Organic Gardening

[Leon Roskilly]

The clincher for me Chesters is that after they've done their work in the work in the worm compost bins, I get free bait

 

TL - leon

[chesters1]

yes we had problems with ours but moving it 6 feet got it going ,strange stuff compost will start a second bin this year come autumn

[Newt]

chesters1:

... and i agree home grown strawberries taste far better than shop bought unfortunatly we eat ours before they get fully ripe otherwise our slug friends get them first

A piece of solid copper wire (#10 is good) on the ground completely around the berry patch and you won't see slugs going in.

[davidP]

We grow fruit & veggies in tubs around the garden and patio. For various reasons we haven't put as much in this year, but we should end up with courgette, cucumber, potato, tomato, aubergine & maybe if I'm very lucky this year a melon or two as well (they didn't fruit the last 2 years). We also have a load of strawberries, and this year I've planted some minarette fruit tree in large tubs (apple, plum, & cherry), but I'm not expecting too much from those this year (except the cherries as they're already quite large).

 

If you're into organic and want to do something a little different then can I suggest you join the Heritage Seed Library.

This is run by the Henry Doubleday Research Association and exists to try and keep alive all the old species of fruit & veg that are no longer grown or sold commercially (EU rules make it non-viable to sell seed in small numbers owing to registration fees for each variety etc). If you join the Library you get to chose various seeds from their catalogue free of charge each year and there are all sorts of weird & wonderful veggies & varieties to chose from. Occasionally they may ask you let some go to seed and then collect and return them to the library, but this isn't common.

 

Henry Doubleday Research Association web site is also extremely useful if you want info about organic growing

 

[ 14. June 2004, 07:15 PM: Message edited by: davidP ]

[Leon Roskilly]

davidP:

We grow fruit & veggies in tubs around the garden and patio.

David, you need to look into 'square foot gardening'.

 

See http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

 

It's amazing what can be grown in a limited space with this approach.

 

Tight Lines - leon

[davidP]

Thanks Leon, that's an interesting site and I can definitey see a few ideas for next year )

[corydoras]

chesters1:

most our chemicals that linger on are victorian ,all the plant extracts etc whilst maybe slightly more safe than modern chemicals are still toxic ,being a "natural" or "bio" makes little difference to their safety as you remember extract from poison arrow frogs are great for killing people ,chewing rhubarb leaves or fox gloves or a yew salad have pretty much the same effect.

modern practices evolved because the old ones were time consuming or innefective ,the act of picking off individual cabbage white caterpilla`s on a 20ft row of cabbage is no big deal but doing the same in 20acres is a little more tedius and the old method of spraying aphids with soapy water only makes clean aphids with modern soap (the old soaps using petro byproducts did work to a degree)and who nowadays can afford the tobbacco to make a nicotine spray (although maybe plants could have a anti smoking patch installed at germination) the reason besides effectiveness for modern chemicals is cost = 1 tractor driver plus the chemical = in victorian times hoards of labour so whilst not being good for the country side it (modern chemicals) does bring the cost of the finished crop to a commercialy viable asset ,now all the effective chemicals are being banned then it only benefits countries with cheap labour and an already bio (because they cant afford the chemicals in the first place) agriculture .Britain cannot (legally ).

 

I don't think that either Coal Tar soap or Carbolic soap is going to do much to prevent or arrest the spread of MRSA. The bug is resistant to Methicillin, one of the most powerfull antibiotics known to man. You may lament the days when farmers were allowed to pullute the place with DDT (banned in the good old US of A since 1972) but I don't and I am glad that my children will hopefully not be exposed to the stuff.

 

BTW Wrights Coal Tar soap still on sale here.

[chesters1]

coal tar soap isnt coal tar soap all of it is coal tar fragrence ,both coal tar and carbolic WERE extremly efficient bug killers the reason that MRSA is rampant now is because the 2 petro based soaps/disinfectants had been considered old hat if they had been used of old "perhaps" MRSA wouldnt have mutated to become resistant to most known bactericides .

DDT is widely used and probably even in the US as is your famouse "agent orange" 245D/T both are extremly effective in what they do and as such will continue to be used (notice any 2 headed kids about),several countries still use phelidimide (sp?) even after the horror of the 50`s so if said drug is used on humans i cannot see people not using DDT on critters and remember the "Good old USA" probably unleased it on the world in the first place along with others

quote:

---

"To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT... In little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths, due to malaria, that otherwise would have been inevitable."

 

[National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Research in the Life Sciences of the Committee on Science and Public Policy. 1970. The Life Sciences; Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs; The World of Biological Research; Requirements for the Future.]

---

 

[ 16. June 2004, 09:41 PM: Message edited by: chesters1 ]

[MickJ]

Anyone know of an organic cure for Gooseberry mildew

[corydoras]

How do you prune your gooseberries?