Is Organic Gardening A Myth, A Dream Or Just Trendy ?

mjr600

This forum has often raised a number of points about everyone improves their soil, flowers, veg and containers. Plants need twelve main nutrients to grow well, does it really matter if those nutrients are introduced by composted matter, chemical fertiliser or nettle juice? On my plot, for both veg and flowers we use composted matter, used growbags, Growmore, 'Dungen' (thanks Lidl), bark chips, grass clippings and soil improver (described as organic). When the plant gets round to sucking the nutrients through its roots does it really matter how it got there ? When people say 'I want to be organic' do they really know what they mean ? I think there is huge confusion about and in some cases a desire to appear to be conforming with the current media led 'organic' bandwagon. All views welcome.

Lotus-eater

Oooo trendy, definitely :rotfl:

But seriously, I don't want to be eating insecticides thanks and chemical fertilizer is well known for not putting anything into the soil and running off into streams.
I think being organic means a different thing for everyone.

olly300

I think trendy.

I use a mixture of organic and inorganic stuff in my garden, and while I'm happy to use bug spray on my flowers I'm not happy to use it on anything I planning to eat. (At the moment all my edible plants are in containers and most are still inside.)

Also lots of people use things like chicken pellets and blood, fish and bone meal which while they can be organic may not be.

*MF*

Just a thought in passing ...

For about 4bn years, nature could not be anything but organic, is it not us who introduced the inorganic element?

Solomon_Broad

I'm inclined to think that it's much easier to overfeed with chemical fertilizers. That said, any kind of large scale input of horse manure (for example) is going to have an effect.

As for weedkillers and pesticides - I'd rather not use something that is designed to kill around my food crops. Or round anything, in fact. Too many times these chemicals are marketed as "safe" and then withdrawn from sale later on.

I don't suppose the plant really cares where the nitrogen comes from. But I'd rather have a smaller tomato that's grown with love and care than something that's been "forced" to grow by using unnatural procedures.

It might sound hippy-dippy, but I want the things (animals, plants, children, whatever) I grow to have as good a quality of life as possible. I think the organic way of growing promotes caring about the plant, as opposed to caring how many tomatoes you can get off a bush in one season.

Lotus-eater

From another thread
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=11201713&postcount=91

This thread post 91
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=929851&page=5

A._Badger

I've been through the organic thing and seem to have emerged out at the other side!

Thirty years ago I read one of Lawrence Hills books and thought it made sense. I went from there to Soil Association membership, ate organic food when I could (it was a lot harder to find then, let alone impossibly expensive and frequently of poor quality).

But time doesn't stand still and the more I read, the more I realised that so much of what I was being told was simply based on a neo-pastoral dream, rather than anything properly grounded (sorry!) in science. In fact a lot of it was political (in the broadest sense) being about a rejection of modern, materialist society, as much as horticulture.

I'm now more or less back where I started, looking after the soil with plenty of humus, avoiding insecticides unless I have to use them (in which case I do) and happily feeding with whatever works best - often unashamedly 'chemical' (as if they were't all chemical!) products like the Chempak range, good old Phostrogen, or Growmore.

Lotus-eater

Your names not Johnboy by any chance is it

Seriously, Do you still think L. Hills books make sense?

A._Badger

Sorry, I don't understand the JohnBoy reference (must be old age, or something!).

As for Lawrence Hills, that's a very interesting question and one I couldn't give a fair answer to unless I read him again.

On the hoof, as it were, I've come to the conclusion that the organic brigade is partly right. If you just chuck straight nitrogenous fertilisers onto the ground (as was the case with farmers in the 1950s and '60s) you will get massive crops at first and then decreasing yields as the condition of the soil deteriorates and the myriad micro-organisms that are essential for healthy soil die.

If, on the other hand, you use 'chemical' fertilisers with discretion and continue to add a lot of bulky organic matter, too - well, I really don't think a plant can distinguish between 'organic'; and 'chemical' potassium!


In short, I believe soil condition matters a great deal more than the source of the fertilisers applied to it.

JWF

A Badger, thats pretty much my thoughts - as well as maintaining a healthy soil biodiversity I also feel that general biodiversity in the garden will help maintain a balanced ecosystem locally, hopefully ensuring that although there will be low levels of pests most of the time there won't be any plagues of greenfly or other pests.

If you look at my lawn you can see that it contains a large variety of 'weeds' which also add a little bit of colour at different times of the year.

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

Trendy,without a doubt.At least though it's a trend that makes sense for a a change.