Traditional Verses Organic Vegetable Garden

Traditional Verses Organic Vegetable Garden

By Jean Jacobson



I guess its that time of year again when we start building or planting a garden! How about a fresh new look and plan to grow an organic garden? One that doesn’t need a lot of work like digging hoeing, and then spending hours of time weeding your garden. It doesn’t need to be the way we usually do our gardening! Jonathan White an environmental scientist tells you all about how to grow a garden without a lot of fuss and bother! All of the vegetables he grows are organic ones too. Sounds good? He asks in his article "Does a forest need to think how to grow? Does its soil need to be turned every season? Does someone come along every so often and plant seeds or take pH tests? Does it get weeded or sprayed with toxic chemicals? Of course not!"

Traditional vegetable gardening creates lots of problems that need attention. For instance how do I fix this, or that and the answers probably create more problems by giving advice on using this or that kind of fertilizer or chemicals. This can escalate into lots of different problems. In a traditional garden we plant rows of different vegetables, etc. In a forest every inch of space has some vegitation on it. If there is a bare patch something is sure to start growing on it as nature does not tolerate empty spaces. (Just think of the weeds that grow between the rows and between what you are growing.). Now we use a hoe to get rid of the weeds. Right? But turning over the soil excites weed seeds and creates more weeds! The top layer of soil is usually dry and structure less. By turning it you are putting the good soil (structured soil) on top and placing the dry (structure less) soil underneath. Thus you need to water more as the dry soil doesn’t have the moisture holding capacity that the top layer had. Over time you have more and more of this structure less soil on top! Then you need more fertilizer and chemicals to grow your garden.

To add to this problem the structure less soil cannot pass on the nutrients to the plants as effectively. Many fertilizers kill the soil biology which is important to building your soil up so your plants can be more nutritious. This type of soil cannot pass its nutrients to the plants as it should do, so now we need to water and fertilize the soil. Dr Tim Lobstein, Director of the Food Commission said "today’s agriculture does not allow the soil to enrich itself, but depends on chemical fertilizers that don’t replace the wide variety of nutrients plants and humans need." Over years these methods have reduced the nutrients and mineral contents in the food.

How do we fix the problem? Well, there is a solution by using a technique that combine pest, plant, soil and crop management into a method that addresses the cause of these problems. The technique must be efficient enough to be economically viable. It also should be able to produce enough food to compete against traditional techniques..

Mr. White has been testing a method for several years which uses no tillage, no chemicals and has minimal weeds and requires a fraction of physical attention. It will produce several times more per given area and will provide food every day of the year.. The method he has devised looks and acts like a natural ecosystem. Succession layering of plants offers natural pest management. It eliminates the need for crop rotation, resting beds or green manure crops. Soil management is addressed in a natural way and the result is that the soil structure and management get richer every year. Another benefit is that it is regenerated through self seeding. This occurs naturally as dormant seeds germinate filling empty space with desirable plants and not weeds.

However, the challenge rests in convincing traditional gardeners of its benefits. This ecologically based method requires such little human intervention that many people don’t feel in control and tend to go back to weeding, hoeing, etc. Have a little faith in nature and let nature take the reins. However, in Mr. Whites experience these natural laws are 100% reliable.

This is the way people will be growing their food in the future. Why wouldn’t we use a method that produces many times more food with a fraction of the effort? Just let nature take its course. Please click here to learn more about this interesting subject: http://5f9ec84myej9us9jgdneemdz7g.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=WLN755





Taken from an article written by Jonathan White, environmental scientist.