Organic gardening.

[pigletwillie]

Organic food costs more because there is a lot more waste. Supermarkets up until very recently only wanted perfect fruit and veg. If you cant spray, cant have pelleted seed to prevent damping off of the seedlings and can only sell the perfect specimen then 50%of your crop goes to feed pigs or sold to the catering market.

Thats were the extra cost comes from.

As for chickens, the only reason you can buy 3 for a tenner is cos they are kept in horrendous conditions for 9 weeks then slaughtered. Organic chickens are generally slower growing breeds, fed on much higher costing feed and allowed out to play. You get what you pay for.

[Pumpkin Becki]

I'll hold my hands up and admit that I don't buy organic from the Supermarket. Instead, I try to grow as much as I can myself, buy local produce or Farm Assured meat and poultry.

For me its not about whether organic food tastes better or has more vitamins in it. Its about helping Nature (and by that I mean: the air, the water, the birds, animals, insects, micro-organisms and the very earth we live on and grow in) by improving biodiversity, getting rid of mono-culture farming, and returning to a more sustainable 'local' way of living.

I get irritated by reports in the press or on TV that over simplify what being organic really means, and bring it down to a direct comparison between the end products - its not about that, its about using growing/producing methods that will mean we still have a planet to live on in fifty years time!

Nox, who's next on the soapbox...

[organic]

Womble - maybe not as effective as it seems, then. I'll still be trying it but maybe with a bit less "this'll do the job" attitude.
Half the number of whitefly has to be better for the plants though.

I wonder - if enviromesh was a problem - could it be worth just using the right sized mesh to keep out the cabbage white butterfly? Maybe that way you keep off the botterflies but leave it open to the air. That's all said in the context of the sprouts on my plot when I took it over... open to the air and CRAWLING with whitefly. The dead leaves were never pulled off which probably didn't help... but still.


Pigletwillie - that may be right (and the supermarkets have a LOT to answer for in favouring "perfect" veg - perfect veg is a rarity in the rest of the world - it's a culture shock to many Brits when they walk into a supermarket and all the veg looks "bad") but it still doesn't acocunt for the astronomical markups or the fact independent shops with less purchasing power and better paid staff than a supermarket can sell their organic goods for less than the price of non-organic in a "big 4" supermarket about 300 yards away.

Premium product. Premium prices.

[sarraceniac]

Organic, I've noticed that the big 4 supermarkets sell tinned stuff cheap enough, sell plastic bread products cheap enough, sell alcohol cheap enough but their meat, eggs and veg is usually more expensive than the little shop on the corner that is selling the real thing. I don't know much about micro-economics but assume that it's to do with tempting us in and loss leaders. I can buy half a dozen so-called free range eggs at a local shop for £1.25. At Tesco etc. they are over £2. There we go, letting this informative thread turn into a whinge column, so I'd better shut up.

[organic]

I reckon a LOT would change if the real butchers, grocers, bakers and the like followed a more "open all hours" approach. Maybe not 24 hours, but 9-5 really doesn't make sense in a countries where most women aren't housewives any more.

Those opening hours made perfect sence once upon a time when the women did the shopping while their menfolk were at work, but with most of them out 9-5ing these days things need to change.

I can't see a mad rush of women fighting to get back into the kitchen, so really the little shops with their better produce could do with changing to accomodate. I know a good few people who, when challenged about the evil of supermarkets, say they'd love to shop in independent shops but don't have time to get around them before they close leaving them no choice but supermarkets. One of them is a teacher too... the "cushy job with short hours" is a myth, but even with a theoretical 4pm finish they really don't have time to shop local.

For most people: finish work at 5... get back home by 5:10 in your Moller Skycar... head out to the shops and have 10 minutes to get all your fruit, veg, bread and meat for the week (or even for the day) and you could manage it in a hurry. Since the Moller Skycar is never really going to see the light of day any time soon (if at all) we'll have to factor in the more realistic 30 to 45 minutes commute getting you home after the shops shut (if they even stay upen after 5).

