Organic Gardening: Going Back To The Basics
By: Gerardas Norkus
Because of an alarming condition of our atmosphere these days and the impact of technological innovations have on our health, everything seems to be resorting to a more viable option - organics. From foods to even hobbies like gardening, organics had definitely taken the limelight.
Nowadays, one of the gradually emerging lucrative activity for hobbyist, and environmentalist for that matter, is organic gardening. It slowly replaces the traditional type of gardening that involves harmful chemicals that speed up the destruction of our Ozone layer.
Organic gardening, basically, refers to one type of gardening that deviates from the customary use of chemicals like fertilizers and pesticides. Because of these, many agriculturists contend that engaging into organics gardening makes one in synchrony with nature.
The basic notion of organics gardening boils down to the fact that it is best to feed the soil and not the plant. Thus, we can hypothetically say that, in organic gardening, it is the soil that needs more nourishment than the plants, or simply because it's from the soil that the plants obtain their nourishment. A healthy soil yields a healthy plant, so to speak.
In organic gardening, the basic concept of "fertilizing" the soil is to use organic materials like composts and manures. When fertilizing the soil, it doesn't necessarily mean that you use fertilizers. In fact, fertilizers were primarily denoted as anything that increases the soil's fertility.
Hence, organic gardening is a way of going back to the basics, the traditional use of basic fertilizers that increases the soil's capability to enrich the plant. In this manner, the grower uses minerals like calcium coming from the fossils of dead animals, nitrogen from legumes or manures, phosphorus from bones of dead animals, and potassium from wood ashes.
On the other hand, organic growers also consider
composts of other living things like vegetables or plants when incorporating the idea of organic gardening. Its by-product is known as the humus, which is definitely good for the soil. In organic gardening, humus is an important element in plant production because it contains cellulose that performs like a sponge and retains moisture in the soil so that it will be made available for the plants as they grow.
Moreover, organic gardening incorporates the traditional way of controlling animal pests like physical removal of insects, crop rotation, interplanting, and introduction of prey species. These methods lessen the growth of insects and curb the multiplication of pests. It also impedes the development of diseases that were emphasized by "agribusiness monocropping".
In addition, organic gardening employs the typical suppression of weeds and vegetables pests without having to opt for herbicides. In this organic gardening method of removing weeds, "mulches" are placed on the weeds to prevent them from obtaining the amount of light they need in order to grow. These mulches act as barriers for weeds and vegetable pests. They come in different forms like leaves, stones, wood, or straw.
In general, the technique of organic gardening lies on two agricultural concept: permaculture and biodynamic agriculture.
Permaculture or permanent culture refers to that area in agriculture wherein certain ecological principle, "shared ethics" like earth care and people care, and design tools are used so as to gain sustainable development in plants. On the other hand, biodynamics agriculture is composed of a biological at the same time sustainable system of agricultural assembly.
With these two concepts, we can safely derive the fundamental idea of organic gardening as a system based on environmental, sustainable, and ethical principles of man.
So, we now know for a fact that organic gardening is definitely a lot better than what science and technology teaches us these days.
The only drawback is that it is science that taught us the basic ways on how to care for the environment in the first place, and yet, it is also the same mentor who is teaching us how to employ concepts that eventually leads to nature's destruction. Isn't it ironic?