What Makes Organic Gardening Different?

Organic gardening for me, is about a balance between the plants and nature. The balance of healthy soil, to grow healthy plants or vegetables and working WITH nature to provide that balance.

There are some ‘experts’ that would have you believe, organic gardening is complex, swapping one zap commercial spray for another home made ‘green’ spray. This approach, is missing the point of organic gardening, which is to let nature do its own job. She will help you create a garden of eden, in your own piece of paradise, she will do it gently and all for a little bit of effort on your part.

I will not tell you that you have to remove every weed, or till your soil until it is like sifted flour, and I will certainly not tell you how to get rid of every pest that happens it’s way into your garden.

I believe if your vegetables or plants are showing signs of stress, they are either planted in the wrong place, planted at the wrong time or not getting the right nutrition

Plants and vegetables need to grow naturally, they will taste better and look natural, with all the bumps and blemishes they sustain in their life. We have become programmed to want uniform shapes, sizes and colour’s in the produce we buy from the local supermarket.

But, do you know, for example, how many apples are wasted to get the one which is a ‘perfect’ shape, size and and uniform colour. This aspect of ‘consumer wants’ and just how much growers are willing to sacrifice, was really brought home to me in the summer, when we went to pick ‘windfall’ apples for our animals.

We got TONS, honestly, all discarded, perfectly good apples left on the ground to rot because they didn’t meet consumer’s wishes for the ‘perfect’ apple every time.

This is NOT organic gardening, because organic gardening would embrace those discards as the fruit nature provided. What I am trying to say is, let your garden grow naturally, it is natural to have a few weeds, insects and the odd funny shaped offering. Just like life, we are not all the same, but that doesn’t make us any less of a human being, does it?

Feed your soil, with mulch, compost and manure. Give it time to breathe and the plants and vegetables you wish to grow, will. Let the micro-life of your soil be your pest control, it will attract good and bad pests, let mother nature do her thing, she KNOWS what to do!

Nurture your soil back to life, watch it, listen to it and act accordingly. It really is all about common sense and experimenting with different things to see what works better in your micro-climate. Have you ever had rain at your house, but, when you rang a friend who lives down the road and round the corner, found they hadn’t had any rain?

Organic gardening it just like that, what works for one person, may or may not work for another, it is a matter of finding your own gardens balance with the tools nature provides you with. And the best bit, not a chemical or commercial fertiliser in sight, all from mother nature, and all free. Except the price of the seeds in the first instance!!

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