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To put it lightly, organic gardening is taking the world by storm and doesn't show any signs of slowing down. People want their vegetables and they want to know where they are being grown. |
Organic Gardening Is Taking The Vegetable World By Storm
The Organic Garden
The online enclypedia, Wikipedia tm states that organic horticulture is ... "the science and art of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, or ornamental plants by following the essential principles of organic agriculture in soil building and conservation, pest management, and heirloom varity preservation. The Latin words hortus (garden plant) and cultura (culture) together form horticulture, classically defined as the culture or growing of garden plants. Horticulture is also sometimes defined simply as “agriculture minus the plough.” Instead of the plough, horticulture makes use of human labour and gardener’s hand tools, although small small machine tools like rotary tillers are common now."
I started off organic herb gardening about a year ago. I didn't really think about it as organic. I just bought a little bit of dirt, threw in some seeds, and grew them in a windowsill box. I didn't want to get any artificial fertilizers because they seemed unnecessary and costly, and the dirt that I got was all-natural and locally harvested.
The herbs were out of this world. If you are new to organic gardening, I recommend that you grow herbs. There's nothing that adds zest to your food like having fresh, homegrown, high quality herbs.
How I Began Organic Gardening
Anyway, to get back to my story, I sort of got involved in organic gardening by steps. A friend of mine owned an organic garden, and she asked me what I used to grow my herbs. When I told her, she was surprised with me. Apparently, most people apply miracle grow or some other artificial fertilizer without thinking about whether or not they need it.
I was scared to take the next
step because I thought I had what I would call a
brown thumb. To tell the truth I had never
been very good at keeping plants alive when I was
growing up,
She taught me some organic pest control methods to deal with aphids and soon I had several healthy crops going. Don't get me wrong – I made a few mistakes. For one thing, I over-watered the tomatoes.
Organic Gardening Does Not Mean To Drown Your Vegetable Plants
They kept looking brown and wilted, so I figured they needed more water. Later I found out that I had just the opposite problem. My tomatoes were unhappy because they had too much water!
Still, for the most part my gardening worked out well. I was surprised by how manageable organic gardening was. It really wasn't any more difficult than growing a conventional garden, and it only cost a bit more. Still, I had one more question ...
Is Organic Gardening Always Safe?
Every where you turn today people are talking about organic gardening and the healthy benefits of eating organically grown fruits and veggies. However, are organic grown vegetables and fruits as healthy and safe as people claim? The information contained in this article will provide you with food for thought.
In a recent study, done by United Kingdom scientist, revealed that almost 33% of the food being sold in the UK had measurable levels of pesticide and chemicals used in crop enhancement, which are dangerous to the human body. In addition the same study indicated that almost all developed countries, through out the world, had approximately the same levels of contamination. Unfortunately this included organically grown food as well.
Check Your Ground Water Flowing Under Your Organic Garden
The primary reason for this contamination was due to the ground water which the plants consume. This is from years and years of chemical pesticides and chemical fertilizer being dumped on the ground, to enhance the yield and speed the growth of the produce, then leeching into the ground water table.
One Possible Solution To The Water Problem
The only way your organic gardening can avoid this water is to use filtered water or distilled water. However using distilled water means your produce will be short on certain nutrients vital to the health of your body. In addition to the ground water the contamination is also caused by the wind currents.
Pesticides And The Wind
Much of the pesticides and fertilizers applied to the crops are sprayed on. Consequently, the mist of chemicals is caught by the wind and can be carried a good distance before dropping to the earth. If your organic garden happens to be in the path of the wind your plants will become covered with the synthetic pesticides and fertilizer.
Other studies have shown that these same pesticides and other chemicals, over a period of years or even months can cause health problems in the human body. It is now believed that these chemicals can affect the brain development of unborn babies in the mother’s womb.
In addition these chemicals have been linked to certain kinds of cancer, breakdown of the nervous system, weakening of the immune system and other diseases which can destroy the vital organs of the human body.
Organic Gardening And Washing Vegetables
Perhaps you believe that washing of your veggies will protect you, but this is not necessarily the case. These same studies have also indicated that certain fruits and vegetables are susceptible to these same chemicals leeching into the meat of these veggies and fruits through the skin.
An example of this kind or fruit would be lemons or grapefruit. In this case organic produce would really be much safer than the regular grown fruit.
Final Thought About Organic Vegetable Garden Safety
As you can tell from reading the above information organic gardening may not be quite as safe as you thought it was. However, with the proper precautions, such as always washing the veggies and fruits prior to preparing or eating, will reduce the risk of ingesting dangerous chemicals.
Selecting Fertilizer For Organic Gardens
Organic fertilizer was readily available, and I was able to use compost to supplement it. The best thing was having my own organically grown vegetables at the end of the season. The results have been worth the trouble in my case.
My Home Grown Treats
Fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, lettuce, and a few other veggies filled my pantry. I felt like I was eating seriously gourmet food, and best of all I had grown it all myself. You can too!
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