What s classed as organic ?

[carly]

So I have always tried to be as environmentally friendly as possible and prefer to eat veg I know has no chemicals used in the growing process.
But what actually counts as organic?

I have done 2 things this year....
1. Used nematodes ( but have been using this for 4 years )
2. Companion planting ( new this year)
3. Did have some aphids on the plants in greenhouse and decided to try ladybird larvae. This was a new thing 1 week ago.... took me 2 hours to put them on the plants and I was curious as to whether it would actually work..... but after 4 days I am 80% aphid free and they are growing into adults.... I look each day and can see them moving onto the other leaves and they have covered a wide area.

I do feed the plants with tomatorite which I’m not sure if is counted as organic?

Anyway... looking to see what the standard is and to get ideas for next year.

Thank you

[Thelma Sanders]

Garden Organic have listed the main principles here
https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/principles

Lots of sensible advice as well on their site.

[bikermike]

IMO:
Unless you're selling them, whether you comply with the precise term "organic" doesn't matter - it's a line in the sand to allow consumers to have a fair idea of what is going on and for which a premium is chargeable.

If you use one non-organic-compliant product, your tomatoes don't become worthless or inedible, it is just something to take steps to avoid.

By growing it at home in a non-aggressive manner you are probably being for environmentally-friendly than buying organic veg in the supermarket anyway, as you cut out all the transportation and packaging damage.

I don't use any non-organic-compliant materials on my crops, as far as I know. but even if I did use one accidentally/non-regularly, I'd still consider that crop to be an environmentally-beneficial one.