know that where only 'bag-muck' has been used (chemical fertilisers) the soil becomes depleted in minor nutrients and trace elements.
We have only one person on our site who sprays against pests (known as Chemical Charlie!) I have to say, he always has the best sprouts though!
Depends what you want from your life.

[organic]

Flummery - that'll be the whitefly.

I saw something the other day about using one of those small, hand held, rechargeable vacuum cleaners to hoover the things off the leaves. Apparently it works really well and keeps the numbers down enough to get stronger sprout plants and a better crop.

Guess what I'll be trying this year!

[pipscariad]

I saw something the other day about using one of those small, hand held, rechargeable vacuum cleaners to hoover the things off the leaves. Apparently it works really well and keeps the numbers down enough to get stronger sprout plants and a better crop.

Guess what I'll be trying this year!

Hey, that sounds like a good idea , I might be tempted to give that one a try too (if I can find the charger for the vac, I never use it at the moment!).

I'm another who falls into the semi-organic catagory, as I am not strict about things, e.g. I've just had a load of muck delivered by a kind farmer, which I know is not organic. I have to say that I wouldn't be happy about using Bordeaux on the spuds either, despite the Organic label.

[Snadger]

Just to expand on my point last night.

Soil consists of [according to RHS studies]
25% air
25% water
45% minerals [so clay, silt, sand]
5% humus [which is the organic part].

The organic part holds the minerals together, and the nutrients in the organic are made available to the plants by being water soluble. [So, the very foundation of your soil].

So, if we take away the air and water part; then if you aren't replacing your organic content then you are potentially losing 10% of the 'solid' part of your soil. Even more if you have sandy soil as clay 'holds' onto the organic and minerals much better due to it's very nature.

Chemicals, as part of a fertilising regime; are held in polymers and non-organic 'carriers. These 'break down' and release the chemicals either when they encounter water or are temperature based [so as the season warms up, the 'nutrients' are released].

So, if you aren't replacing organic material in your soil; and are using chemicals - you are in essence replacing your organic material with plastics.

This may not be an issue if you only use your soil once and throw it away. But you can't actually remove all those plastics/polymers/chemicals/carriers from your own soil system; it stays there and in time will start [as PW says] affecting the worms and micro-organisms which are the vehicles to breaking down the organic in your soil which makes organic nutrients available to the plant. Thus - the more non-organic you add, the more problems you may have.

I'm not talking 'Organic' here [on a list somewhere], I'm talking 'organic' ie from an organic source.

One word springs to mind here.........sustainability!

[zazen999]

One word springs to mind here.........sustainability!

Exactly.

[organic]

I said something earlier about organic food costing extra because it's seen as a premium product. Here's something to back that up.

According to the Soil Association, the market price for organic chicken sold on contract was £1.91 a bird in November 2009... today I saw an organic chicken for sale in Sainsburys for £12.
Even allowing for a pretty big increase in market price that's an absolutely massive markup... over 500% !

I think that gives the real answer about why organic food costs more. They (supermarkets particularly) just charge more for it.

I've not been able to find as straight an answer about the market price of non-organic poultry...everything so far has been about the profit a farmer makes (about 3p a bird or something like that) so can't make a direct comparison, but organic is definitely a premium word so the profit margins will be far higher than the standard stock.


EDIT
I know this discussion was more about veg than livestock, but I believe the same holds true.

[womble]

Flummery - that'll be the whitefly.

I saw something the other day about using one of those small, hand held, rechargeable vacuum cleaners to hoover the things off the leaves. Apparently it works really well and keeps the numbers down enough to get stronger sprout plants and a better crop.

Guess what I'll be trying this year!

I tried it with my henry vacuum last year, after not being able to walk into a brassica patch without a mask on!
Quite a few leaves sucked up by mistake because of the strong suction, but even with that suction it was really hard to get the flies and I'm not sure how much %age I managed to get, maybe 40%?

I had 2 brassica patches, the one with a whitefly problem was the one under enviromesh, while the one without, had a cabbage white problem later on,( after the wasps switched from caterpillars to rotting fruit), but not white fly.
It does seem like it's two steps forward and one (two) step(s) back sometimes!