Grow Non-Organic Plants and make them Organic??

[Josh W.]

Wondering if I can buy non-organic plants and then grow them organically? At what point do the chemicals cease being in the plants? I know they wouldn't be officially organic...just wondering if they might eventually become practically organic...?

 

[sillylucy]

Most organic plants are still sprayed with something to help them thrive. If you change out the soil and give them a few years then they might be okay. If you are worried about this then buy some seeds and grow seedlings at home.

 

[Beverly]

I am not an expert, but my garden gut tells me it probably depends a lot on the size of the plant. If i am not sure if a plant that i purchase has been treated with pesticides, herbicides, etc. and the plant is small, I will wash it down to the bare roots, removing as much of the soil it came in as i can and replace it with some good amended organic soil that i know hasn't been messed with. Once it is in the ground or container with soil i am confident about, i will give all the leaves a good washing and presumably the new growth will be organic? or nearly organic. I have been known to do this with large plants as well, but before i remove the soil it came in, i will cut back a lot of the vegetation that it came with too allowing it to grow anew. There are some experts who will be checking in on this and i'll be interested to hear what they say. Good question!

 

[Corzhens]

My take on organic is that as long as you don't use chemicals, be it fertilzer or insecticides, then your plant is organic. But when you buy a seedling, I guess a month in your place will shed off the inorganic particles if ever that seedling had been sprayed. In our village, there is a motion to ban insecticides. However, they cannot push that ordinance because of the threat of dengue - there are lots of dengue cases now in Metro Manila.

 

[Beverly]

We get dengue here too @Corzhens. They spray via truck not from an overhead airplane or helicopter and my garden is at the back of the house. I don't think whatever it is they are spraying reaches as far as my garden, but i am really careful about not allowing standing water to settle in. I wash out the bird bath every 3 days and so far i've been lucky.

 

[BirdBathMan]

I used to work at a market that sold certified organic produce, and I know that there was a fairly rigorous certification process for organic farms back then. The soil had to be certified pesticide free for something like 6 years. You can probably take plants and veggies that were grown with chemicals and raise them chemical free, but they probably wouldn't be considered "organic" in the strictest sense of the word.

 

[Rajesh Sethi]

So, how long will plant sprayed with Dimethoate (organophosphate insecticide and acaricide) be safe to handle, the guy from whom I brought my plants used to spray them.