Are You Really An Organic Gardener?

Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 8:55 am

: Image by Looking for a Lighthouse via Flickr

Gardeners can often claim to be organic, but if you actually lokk closely at their gardening habits, you will discover that they still use certain pesticides on their lawn, or eradicate weeds using herbicides.

To claim to be an organic gardener, you should really be 100% organic – in all of your gardening habits. You do not ever use any of those inexpensive fungicides and pesticides in order to help with your weeding, or to eradicate annoying pests. The garden should be left alone to evolve along with nature, and control over the growth should be measuredl, and properly planned in advance, so that unwanted plants are kept out. You cannot be selectively organic! You can of course be ‘more’ organiic, but don’t shout about it until you completely avoid all pesticides and fungicides!

One great idea is to start growing your own compost at home, as this is the best way (and easy too) to be certain of the ingredients which make up your fertiliser. Have one compost set aside for grass cuttings, and the like. Then invest in a worm factory to compost cooked waste, which produces great nutrition for your plants.

For years in time gone by gardeners felt that nature had to be tamed, in order to allow the desired plants to flourish. There was no such concept as ‘organic gardening’. While some gardeners indeed worked with nature to develop their areas, it was not necessarily the norm.

Whether you are limited to organic ‘container’ gardening, or you want to grow your herbs indoors, try to be organic – you will be rewarded with healthy, chemical-free garden produce.

Don’t waste your money on insecticides, buy new plants instead. I may not be an expert in all facets of the garden, but I know what I want, and I do have a fair idea of what constitutes buiding a succwessful ‘organic’ garden. An organic garden is a ‘healthy’ garden, nurtured in a timely fashion, with no unnatural shortcuts allowed!

Colin West is a full-time garden enthusiast. He has been gardening all of his life, and has recently completed a new ebook on how to Grow Your Own Herb Garden – which is available as a download.