What are organics-----your definition

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One new to gardening might well think that ths new word "organic" is some kind of new way, some strange new concept on growing our food. It isn't. Organics are the methods by which we try to imitate and improve what Mother Nature has given us using only the tools She has provided along with todays technologies.
 
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I see organics both as the old ways, and as the way ahead.
Prior to the introduction of petrochemicals-based fertilisers/herbicides/pesticides, more natural, plant or animal based products were used.
Companion planting, and feeding plants indirectly, by feeding and boosting the growing medium in environmentally friendly ways, are, to my mind, the only long-terms sustainable methods, as using petro-chemicals seems to lead inexorably to the breakdown of the natural relationship between plant and soil, requiring ever-increasing rates of petro-chemical fertilisation and pest-control as a result.

This isn't just a nostalgic hankering for the old ways, nearly all of us will be too young to remember, it's, as I said at the start of the post, "the way ahead".
The use of sharp-end bio-technology to deliver answers to organic problems, in order to keep yields high, to keep pest free, and to grow high brics, nutrionally superior food, that petro-chemicals gardeners see, and perhaps, just a little bit, envy.

One thing I would mention, especially to Chuck and Meowmie, is that UK organics technology is at least a decade behind the US, so any recent innovations are probably unknown here.
 
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I see organics both as the old ways, and as the way ahead.
Prior to the introduction of petrochemicals-based fertilisers/herbicides/pesticides, more natural, plant or animal based products were used.
Companion planting, and feeding plants indirectly, by feeding and boosting the growing medium in environmentally friendly ways, are, to my mind, the only long-terms sustainable methods, as using petro-chemicals seems to lead inexorably to the breakdown of the natural relationship between plant and soil, requiring ever-increasing rates of petro-chemical fertilisation and pest-control as a result.

This isn't just a nostalgic hankering for the old ways, nearly all of us will be too young to remember, it's, as I said at the start of the post, "the way ahead".
The use of sharp-end bio-technology to deliver answers to organic problems, in order to keep yields high, to keep pest free, and to grow high brics, nutrionally superior food, that petro-chemicals gardeners see, and perhaps, just a little bit, envy.

One thing I would mention, especially to Chuck and Meowmie, is that UK organics technology is at least a decade behind the US, so any recent innovations are probably unknown here.
I am going to get into this petrochemical thing rather deeply when I start the threads on fertilizers and I agree with everything you have stated. I will probably offend quite a few people in the coming weeks but I don't care. There is an old saying here that I think applies to the chemical gardner-----You can take a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
 
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I am going to get into this petrochemical thing rather deeply when I start the threads on fertilizers and I agree with everything you have stated. I will probably offend quite a few people in the coming weeks but I don't care. There is an old saying here that I think applies to the chemical gardner-----You can take a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
There are 120 other growers at the site where I have my allotment.
They see EVERYTHING!!;)
There is no better way of persuading folks than letting them come to you.
I gave one of my fellow growers a mix of actively aerated compost tea, with a little added home-made seaweed extract, to water in her cabbages after planting last week. They look fantastic.
One other grower said, "In forty-odd years of growing, I've never seen anything like it, how did you do it?"
She said that it was my special brew which did the trick.
Word will very quickly get around.
They'll come.
 
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The best way to advertise something like organics is to grow organically. When other gardeners see what you have growing and taste the difference in what you grow they will probably change over.
 

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