WHY Organic Gardening?
written by Alan M. Kapuler, Ph.D.
1.) For your personal health.
Organic gardening works with natural systems, using composts, crop rotation, rock dusts, seaweeds and microbes to improve soils, promote healthy plant growth and increase food production.
2.) For the health of your garden.
Organic gardening encourages diverse plantings, works with crops that promote beneficial insects, and recycles nutrients with earthworms, composts and weeding.
3.) For the health of your neighborhood.
Pollution of our environment with poisons is a problem in our society. Organic gardening looks for ways to promote fertility and health using nontoxic methods.
4.) For the health of our planet.
Our personal health and the health of this lovely world that sustains us and millions of other creatures are closely interwoven. Our backyards gardens can be the sanctuaries for plants and animals whose homes are being destroyed.
By growing gardens with many types of plants, we encourage diversity. By growing part of our food in our gardens, we can harvest ripe produce at the peak of flavor and nutrition. We can improve the nutrition available to us by choosing varieties high in vitamins and free amino acids. We can increase the mineral content of our foods by adding the right minerals to our soils. We can grow crops not available in local stores. We can harvest at full ripeness and in season. We can share our garden’s natural abundance with our families, friends and neighbors.
Home gardening using organic methods allows us to improve our health and contribute towards a positive future or ourselves, our loved ones, our communities and our world.
