should i be growing organically?

[zazen999]

I don't think he is after a certificate! Just musing over whether not to use artificial pesticides/fertilisers or not.

[VirginVegGrower]

I started growing when I had younger children, as I didn't want them eating sprayed veg or GM foods. I grow organically but you don't know what's been put onto/into your soil before you. I won't spray against pest and just write off to nature any holes in brassicas, etc. People get too hung up on having perfect veg. We've bought from farm shops (organic) for years before we GYO, so were used to knobbly, raggy looking items.
The choice is yours ultimately!

[Sarico]

I started growing when I had younger children, as I didn't want them eating sprayed veg or GM foods. I grow organically but you don't know what's been put onto/into your soil before you. I won't spray against pest and just write off to nature any holes in brassicas, etc. People get too hung up on having perfect veg. We've bought from farm shops (organic) for years before we GYO, so were used to knobbly, raggy looking items.
The choice is yours ultimately!

you are right.. i remember my grandma used to say that is better to eat an apple with an hole than one that is shiny because that means that any animal wouldn't eat the shiny one because is not heathy..
what i also think just do what you think is right for you... i wish i can do 100% organically but i can't because i grow in container and for the first time so i will use artificial fertilizer but when i will get my wormery i will use worm juice as food...
but i'm 100% pesticide free because i don't want to eat food with chemical on it. what i will try to do is prevent fly and other pest with net and i spray often my plant with a garlic spray and it look like it works....

[Newton]

I'm into my third year of GYO. In my first year I just wanted to grow my own. I tried sq ft and used peat in the soli mix. I didn't realise the environmental impact

Year two I bought and used a rotorvater. Great fun....nice tilth....loads of weeds followed the rotorvation.

This year I'm mulching. Not digging and following a no peat route. Raised beds with sides........

I have learned so much through this website. Reading and youtube!

Enjoy growing for whatever reason you have started. Your food will taste better no matter. You will feel real satisfaction from growing it. And you will gontinue to grow.......

[Snadger]

Nowt the matter with the likes of National Growmore, it was developed for the 'Dig for Victory' campaign of WW2 and was advocated by the government as a a cheap fertiliser to help plant growth and feed the masses. It is an inorganic balanced fertiliser which did its job in the 1940's and is still sold today.

The organic equivalent is, and always has been blood/fish/bone meal.

[Ian_5]

Thanks, lots of good stuff there, all of which helps. As i mentioned at the top I've never really been concerned about it, I'm a chemist (not in this field hence the questions!) and there are benefits to be had but I'm mindful of the potential to build up in foodstuffs.

Sounds like there are options for fertilisers which are long standing and fair to consider safe - thanks for this.

my biggest concern is probably slug pellets... i think my garden would be better suited to farming escargot than for growing veg. any thoughts on these specifically?

[Sarico]

slug trap filled woth beer is a good option... but if you have a lot i don't know if will work...the best that i've heard is take a torch and go out night time and pick them up.. but if you garden is very big i think it will take a long time...i forgot hedghog love them but where to find them or attract them to you garden i don't know

[dod]

I try to not to use any pesticides as far as is reasonable, but also accept that some of these chemicals are actually very effective. I will occasionally use a herbicide or insecticide, although only for a specific purpose. I also try, as far as possible, not to use anything that is likely to be persistent or appreciably toxic to mammals (and other higher organisms). So whilst I would never use anything like DDT or HCB, I'm not too concenred about the occasional use of a bit of glyphosate. I would probably also try to avoid any systemic treatments.

It certainly doesn't do any harm to understand a little about what you are using, or planning to use, and there is plenty of information available for somebody with the skills to understand it to enable you to make a decision as to whether any particular pesticide product is something that you are comfortable using (and eating?)

