Organic Gardening For Beginners

Anthony Ekanem

• Publisher: Anthony Ekanem
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9783961123575
• Topic: Ciencias biológicas
• Subtopic: Horticultura

For some people, gardening is a passion. Some people garden just as a hobby. For still others, it's a way to feed their families. We think Shirley MacClaine's character in "Steel Magnolias" said it best. "Because that's what Southern women do – we wear funny hats and grow things in the dirt."You don't have to be from the South or be a woman, or even wear a funny hat to enjoy gardening. The thrill of seeing your first red, ripe tomato or watching your first stalk of corn reach from the ground can be an amazing experience for many people.Gardening is also a great way to provide healthy food for you and your loved ones. When you buy produce from the store, it just isn't the same as presenting a salad to your family that came exclusively from your garden worked by your own two hands.Many people choose to garden so they can have control over what type of food they eat without fear of chemicals or preservatives. Often, commercially grown produce is cultivated in greenhouses with the use of pesticides and chemicals to enhance their growth.A quick study on these types of artificial applications can be unnerving for anyone. The side effects of chemical pesticides on the human body can truly take its toll. So many people are jumping on the "organic bandwagon" as a way to minimize the risks to themselves and their loved ones that often comes with commercially prepared foods. You don't have to be a health nut to embrace organic gardening. Imagine the wonderful way you'll feel knowing that you are serving foods that were grown all naturally without the risks that come from applying chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Chapter 1

Why Garden Organically?

As recent as 25 years ago, the idea of organic gardening was considered quite a radical concept. How in the world were gardeners expected to control the weeds, the bugs, and the animals that could threaten a thriving garden without the use of man-made chemicals?

When you think about it, organic gardening is a really simply theory. For years, people have been growing things without the use of chemicals. The early settlers of our country didn’t have Miracle-Gro or Sevin Dust and they made out just fine.

It only makes sense that we should be able to apply the same techniques and get the same results as they did today. We should grow food using Mother Nature's ingredients rather than concoctions born in a chemist's laboratory for the good of all of us.

But the interest in organic gardening goes beyond just the benefits for us and our families. There has been a rise in the interest of ecology and concern about the environment that has given new life to the renewed interest in this form of gardening. By using natural minerals and materials, by taking advantage of natural predators, and by recycling garden waste, the home gardener can maintain an organic garden quite successfully.

There are many, many advantages to gardening organically. Probably first and foremost is that Food produced using organic agriculture is more nourishing and more healthful.

In early August, 2001, the British organization, The Soil Association, reported that a comprehensive review of existing research revealed significant differences between organically and non-organically grown food. These differences relate to food safety, primary nutrients, secondary nutrients and the health outcomes of the people who eat organically.

Vitamin C and dry matter contents are higher, on average, in organically grown crops then they are in non-organic crops. Mineral contents are also higher, on average, in organically grown crops. Food grown organically contains "substantially higher concentrations of antioxidants and other health promoting compounds than crops produced with pesticides.

Many people think that organically grown foods taste better. Also, some foods grown without pesticides produce a higher amount of an anti-oxidant that has been found to reduce the risk of some cancers.

Overall, though, most people who enjoy organic gardening report that the enjoyment they derive is paramount to their decision to eschew chemicals in favor of the all-natural route. Many people like to watch the tender new growth come to full maturity and, as a bonus, you get to eat it!

With organic gardening, you get extra fresh vegetables. Naturally, corn on the cob and newly picked peas are especially noticeable, but this trait extends to all vegetables you grow yourself, especially under the organic method. A phenomenon noted by most people when harvesting their very first vegetables from their very first garden is that everyone eats much more of a given vegetable than they would of a similar store bought variety.

You will save money not only by growing your own food, but you can even make a little extra cash on the side by selling your own all-natural foods that are so popular in the grocery stores these days. If you have canned all the tomatoes you can and still have bushels left over, you can take the extra to the farmer’s market and sell your organic tomatoes to others who don’t have the advantage of their own garden.

For any gardener who still hasn't been convinced about the need to garden organically, here are some statistics that may help change your mind. In March of 2001, the American Cancer Society published a report linking the use of the herbicide glyphosate (commonly sold as Round-up) with a 27% increased likelihood of contracting Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.

John Hopkins University also revealed that home gardeners use almost 10 times more pesticide per acre than the average farmer and that diseases caused by environmental illness, exposure to chemicals etc., is now the number one cause of death in the U.S. With the EPA's recent phasing out of common pesticides such as Dursban and Diazinon, we are now realizing that many of the chemicals that we thought were "safe" were never actually tested to see what their effect on children, women, and the elderly could be. The time has come to reassess our dependence on pesticides.

However, you may be asking why are chemicals so bad if we’ve been using them for years and years?

The Risk of Chemicals

We have chemicals in our everyday lives everywhere. Shampoo, toothpaste, many foods, even our clothing all contain or are manufactured with the use of chemicals. Besides polluting the environment, the use of chemicals can be much more threatening. But we’re concentrating on gardening and the use of these chemicals on our food. One of the prominent ways chemicals are used in food production is through chemical fertilizers.

Chemical fertilizers are quick-acting, short-term plant boosters and are responsible for:

Deterioration of soil friability creating hardpans soil

Destruction of beneficial soil life, including earthworms

Altering vitamin and protein content of certain crops

Making certain crops more vulnerable to diseases

Preventing plants from absorbing some needed minerals.

The soil must be regarded as a living organism. An acid fertilizer, because of its acids, dissolves the cementing material, made up of the dead bodies of soil organisms, which holds the rock particles together in the form of soil crumbs. This compact surface layer of rock particles encourages rain water to run off rather than enter the soil.

For example, a highly soluble fertilizer, such as 5-10-5, goes into solution in the soil water rapidly so that much of it may be leached away into our ground water without benefiting the plants at all. This chemical causes the soil to assume a cement-like hardness. When present in large concentrations, they seep into the subsoil where they interact with the clay to form impervious layers of precipitates called hardpan.

Many artificial chemical fertilizers contain acids, as sulfuric and hydrochloric, which will increase the acidity of the soil. Changes in the soil acidity (pH) are accompanied by the changes in the kinds of organisms which can live in the soil. For this reason, the artificial fertilizer people tell their customers to increase the organic matter content of their soil or use lime to offset the effects of these acids.

There are several ways by which artificial fertilizers reduce aeration of soils. Earthworms, whose numerous borings made the soil more porous, are killed.

The acid fertilizers will also destroy the cementing material which bins rock particles together in crumbs. Chemical fertilizers rob plants of some natural immunity by killing off the micro-organisms in the soil.

Many plant diseases have already been considerably checked when antibiotic producing bacteria or fungi thrived around the roots. When plants are supplied with much nitrogen and only a medium amount of phosphate, plants will most easily contract mosaic infections. Host resistance is obtained if there is a small amount of nitrogen and a large supply of phosphate. Fungus and bacterial diseases have been related to high nitrogen fertilization, and lack of trace elements.

Plants grown with artificial chemical fertilizers tend to have less nutrient value than organically grown plants. For example, several tests have found that by supplying citrus fruits with a large amount of soluble nitrogen will lower the vitamin C content of oranges. It has also been found, that these fertilizers that provide soluble nitrogen will lower the capacity of corn to produce high protein co...

Table of contents

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7