[GhostUser]

ok... i am planning a garden (organic of course). this will be my first garden since i lived with my parents about 10 years ago...

anyway. there are two areas in my yard that i plan to use. one area was used as a garden for years (not last year though). and the other area i plan to use, has never been used as a garden and is just overgrowth right now, tall weeds, grass etc.

i understand that i need to sterilize the soil before planting... put black tarp over the land for a month or so... but i just want to make sure that i'm doing everything i need to do... so i have some questions:

* should i try to clear as much of the existing vegetation before covering it with tarp, or does it matter? (i think i can make it all lie flat without removing it...

* will 5-6 weeks be long enough to sterilize the soil? i plan to till the land and plant seedlings by mid-march.

* is there anything else i need to do right now... at this stage, in preparing the land?

i am going to start some of my seeds within the next week or so. i've been thinking about this a lot, i even dreamed about my garden last night...

thanks,

~elizabeth

 

[1vegan]

Quote:

Originally posted by aesuan

i understand that i need to sterilize the soil before planting... put black tarp over the land for a month or so... but i just want to make sure that i'm doing everything i need to do... so i have some questions:

No need to sterilize.

Quote:

Originally posted by aesuan



·\tshould i try to clear as much of the existing vegetation before covering it with tarp, or does it matter? (i think i can make it all lie flat without removing it...

Remove as much a possible, you dont want seeds spread all over the place.

Consider some fertilizer like compost.

 

[GhostUser]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that an organic garden is supposed to have organic soil if it is truly to be organic...considering that vegetables and fruits soak up nutrients from the soil. ???

 

[Michael]

That should be correct but I didn't see anyone saying the opposite.

 

[1vegan]

Quote:

Originally posted by Herself

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that an organic garden is supposed to have organic soil if it is truly to be organic...considering that vegetables and fruits soak up nutrients from the soil. ???

I don't get it. What do you mean?

Is it the "fertilizer" part?

About soil: one can get the "organic" label after a couple of years without using pesticides or artificial fertilizers.

If you have a piece of ground that has not been used in a agricultural way, you might be able to get the label instandly.

For home gardens the name "organic" means, without artificial fertilizer and without pesticides.

 

[1vegan]

This could also be useful:

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/bioscien...c/organic.html

 

[spud]

I garden organically, my best crop this year is going to be badgers because they are taking over...

 

[1vegan]

A good fence could help.

 

[spud]

They tunnel. They can move rocks if they think there might be a snail underneath. They dig latrines everywhere and fill them up. They've made mud paths all over the lawns. They live here. They used to live next door, now they are here

 

[soilman]

I garden scientifically rather than organically. Of course, I accumulate, and put into effect, scientific knowledge regarding how to improve flavor and nutritional value. Most scientific growers use scientific knowledge about how to make the most profit: how spend the least and get the highest yield. So my scientific garden turns out very different from most commercial scientific gardens.

Gardening organically means adhering to a "belief system" in preference to accumulating knowledge and benefitting from knowledge. You can garden organicly and still benefit from scientific knowledge, but why restrain oneself to methods that are believed to be better, but have not been proven to be better, unless you really think they are better, in your opinion, despite their not being proved?

 

[soilman]

For example you can use nicotine and be "certified organic". But is food grown with nicotine as an insecticide better for one's health, or the environment, than food grown using permethrin (a synthetic "non-organic" chemical related to natural organic pyrethrins) as an insecticide? Personally, I think the food grown with permethrin is safer for me to eat. But because its made in a chemical factory from I don't know what (probably coal tar), instead of extracted from a plant, it's not suitable for an organic garden.

 

[soilman]

I don't understand why some vegans, who are perfectly willing to wear shoes made with imitation leather or clothing made with synthetic resin fibers, prefer not to eat food that has been grown with plant-food (fertilizer is an awful misnomer) that has been made sort of like the way synthetic leather or synthetic clothing fibers, are made, but rather prefer to eat food that has been grown with plant-food that has been obtained sort of like the way natural fibers are obtained, or the way leather is obtained.

 

[spud]

Organic isn't to do with being 'safer to eat' as far as I'm concerned, for a start most of my garden is trees and grasses.

Rather it's safer for the various insects and the animals & birds who eat them. As they've been eating organically for generations I don't wish to scientifically experiment with feeding them factory manufactured chemicals anymore than I have to.

Also, I can't afford to purchase manufactured fertilizer/soil improver- I make my own from compost.

 

[1vegan]

Quote:

Originally posted by soilman

Gardening organically means adhering to a "belief system" in preference to accumulating knowledge and benefitting from knowledge.

Organic seems to have a different meaning in America.....

For me it's without artificial fertilezer and without "crop protecting chemicals" (also know as poison)

Maybe I should use the word sustainable?

Here in Holland, "organic" farms have a (slightly) smaller harvest, but the "profit" per unit of soil is (slightly) bigger than "normal" farms.