Why not an urban Organic Garden?
You can fit one of these beautiful and scrumptious projects in some of the most
unexpected places! One of the most important features of an organic garden is
that the process of growth and consumption will minimize the harmful impact of
the food industry on our earth and its inhabitants.
Some reasons to garden organically in honor of mother earth:
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Grow/purchase locally and you nearly eliminate harmful gas fumes from long haul
trucking...
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Organic gardens can be made to be naturally pest free and prevent erosion from
occuring. Topsoil loss is currently threatening our region's ability to produce
quality crops.
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Local produce would eliminate the need for monoculture food processing plants.
Food storage would be done locally and without the use of chemicals. Byproducts
from the processing plants would be minimized due to the local presence of the
plants.
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Extra Fresh Vegetables. Naturally, corn on the cob and newly picked peas are
especially noticeable, but this trait extends to all vegetables you grow
yourself, especially under the organic method-. A phenomenon noted by most
people when harvesting their very first vegetables from their vary first
gardens is that everyone eats much more of a given vegetable than they would of
a similar store bought variety.
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Saving Money is certainly on most people's mind today. Did you ever hold a
package of say, carrot seed, in your hand and think what a great potential mass
of food could come from that small packet?
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Ecological awareness would be greatly enhanced by urban gardens. In this
month's Sierra Magazine an article entitled, Cultivating Our Cities, states,
"urban dwellers [have] become increasingly alienated from the land, to the
point where most have no idea how their food is produced or where it comes from
beyond the freezer case. Through an urban garden system of food production,
people would see where their food comes from and can even become part of the
process themselves."
The first thing you should really invest the time in, is a compost heap. Box it
in, or leave it in just a pile, but start one! Your garden will love you for
it! I put coffee grounds, vegetable and fruit peels, egg shells, and every kind
of food scraps that we generate in our home, except for meat or bones. (House
plans also love coffee grounds and egg shells...just smash them up and sprinkle
them on top of the soil) It takes some time to build an adequate heap, that
you'll be able to use...but you can also add flower and lawn clippings, and
leaves! The leaves add volume quickly.
Some people save their seeds, but because of cross pollination and other
techniques, this should really be researched before you try it. Here is a
snippit from a great website about organic gardening:
The Why And How Of Saving Your Own Seed's
. If you raise and save your seeds, you are producing seed for your garden,
and, by careful selection over several generations of plants, you can produce
plants best suited to your climate and your gardening conditions. no one else
but you can do this. Flavor, pest and disease resistance, early bearing, and
size are among the many characteristics that can be enhanced by careful
selection over a period of years
I am far from a professional gardener, but I do know what works for me, and
what could work for others! If you want to garden organically....you can! Just
don't put any kind of chemcials in your garden...there are plenty of non
chemical treatments for each kind of pest, the most effective being plants that
the pests hate planted near the ones they love!!!
Bottom line: More of us could garden organically, and just don't realize how
simple it is!!!
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