[Kaiya]

Re: GM crops, if we hadn't taken advantage of a mutated wheat who's ears don't fall off, we wouldn't have developed wheat farming (and arguably civilisation). The mutated wheat would not survive/thrive on it's own, it needs us apes to pick off the ears and put them back in the ground. We've been selecting for and promoting mutants for millenia. Proper GM (where DNA is injected at a cell level) is a bit weirder as at least with breeding by selection/crossing you weed out the real dodgy mutants, but it can be viewed by some as a faster version of breeding by selection/crossing. My issue with GM (or even selective breeding such as in cattle) is creating monocultures - genetic diversity is needed to survive new diseases. The fact that there are GM carrots around doesn't bother me as the carrots of the world in general remain diverse.

I think with organic it depends on your soil, your pests and what you want out of it. If you're on low fertility soil, plagued by slugs and want to feed a family of five off a single plot, maybe you may need at some point to resort to inorganic support in an area. If however you're on an alluvial plane, slugs seem to be uncommon and you're doing it to supplement your diet, you probably don't need much at all, and can use non-chemical or organic methods if you do need support. I'm on clay, pests seem to be uncommon (maybe all my neighbours are going crazy on the pesticides and my plot is protected by that) and we're just supplementing our diet and improving our quality of life so I have some BFB that I probably don't need and my main issue is that the weeds love the environment as much as the crops do; I have no reason to reach for even basic inorganic fertilisers, pesticides or herbicides.

I never have actually. Even when container gardening in previous years (mostly tomatoes - I wasn't very adventurous) the MPC in the pots provided most of the food. I think I bought some tomatorite once - can't remember using it though. Hydrogels were my guilty non-environmental addition for containers and grow bags - essential for going on holiday if you don't have reliable gardening friends. And peat I was ignorant about.

[bearded bloke]

Slugs,do you have space to build an environment for their natural surface predators ? pond for frogs or maybe a nice pile of old logs & twigs in a shady area for toads to live in.
Or there are the ever present "blue smarties" & if you are feeling affluent nematodes

[Alison]

I firmly believe that there is a lot we don't know about the chemicals we can buy in the local shop and to be honest if you look after your soil and treat it properly then you don't need them. I want to be confident in what I'm eating, to know exactly how it has been grown and promoting different and diverse varieties is also important to me. Woulnd't touch anything GM given the chance either but will quite happily naturally select strong plants for seed saving - totally different thing. One further benefit to me is to encourage wildlife and the benefits to my own personal health (mental and physical) of working outside and I'd rather be gardening than spraying . That said, this is my opinion and others come at things from a different stance. I do however remember my old granddad telling me as a kid that often one pesticide will kill the pest but also the preditors so next year you have to add more and it becomes a vicious circle, if you encourage the preditors (I have a pond full of frogs and toads to eat my slugs) then they do your work for you.

[Two_Sheds]

If you saw how a lot of so called 'organic' food was produced you'd be sick.

Oh? Links please ... *concerned*

my garden would be better suited to farming escargot than for growing veg. any thoughts on these specifically?

There are too many old threads on slugs & snails to mention. Have a search through the old ones (Weeds, Pests & Diseases).
In a nutshell, don't provide the habitat that they prefer (warm, dark & damp).

[jacob]

[Starting point, everything in the garden is organic, except one or two bags of potting compost a year, and the original seed.]

So there's three types of non-organicness: fertiliser, pest/herb-isides and GM.

Can someone remind me of the issues around fertiliser? (Beyond the feeling it gives me that I'm eating that, not the veg produce!)

[taff]

hmm....I've been using up the chemically made fertiliser just because I hate throwing things away. It's chemcically made, not organically made, hence the not organic thingy [I think...someone will be along....] but I have used it ont he roses, the plum tree, and on some tomatoes.
I did use bordeaux mixture last year on some toms, but to be honest, it wasn't worth it, and I won't be bothering this year. It's only when it's really cool and wet that they get it, and the year they did get it was just expecially bad.

[Two_Sheds]

remind me of the issues around fertiliser?

Well, for me ~ I like to reduce my dependence on oil (I don't want soldiers or polar bears dying so we can continue to have cheap oil) Synthetic fertilisers are petroleum-based. Then there are air miles, to shift it all around the world. Then, my money's going to profit companies who possibly don't share my idealistic view.

I have abundant (free) natural fertilisers available to me: nettles, comfrey, borage, dandelion roots, couch roots ... so I like to use those.