Organic vegetable gardening
What does it mean?
"Organic vegetable gardening", "Permaculture", "No-Till gardening", "No-Spray", and "Commercial Farming" - these are terms you often hear tossed about, but the definition of what these types of gardening actually are is often unclear.
Here is a comparison of "Organic", "Permaculture", "No-Till", "French Intensive" methods compared to commercial (aka industrial) farming methods, their practices and impacts.
Organic Gardening
Organic is a popular term, but sometimes hard to pin down. "Organic" has several meanings.
In chemistry, "organic" simply means any compound contaning carbon and nitrogen. By this definition the are many extremely toxic and dangerous compounds. For example, benzene is organic, but you don't want it in your food or water!
In legal terms, "organic" defines a farming system and the various chemicals and practices that are legal to use and still maintain an "organic" label. Under the legal definition, certain chemicals, like Monsanto's Round-up (tm) are permitted to be used. Other permitted chemicals allowed include Ammoniun Nitrite (aka "Urea"). This is 'natural" substance, but is produced from petroleum by-products at the cost cost of much energy needed to convert the compunds to a usable form.
The way we define organic is "natural"
Organic methods are based on a few principles that come down to reduce, reuse, and recycle. We want to develop a sustainable, closed system that requires the minimum of outside inouts and maximizes the outputs.
We reduce our needs for water and fertilizer by using mulch to cover the ground. Mulch reduces water loss from the soil, so we need to apply less water, and this reduced water does not leach away the soluble nutrients in the soil.
We reduce our use of pesticides and herbicides through the practice of Intgrated Pest Management (or I.P.M.). Removing these poisons from the garden produces healthier soil, plants and produce. Healthier soil grows plant that are less likely to be attacked by pests or disease.
We reuse and recycle by creating compost to fertilize our gardens. All the nutrients plants need to grow are in the plant, and returning that plant material to the soil feeds the soil in return.
