Donna,
Thank you for this amazing article ! I thoroughly enjoyed it! I chuckled through most of it---mainly because it is SO true. You should be a journalist somewhere--telling it like it is!
I think the first chuckle was when you said that Sevin is considered one of the 4 major food groups. I rolled on that one! There's SO much truth to that. I live in NW FL and understand you--loud and clear.
As for the gulf between organic enthusiasts and chemical ones, there's an old saying that MAY have some application here--when you think about it long enough. The saying is "if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything". Many people can be VERY opinionated. I know, I'm one of them!
I have lived on the chemical side for most of my life--of 57 years. Last year I tried some cotttonseed meal on my sugarcane and decide to increase the rate to double. THIS YEAR it was affordable to buy versus chemical. Then I decided to try some cottonseed meal on my Irish potatoes--knowing that potatoes like a lot of Phosphorus, rather than Nitrogen(which the cottonseed meal is high in). Well we got some drenching rains! The potatoes with chemical fertilizer has been dead and harvested for 2 1/2 weeks and it is just getting to be harvest time on the potatoes with cottonseed meal. The plants stayed green over 2 1/2 weeks longer! The potatoes have better color(in the ground) too, than the chemically fertilized ones.
So now, I'm gung-ho to try more cottonseed meal. I tell an organic friend about mu results and advise her on where she can purchase cottonseed meal and guess what response I get? "Cottonseed meal ISN'T ORGANIC!" I thought to myself, "that's crazy!" But she explains, "the cottonseed is probably BIOENGINEERED--( a no-no) and the cotton was probably sprayed with Roundup and pesticides! The meal is CONTAMINATED.
Probably needless to say, I will NEVER be an organic gardener. It's next to impossible to be an organic gardener---or certified organic these days, certainly not on a commercial scale. I had thought that I might try growing organic vegetables this Fall and sell them at the Farmers Market, but no, I can't even call them organic without breaking a law now. They have to meet arbitrary legal standards now. I have to call them "naturally-grown" or something.
So, I'm no longer hyped up about organic gardening---again. IPM sounds logical to me. We have a county agent that this is a part of his job title "IPM Specialist".
But I guess we have "different strokes for different folks" as Sly said in his song.
Personally, I look at food like the scripture says, " every creature(referring to meat here---or food) of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving. For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer." I try to pray over everything that I eat. I don't know(for sure) what's in the food that I eat(and literally noone does). But I know faith always works.
Some folks have faith in organic, some in chemical. Let's not fight over which is right or wrong.
Donna, keep up the good writings. You brightened my day!
Richard Harrison, NW FL
--- On Fri, 6/12/09, Kieran &/or Donna <holycow@frontiernet.net> wrote:
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