Organic-Gardening-Part 1 - The Other Side
Not so long ago, many people believed that Organic Gardening , meant - chanting, naked under a full moon, with candles and bells. Thankfully, these-days, common-sense and a little less of 'old wives tales' and 'voodoo' prevails. Organic gardening, is about utilising and observing the laws of nature, in order to produce healthy, strong, pest and disease resistant plants, that look and taste better, too. What it is not, is banning of all chemicals and hugging trees, although this is available to you should you wish.
Gardening Organically is nothing new. Prior to World War 2, most gardening and for that matter, farming, was based on organic principles - for the simple reason that, nobody knew any other way. The prolific use of chemicals for food production actually came about by accident. With chemicals being trialed and indeed used in warfare , in some instances, it became noticed that after their use - plants in the vicinity actually grew at an alarming rate. Phosphorus was used in making explosives and the like. Phosphates are a major part of chemical fertilisers.
In times of war, when food is becoming scarce, something that can make plants produce faster and with a greater harvestable result - is not to be frowned upon. So, of course, after the war, quicker crops meant greater things for the economics of a country. No one knew, nor could have known what the long term effects could be.
The actual calorific value of the food produced with chemicals, is in fact fairly low - as chemicals by their very nature, swell a plants cells allowing more water to be taken up, therefore giving the
impression of a bountious crop. This is false food. Not to be forgotten - the fact that many chemicals are residual within a crop and the soil. The ingestion of such food cannot be good for you. As we now are aware.
Chemical pesticides, are also residual and there are some farmlands in the modern world, that have been locked-up, banned from farming use, in perpetuity - due to the amount of pesticides bound up in the soil. One of the real hazards of artificial fertiliser use, is that you have to keep using it, in greater and greater quantities, in order to attain
the same results as previous. This then leads to infertility of the land - basically, it becomes exhausted. This, in turn leads to the use of more and more pesticides - as, the land in its weakened state is now more open to attack from pests and disease. Thus has begun the perpetual cycle - greater use and stronger fertilisers, more frequent and stronger applications of pesticides. Costing more and more to produce less and less.
The overall detriment to our health, through the over-use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, is well documented. There is no need for me to bang on about it here. Rather, if you follow on to Part 2, I shall explain some of the keys to Organic Gardening.
