Park Seed Garden Journal

Organic gardening has grown in popularity as commercial food sources have become increasingly reliant on synthetic processes. Organic gardening on an individual level is not really all that difficult, in fact, you’d probably only have to change a few things to make your garden organic. For some food product to be defined as ‘organic’ it must simply be grown without the aid of any synthetic chemicals like fertilizers, pesticides, and hormones. In the case of livestock, they must not be given synthetic hormones or supplements, they are kept on very strict diets, and they are only treated for specific medical issues instead of routine administrations of preventative meds.

So, to make your home garden an organic garden you have three little hurdles. First, you must buy certified organic seed, which is not very difficult. If you’ve got the Park Seed catalog, pages 104 and 105 are full of organic seeds, or you can search for organic seeds at Park Seed’s Website. Second, you can’t use any synthetic weed killers. Sorry, no such thing as an organic weed killer, you’re just going to have to get down in the dirt and do a little weeding. When you’ve got all of your weeds removed, mulching will help keep them from coming back. Finally, in an organic garden you can’t use any synthetic pesticides. There are a few organically approved pesticides, but there are also alternative methods, such as the use of beneficial insects such as ladybird beetles, lacewings, mantis, and the ground beetle.

If you do not start from organic seed, and you are not growing certified organic plants, you could still benefit from organic growing practices. Some chemical pesticides and herbicides have been known to be somewhat unhealthy for humans. If you spend a lot of time in your garden, have children or pets that play outside, or if you’re worried about the birds and butterflies, organic gardening techniques could be what you’ve been looking for.