RE: What is organic gardening

I loved Tony's term "holistic gardening" though I guess he's right and the
last thing we need is to attempt to change the jargon. But it feels much
more like what I intend that just "organic gardening". His mention of
pyrethrum brought to mind a letter I received from a novice gardener. He had
gathered together every toxic plant you have ever heard of, made a
concentrated decoction out of them and was pleased to find it was as
effective at killing everything that moved in the garden as any pesticide he
had ever bought. He felt his discovery was going to be a great boon to
"organic gardening", once we all started spraying it on a regular basis. (My
reply to the letter was a long one. ;-)

I'm with Barry - I just don't spray anything at all. And I swear with hand
on heart, in our little yard planted mainly with a variety of tough, common,
drought-resistant plants there hasn't been a problem without them. The
hummingbirds, lady bugs and hoverflies eat the aphids. By the end of the
season we have a few spiders who have grown all through summer and have by
autumn have acquired both a regular home and a personality; they look like
they could bring down small planes but they're also pretty good at cutting
down the cabbage moth population. And for the snails, well there's my
husband as predator. Though he's organic, he's still quite lethal to them.

I do miss MiracleGro though. ;-)

Cyndi Kirkpatrick
Eos Development
http://www.eosdev.com
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