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Re: Startling statistic

To add to Jeff's comments....add in biodiversity, which may be too grand a word to use for my home garden. However, when I started gardening seriously in the early 1980s, I found that every year I would have aphids at the tippy top of my tomatoes and roses, but after a few years I stopped seeing them. As I got ever interested in gardening, I was adding more and more different kinds of plants, especially Illinois natives from the prairie. What then happened was that I started finding increasing numbers of interesting insects in my garden, and I assume that the ones that were beneficial were taking care of the aphids and other bad guys. I do get a few Japanese beetles every year, which I squish with my bare hands (a true Samuri) but their numbers have decreased as well. Bottom line: I too never need to buy anything, organic or not. (although my bay leaf plant, too heavy to drag into the shower at this point, does get scale every year by the time February/March roll around. But that's a different issue.)
Carolyn Ulrich


On Saturday, October 18, 2003, at 12:40 PM, Jeff Ball wrote:

There is an interesting conundrum here I believe. A serious organic
gardener, either vegetables or flowers, usually is very aware of the
importance of organic matter in the soil and over the years adds lots and
lots of organic stuff to the soil. I suspect most serious organic gardeners
are aware of the importance of mulch which not only feeds the soil, but also
houses the ants, spiders, and ground beetles that will control over 50% of
the pest insects in the garden. My experience, back when I had a long time
organic garden, was that after five or six years of serious soil amendment,
serious effort to attract many species of songbirds to include my garden as
part of their territory, and serious effort not to disrupt the habitat of
the ants, spiders and ground beetles in the garden, I had no problems for
which an organic pesticide was needed. We went for years, not needing to
buy any insecticide, because for the few problems that appeared, we already
had a supply that would last us ten years.
Now I wish I could say with confidence that such a scenario is common among
American gardeners. Unfortunately I don't even believe such a scenario is
common among folks who call themselves "organic gardeners", mostly because
soil was always a side issue in the "organic mantra" in my experience with
Rodale and New Alchemey Institute in Cape Cod. Adding the organic stuff to
soil when STARTING a garden was a big deal, but the ongoing month to month
care of the soil was never a priority. The priority was focused on the
elimination of the use of synthetic pesticides.
So maybe having only 2% of the consumer pesiticide market being organic,
might not mean that only 2% of the 15 million gardeners in this country are
organic gardeners. Nevertheless, the 2% figure indicates to me that there
is little increase in the movement toward organic gardening. We old suckers
who came out of the hoopla of the sixties and the seventies may still be
serious organic nuts, but I don't see much evidence in the current garden
magazines and garden newspaper literature that indicates great interest in
organic methods.
I think the folks coming through the master gardener programs tend to end up
on the organic side of things even though most mater gardener curriculum
still give little emphasis on organic methods. So maybe as the master
garden number increase, the tendency towards using organic methods will go
up because hopefully they influence a lot of people. I am ever the
optimist.
2% is still depressing.
Jeff Ball

-----Original Message-----
From: gardenwriters-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[g*@lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of Margaret
Lauterbach
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2003 10:20 AM
To: Garden Writers -- GWL -- The Garden Writers Forum
Subject: Re: [GWL] Startling statistic


At 11:49 AM 10/17/2003 -0700, you wrote:
Last week I spent some time at a distributor's sales show with an old

friend
who is the national sales manager for one of the larger pesticide
manufacturers. He was showing me some of the new products his company was
announcing for next year. As an aside he mentioned that only 2% of all the
pesticide sales in the country to consumers are organic products. I was
stunned. I don't know what I thought, but it sure wasn't only 2%. Two
percent is such a small portion of the total market as to be irrelevent, an
idea I find very disappointing having been a proponent of organic gardening
for over 20 years. I have to conclude that there is no significant organic
movement among gardeners in this country, and I don't like that idea. Does
anyone agree?

Jeff Ball
This is a horrible statistic, but I wonder how many growers use vinegar for
herbicides or make their own homemade insecticidal soap sprays. Perhaps
the organic movement is at least a little more vigorous than this would
indicate. Margaret Lauterbach


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