Benefits Of Organic Gardening
What Are The Benefits Of Organic Gardening?
Many people have been seeing the benefits of organic gardening in their lives over the last few decades. It is a way of cultivating plants that does not use artificial chemicals that may damage the planet, kill wildlife and possible injure the health of people who eat the produce that is grown with the aid of these pesticides and weed killers.
It is too soon to be sure what the effects of mass chemically assisted agriculture and genetically modified crops will be, either on consumers or on the earth. They simply have not been around long enough for anybody to be sure. In the face of this uncertainty, more and more people are turning to organically grown fruit and vegetables and meat that has been reared on organic land.
Organic gardening and agriculture is nothing new. In fact, if you go back beyond the last 60 years or so, everything was grown organically because laboratory-produced pesticides and fertilizers simply did not exist.
We tend to think of organic food as a modern trend, but it is not at all. The word is new because there was no need for it before, that is all. The organic way of growing things was practiced throughout history from the time that people first learnt to plant seeds until very recent times. It is the chemicals that are the modern fad.
It was the introduction of the pesticide DDT in farming in the 1950s that led to a turn in public opinion. Books like 'Silent Spring' by the well known natural historian Rachel Carson, published in 1962, started an environmental movement that has grown steadily in the decades since. The book's title came from the discovery that DDT was damaging the egg shells of birds, preventing them from reproducing. At the same time, it killed many of the insects that were their food. Carson envisaged a world where there would be no more bird song.
Largely as a result of this movement, DDT is now illegal in almost all countries. However, many other pesticides are available both to farmers and to us as gardeners, and we cannot know what the long term effects of using them will be.
Most gardeners have a fairly small area of land to nurture, and there is no need to use chemical sprays on our home grown flowers and vegetables. If our tomato crop fails one year, we will not starve. If our honeysuckle becomes diseased, perhaps it is time to replace it with another climbing plant. If our roses are home to more insects than we would like, we can wash them off or encourage their natural predators to inhabit our garden too.
There may be more benefits of organic gardening than we currently know. Isn't it better not to take a chance with our land, our lives and our children's health?
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How to Create & Manage an Organic Garden : Benefits of Organic Gardening
Benefits Of Organic Gardening Items of Interest
The Truth About Organic Gardening: Benefits, Drawbacks, and the Bottom Line
Gardeners tend to assume that any organic product is automatically safe for humans and beneficial to the environment—and in most cases this is true. The problem, as Jeff Gillman points out in this fascinating, well-researched book, is that it is not always true, and the exceptions to the rule can pose a significant threat to human health. To cite just one example, animal manures in compost can be a source of harmful E. coli contamination if imporperly treated. Gillman's contention is that all gardening products and practices—organic and synthetic—need to be examined on a case-by-case basis to determine both whether they are safe and whether they accomplish the task for which they are intended.
Ultimately, Gillman concludes, organic methods are preferable in most situations that gardeners are likely to encounter. After reading this eye-opening book, you will understand why, and why knowledge is the gardener's most important tool.
Secrets to a Successful Greenhouse and Business: A Complete Guide to Starting and Operating a High-Profit Organic or Hydroponic Business That Benefits the EnvironmentA Complete Guide to Starting and Operating a High-Profit Organic or Hydroponic Business That Benefits the Environment. If you ever consider installing a greenhouse, or already have one, this book can help you turn your expenditure into a profitable venture. 2008 edition
Field and Garden Vegetables of AmericaBut, with regard to the characteristics which distinguish the numerous varieties; their difference in size, form, color, quality, and season of perfection; their hardiness, productiveness, and comparative value for cultivation,—these details, a knowledge of which is important as well to the experienced cultivator as to the beginner, have heretofore been obtained only through sources scattered and fragmentary. To supply this deficiency in horticultural literature, I have endeavored, in the following pages, to give full descriptions of the vegetables common to the gardens of this country. It is not, however, presumed that the list is complete, as many varieties, perhaps of much excellence, are comparatively local: never having been described, they are, of course, little known. Neither is the expectation indulged, that all the descriptions will be found perfect; though much allowance must be made in this respect for the influence of soil, locality, and climate, as well as for the difference in taste of different individuals. Much time, labor, and expense have been devoted to secure accuracy of names and synonymes; the seeds of nearly all of the prominent varieties having been imported both from England and France, and planted, in connection with American vegetables of the same name, with reference to this object alone. The delay and patience required in the preparation of a work like the present may be in some degree appreciated from the fact, that in order to obtain some comparatively unimportant particular with regard to the foliage, flower, fruit, or seed, of some obscure and almost unknown plant, it has been found necessary to import the seed or root; to plant, to till, to watch, and wait an entire season. Though some vegetables have been included which have proved of little value either for the table or for agricultural purposes, still it is believed such descriptions will be found by no means unimportant; as a timely knowledge of that which is inferior, or absolutely worthless, is often as advantageous as a knowledge of that which is of positive superiority. That the volume may be acceptable to the agriculturist, seedsman, and to all who may possess, cultivate, or find pleasure in, a garden, is the sincere wish of the author.
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