Organic Gardening
Having just escaped from a long argument in another LJ with the kind of person who valued opinion over fact (and refused even to state her opinion half the time - for reasons that were dead easy to spot - she was the kind of person who called the UK out for not treating babies born so premature that the had no real chance of survival, but was naturally opposed to spending state money to save poor American babies), it has been a real relief to start reading a book by Jeff Gillman, an excellent American writer
"The Truth about Organic Gardening" is a book that deals in facts. Gillman isn't partisan - if an organic practice is good, he'll say so. If a non-organic practice is good, he'll say so. He's a solid background in teaching and researching horticulture and if he says something, it means he's checked it out and isn't just saying it because he wants it to be true. For instance, when looking at herbicides and pesticides, he considers them on their individual merits. He points out that some synthetic pesticides are very dangerous and some are very safe; likewise organic pesticides vary in their safety (he considers rotenone to be very dangerous).
'Natural' does not mean 'safe to humans'.
Gillman also discusses other methods of pest control - his favourite approach of standing back and doing nothing has a lot going for it. He points out that if plants are well watered and fertilised, then they can afford to lose about a third of their leaf area without suffering great harm and that their natural resistance is higher when they're well looked after.
He's got a good sense of humour. When he talks about controlling Japanese beetles (an American pest, so not directly relevant to the UK, but still interesting to read about), he talks about pheromone traps. He rates them as ineffective - because there are so many of the beetles, even though the trap kills a lot of them it also attracts more into the neighbourhood. He suggests giving a trap to someone you dislike and watch as their garden fills up with beetles!
The book looks at many areas of organic practice (and Gillman is fair to point out that some of these techniques are used by non-organic gardeners as well) from green manures to bird control.
For each practice/technique, Gillman spends a page or so discussing it, then neatly sums up the pros and cons in bullet points at the end. It's a very good format for dipping and browsing and easy to read/extract information on.
He also understands statistics. (You wouldn't believe how rare this is) When discussing the results of a study, he'll point out how much confidence can be placed in the result. (eg. if 4 out of 500 people get cancer during a study of a weedkiller, what is the likelihood this could have happened by chance? Low numbers are subject to wide fluctuations. ie. 4/500 is a lot less reliable data than 16/2000)(and indeed, a later study with 54,000 people did not show any increase in cancer at all for that particular weedkiller). He's also concerned that studies are often not carried out on organic pesticides/weedkillers because they are assumed to be safer. But rotenone (which is natural) kills just as many fish and frogs as glyphosphate (which is synthetic).
I'd recommend this as an interesting book for anyone who wants to know the pros and cons of different gardening techniques and likes to have some data to support the opinions of the writer. This is NOT a 'how to do organic gardening' book, but it is a good unbiased study of what works and what is safe.
Where do I stand on the organic front?
I garden organically to a large extent. I do this to minimise the harm to wildlife and also to maximise my crops. I won't use slug pellets of any kind becasue they kill thrushes. I don't use pesticides because I'm wary of spraying anything that I might breathe. I quite enjoy weeding (It's relaxing) but I use glyphosphate on bindweed because there's no other way to kill it and glyphosphate is inactivated when it hits the soil. I add compost and manure in large quantities to my soil (You should see this year's leeks! They got the compost heap added to the patch not long before we planted them.)
In short, I'm an organic gardener, but not to the point of fanaticism. There are some 'organic' products containing copper that I'm not very keen on, but there are some organic practices - like watering with dilute urine - that I've had really good results with (excellent onions this year) and I'm positively evangelical about.
"The Truth about Organic Gardening" is a book that deals in facts. Gillman isn't partisan - if an organic practice is good, he'll say so. If a non-organic practice is good, he'll say so. He's a solid background in teaching and researching horticulture and if he says something, it means he's checked it out and isn't just saying it because he wants it to be true. For instance, when looking at herbicides and pesticides, he considers them on their individual merits. He points out that some synthetic pesticides are very dangerous and some are very safe; likewise organic pesticides vary in their safety (he considers rotenone to be very dangerous).
'Natural' does not mean 'safe to humans'.
Gillman also discusses other methods of pest control - his favourite approach of standing back and doing nothing has a lot going for it. He points out that if plants are well watered and fertilised, then they can afford to lose about a third of their leaf area without suffering great harm and that their natural resistance is higher when they're well looked after.
He's got a good sense of humour. When he talks about controlling Japanese beetles (an American pest, so not directly relevant to the UK, but still interesting to read about), he talks about pheromone traps. He rates them as ineffective - because there are so many of the beetles, even though the trap kills a lot of them it also attracts more into the neighbourhood. He suggests giving a trap to someone you dislike and watch as their garden fills up with beetles!
The book looks at many areas of organic practice (and Gillman is fair to point out that some of these techniques are used by non-organic gardeners as well) from green manures to bird control.
For each practice/technique, Gillman spends a page or so discussing it, then neatly sums up the pros and cons in bullet points at the end. It's a very good format for dipping and browsing and easy to read/extract information on.
He also understands statistics. (You wouldn't believe how rare this is) When discussing the results of a study, he'll point out how much confidence can be placed in the result. (eg. if 4 out of 500 people get cancer during a study of a weedkiller, what is the likelihood this could have happened by chance? Low numbers are subject to wide fluctuations. ie. 4/500 is a lot less reliable data than 16/2000)(and indeed, a later study with 54,000 people did not show any increase in cancer at all for that particular weedkiller). He's also concerned that studies are often not carried out on organic pesticides/weedkillers because they are assumed to be safer. But rotenone (which is natural) kills just as many fish and frogs as glyphosphate (which is synthetic).
I'd recommend this as an interesting book for anyone who wants to know the pros and cons of different gardening techniques and likes to have some data to support the opinions of the writer. This is NOT a 'how to do organic gardening' book, but it is a good unbiased study of what works and what is safe.
Where do I stand on the organic front?
I garden organically to a large extent. I do this to minimise the harm to wildlife and also to maximise my crops. I won't use slug pellets of any kind becasue they kill thrushes. I don't use pesticides because I'm wary of spraying anything that I might breathe. I quite enjoy weeding (It's relaxing) but I use glyphosphate on bindweed because there's no other way to kill it and glyphosphate is inactivated when it hits the soil. I add compost and manure in large quantities to my soil (You should see this year's leeks! They got the compost heap added to the patch not long before we planted them.)
In short, I'm an organic gardener, but not to the point of fanaticism. There are some 'organic' products containing copper that I'm not very keen on, but there are some organic practices - like watering with dilute urine - that I've had really good results with (excellent onions this year) and I'm positively evangelical about.