[Bramble_killer]

organic: that's a great point. I think people don't realise their dependence on supermarkets because of the hours they work. We sometimes shop locally when we're around for the weekend but if we're busy then it's off to the supermarket sometime in the week.

I don't really believe in the organic "marketing hype". I do believe in the cycles of nitrogen/oxygen/life. Where things grow, things die, decompose and return to the earth. However, I don't always garden organically. We've used roundup on the garden (we both work long hours and the garden is large) and last year, I was conned into using bordeaux mixture for the blight. It was a while before I realised it would be better using dithane or fungicide instead of introducing a heavy metal to the soil I'd spend ages working on.

I use chemical tomato food (made up) as not all the garden is cleared and things are moving around all the time. Sometimes I buy concentrate seaweed feed but it's just a matter of which one I see first.

good debate

[organic]

I do wonder why more independents haven't cottoned onto the late opening trick yet.

As for blight - I just read something that suggests nettle/comfrey/horsetail tea applied to the leaves can help stop blight spreading - I have no idea if it's true or not but it certainly counts as organic (and better than Bordeaux) if it does.
Something to try, maybe.

[Bramble_killer]

No offence organic but for some people, it's just not feasible to find the time to check on the plants every day. I'd to have the time but today I was on the train to work at 6:42am and arrived home at 6:20pm. So for someone like me, who works full time but really enjoys the growing aspect and trying to be "good", I'd need a reasonable workable alternative. (Maybe an alternative crop to potato and tomato!)

[gojiberry]

I think PW has got it right, and comments are almost a copy of my views and philosophy. I try to be as organic as is practical but if things go wrong I am not opposed to using Growmore although generally I always resort to chicken pellets. But having said that are chicken pellets organic??

Ian

[zazen999]

For anyone really confused about how to set up Organic Gardening on any scale; the Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening is being reissued so there are loads of copies of the existing book [usually costing £18.99] for sale in the Ryton Shop at less than £7.

So if you are in the area, bag yourself a copy. Ryton on Dunsmore, off the A45 Between Rugby and Coventry. CV8 3LG

[pigletwillie]

Pigletwillie - that may be right (and the supermarkets have a LOT to answer for in favouring "perfect" veg - perfect veg is a rarity in the rest of the world - it's a culture shock to many Brits when they walk into a supermarket and all the veg looks "bad") but it still doesn't acocunt for the astronomical markups or the fact independent shops with less purchasing power and better paid staff than a supermarket can sell their organic goods for less than the price of non-organic in a "big 4" supermarket about 300 yards away.

Premium product. Premium prices.

Supermarkets pretend to be cheaper, they most certainly are not, just more convenient.

[womble]

But having said that are chicken pellets organic??

Ian

You can buy both, unsurprisingly, organic are more expensive.

[King Carrot]

Supermarkets pretend to be cheaper, they most certainly are not, just more convenient.

Nail on Head

[organic]

Yep - agreed that you're spot on there, PW.
I still think it gives a fascinating insight into just how much profit is in supermarkets when you see the kind of markups they have.

The organic grocers I've been mentioning (Unicorn) have an ethical basis that exetnds to paying fair prices to their producers... even without screwing farmers to the ground with miniscule profits (if not losses), with well paid staff and with a preference to organic produce where available they manage to price organic products below the supermarket's non-organic ones. I know supermarkets aren't cheap but it's a good parallel to draw. Compared to normal (but non organic) grocers and the likes Unicorn still compares favourably. I really do think it comes down to the issue of "premium product = premium price".

[Alison]

The organic grocers I've been mentioning (Unicorn) have an ethical basis that exetnds to paying fair prices to their producers... even without screwing farmers to the ground with miniscule profits (if not losses), with well paid staff and with a preference to organic produce where available they manage to price organic products below the supermarket's non-organic ones. I know supermarkets aren't cheap but it's a good parallel to draw. Compared to normal (but non organic) grocers and the likes Unicorn still compares favourably. I really do think it comes down to the issue of "premium product = premium price".

Ah Unicorn, I love that place. Used to work not far away and bought all my dry good in bulk from there. Not been in ages as I don't go over that way very often.