How To Go Organic

Organic growing:

Many pesticides and insecticides that were in use to fight pest and diseases last year have now been banned. Over 100 hazardous active ingredients have been taken off the EU market for health and environmental reasons. The list is far too many to record here. This is going to make it more and more difficult to garden and use sprays to control your problems.

So maybe it is now time to start gardening organically, even if you have never thought of doing so before. Knowing the basic principles of the organic way of doing things will stand you in good stead and the Spring is a good time to start.

The whole idea is to use the strengths and characteristics of your garden to get get the most out of it. That means only choosing plants that are suitable for your garden conditions and avoiding growing anything that requires extra work and artificial help.

There is nothing to be afraid of, people have been growing so called organic food since the dawn of time. It was only since the Second World War that chemical options were available. There are still a lot of good growers about who know what they are doing. Ask around you are bound to find one who will be more then willing to help you.

The most difficult thing is too start and give it a go.

Weeds are the easiest thing to start with. Stop spraying them and get your hoe out every week and hoe round your beds.. I have two full size plots and it takes me about half an hour a week to do them both. I have one rule on my plot as regards weeds and that is:  Do not grow them!

As for bugs I check my plants every five days and spray them with a mixture of Aloe Vera MPD and water with a bit of washing up liquid thrown in.  

Obviously there is a lot more to it than that: a lot is learnt just by starting. When things go wrong, which they will, find out how to fix it and do so.

The easiest way to start is to plant some potatoes and follow that with leeks.

Growing Organic isn’t a quick fix to acquiring freshly grown fruit and vegetables but is a life changing activity that is well worth the time and effort dedicated to it.

What I am doing on my plot:

Sowing  hardy annuals right now. I make a fine surface by using the rake vigorously and thinly broadcast the seeds on it.

I am cleaning up and putting compost on my Asparagus. 

If you are thinking of putting in Asparagus now is a good time. Make sure you get it right because the plants will be there for a long long time. 

The importance of trenching, or at least doubling -digging the site ,need not be overemphasized. A bed of about five feet wide is ideal, because this will contain three rows of plants 18 inches apart. Allow one foot from crown to crown in the row itself.

I grow a lot of potatoes in large pots and so this week I have been renewing the soil in them. This is just a question of emptying the pots onto one of my beds and putting the soil from the bed into the pots.

A neighbor of mine two plots down from mine has given up and he said I could take anything off his plot that  I might need. He has quite a lot of useful wood and some paving slaps which I would find useful. So I am moving it onto my plot.

Very kind of him. 

Thoughts while digging:

If you read scripture you can clearly see that God is not nice; God is not your Uncle in fact God is an earthquake which does rather pull the rug out from under me and I wonder just where that leaves me?-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------