Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Spring Gardening 2010: Compost Is In, Chemicals Are So Out!
Annie Spiegelman
Posted: March 9, 2010 05:11 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/annie-spiegelman/spring-gardening-2010-com_b_492289.html

More and more home gardeners are interested in growing their own food this 
year. Plant nurseries and seed companies are already showing sales of 
vegetable seedlings and fruit trees on the rise this spring. For the most 
part, this is fantastic news. Bring me more garden geeks! But here's my 
dilemma. Are home gardeners going to be hoodwinked into buying more chemicals 
to feed their crops and contaminate their entire zip codes or will they 
smarten up and go organic?
2010-03-09-anorganicgarden.jpg

Garden tip of the day: If you're going to grow food in your backyard, you 
must grow it organically. This means without synthetic fertilizers and 
chemicals pesticides. If you're not going to grow your food organically, I'd 
rather you choose a different hobby. Try knitting or name-dropping. Or, how 
about Hacky Sack?

As a master gardener, garden author, dirt diva, mom and a relentlessly 
annoyed ex-New Yorker, I'm telling it to you straight up. If you're not going 
organic in your backyard, you're part of the problem, not part of the 
solution. And, that's lame. Gardening with chemicals is so 1960's. That 
should have gone out with Beatle boots and bell-bottoms! It's not your fault, 
really. Chemical companies have huge marketing budgets purposely driven to 
brainwash you while us organic gardeners, well . . . all we've got are 
earthworms, aged horse manure and a rickety old compost tumbler.

Fire it up!

Here's a little ecological update to get you up to speed. Here where I live 
in the Bay Area, where we're a bunch of iphone-toting-treehuggers, every 
single creek is contaminated with high levels of pesticides including 
diazinon, a chemical that was banned almost ten years ago because of its 
toxicity to mammals. Of the 80,000 registered chemicals in the United States, 
scientists and environmental advocates say the EPA has evaluated only 200 and 
banned only 5 since the 1976 chemical law was enacted. (www.Panna.org) We all 
blame the farmers and industry for polluting our soil, air and water, and 
they all do contribute to our pollution mess, but you may be shocked to learn 
that home gardeners are using 3-6 times more pesticide per acre than the 
average farmer. And home owners may also be shocked to learn that many of 
those pesticides stocked in your garage were originally developed in Nazi 
Germany to be used as chemical weapons. There are more than 20,000 pesticide 
products now marketed in the United States.
Other than shoes, who needs 20,000 of anything?

Just last week an article in Science Daily reported on a new study conducted 
by biologists at the University of California at Berkeley. They found that 
atrazine, one of the world's most widely used pesticides, emasculates 
three-quarters of adult male frogs and turns one in 10 into female frogs.

    More and more research is showing that atrazine interferes with endocrine 
hormones, such as estrogen and testosterone in fish, amphibians, birds, 
reptiles, laboratory rodents and even human cell lines at levels of part per 
billion. (Science Daily, March 1, 2010)

Atrazine is found in 70% of U.S. water and is banned in Switzerland where the 
product is made and sold by Syngenta, the largest agrichemical corporation in 
the world. Pediatricians I've interviewed in the past for my Dirt Diva garden 
column in the Pacific Sun, say this is the sickest generation of kids they 
have seen. 1 out of 80 boys is now born autistic. 1 out of 8 children has 
asthma. Kids have all sorts of neurological problems that school nurses and 
medical professionals say they weren't trained to deal with. A study 
conducted by Environmental Working Group in 2006, studied the umbilical cord 
blood of ten babies in the womb, and found that they each had close to 300 
chemicals already in them before they were born. In other words, we're 
birthing pre-polluted babies.

    "If babies are exposed in the womb or shortly after birth to chemicals 
that interfere with brain development, the consequences last a lifetime," 
says Dr. Philip Landrigan, professor of pediatrics at New York's Mount Sinai 
School of Medicine and chairman of the school's department of preventive 
medicine.

Enough with all the Debbie-Downer facts. Who wants facts, any way? "I thought 
she was going to teach us how to grow tomatoes and petunias?," you're 
thinking. I will, but not till I get your garden into rehab. Simmer down!

In her timely and enlightening new book, Organic Manifesto, author, farmer 
and CEO of Rodale Inc., Maria Rodale, writes of the 'Farming System Trial' 
that her father, Robert Rodale began in 1990. It's now the longest running 
scientific study comparing 'synthetic-chemical' versus 'organic' agriculture. 
The trial clearly shows that organic farming is not only more productive than 
chemical farming, especially during times of flood or drought, but that soil 
farmed organically is a key component to solving our climate crisis. When we 
add layers of compost to our soil it feeds the millions of microorganisms who 
party like rockstars in healthy soil. Some of these organisms, such as 
'Mycorrhizal fungi' grow at the roots of plants and store carbon. A lot of 
carbon. These miraculous fungi build our soil and its health while also 
sequestering excess carbon, shlepping it underground and locking it up. Tada! 
Many of these beneficial microbes don't exist in conventional farming because 
chemical fertilizers and herbicides eradicate them.

    "What is wrong with us? Why do we seem to care so little about our own 
safety, our own health, and the future of our children?," asks Maria Rodale 
in her new book. "Why are we willing to pay thousands of dollars for vitro 
fertility treatments when we can't conceive, but not a few extra dollars for 
the organic food that might help to preserve the reproductive health of own 
and future generations?"

For crying out loud folks, let's get off the sauce, before Maria, yours truly 
and the rest of our kind come chase you down hurling handfuls of shade-grown, 
fair-trade, free range, grass-fed mud!

Your new mantra should be 'COMPOST, COMPOST, COMPOST.' And just what is 
compost? Some say it's black gold. I say, it's fabulous! Compost is a rich 
soil amendment that is created by recycling food scraps and yard waste. 
Compost will slowly feed your plants while helping your soil retain water as 
well. (A must for gardeners in the drought-prone western U.S.) Adding a 2-3 
inch layer of compost to your yard once in the spring and again in the fall 
will keep the happy microbes and earthworms busy underground, breaking down 
the organic material into nutrients that will nourish your plants for months. 
You can make your own compost (and earn a gold star from me) or buy it from 
your local garden center. In some forward-thinking towns the local recycling 
or refuse center will sell compost inexpensively while helping to keep more 
garbage out of the landfill. It's win-win! Less landfill in your community 
and free fertilizer for your yard.

Lastly, carefully pack up that shed full of chemical warfare and call 1-800- 
CLEANUP to find out where to dispose of hazardous wastes in your neck of the 
woods. Using a pesticide in your yard should be a very last resort and the 
safest, most natural product should be chosen. Contact your local Master 
Gardening office for free help with plant problems. (Find your local office 
at the American Horticultural Society's website:http://www.ahs.org) (Find 
cleaner and safer gardening product suggestions at 
http://www.ourwaterourworld.org)

If you live in the Bay Area, come to my Talking Dirt booksigning at the San 
Francisco Flower and Garden Show on Saturday, March 27th, 2010. I'll be 
speaking at a seminar called Organic Gardening: Working with Nature, Even if 
you're from New York City and signing books after. (www.sfgardenshow.com)

See ya next week with vegetable gardening growing tips.
Good luck sweet kumquats.