Can o' Worms Rant - to be Organic? Or Sustainable?
I'm old enough to remember horses pulling ploughs in Kincardineshire and Aberdeenshire, followed by clouds of wheeling lapwings and screaming seagulls; I remember the last of the horses being replaced by the old grey Massey-Harris and Massey Ferguson in the late 50s amd early 60s. Small light machines - just about able to cope with modern golf-course grass-cutting!
These days, I take my kids for walks through local fields - and how do I explain to them what has become of the gentle, rich, dark, fertile soils of my childhood? Rock hard, dry, concrete; acre, upon acre, upon hundreds of acres of sterility. Look at the enormously powerful monsters pulling ploughs today - and not a bird in sight, just clouds of dust. All that enormous power required to break dead concrete.
Where are the smells? The birds? The thrill of picking an ear of wheat, barley or oats to see, understand or (God forbid!) taste a fresh grain?
The scale of the agricultural devastation of the last few years really hit me when my 10-year-old took up bird-watching - his note-book records a fraction of the bird life that was so common-place in his dad's childhood, despite my very best efforts!
I've travelled through ancient grain-basket areas - now modern desert. I've seen the soil of West Africa blowing off into the Atlantic. How long before our farms are similar deserts? Not too long - watch the clouds of dust blowing off behind the tractor-drawn plough.
Rant terminated!
Is my plot organic? Practicalities
- Good husbandry, "growing the soil, and watching the vegetables look after themselves." Rotating my crops, maintaining my soil and building up (and protecting) its fertility, cultivating to reduce pests.
- Balance and diversity - growing lots of varieties, encouraging beneficial insects, providing habitats and food sources for predators.
- Encouraging healthy plants - so much of the advice I read includes adding a dose of this or that at different times of the growing season; fine if your priority is growing the biggest and showiest? But I get perfectly adequate yields without over-feeding my crops. I suspect they may even be the healthier for it - not so attractive to pests, and more able to take a bit of damage.
- Using barriers and traps - fleece or enviromesh, string woven over the top, collars cut from pop bottles, slug traps, etc
- Sustainability - recycle the resources and use the natural processes of the plot, as far as possible; get the compost heaps going! As it is only a small allotment, and without livestock, I don't mind using some trucked-in horse manure or mushroom compost.
And there's not a single "Don't ...!" in the list, just some enjoyable tricks of good husbandry. Yes, I sustain some losses every year, and there are a couple of problems I still have to crack. But none are unmanageable - apart, of course, from the vandals, but I'm perfectly willing to consider several non-organic treatments for them!
For an authoritative source, visit the HDRA website; they have developed an Organic Charter, a pragmatic checklist of progress towards a healthy allotment or garden. Sadly, the full version is only accessible to HDRA members.
Another excellent resource is Organic UK, with information and advice (regularly updated), and a forum.
"Don't!"s
As the years go by (I'm writing as we start our fifth year), the "Don't!"s become almost irrelevant. The longer we work the plots, the more we find a good balance of good yields and low losses - with all the many pleasures of good gardening thrown in. But this bit allows me to let off a bit of steam - so here goes!
- Poisons
- I find I'm rarely tempted to use even the gentlest and most biodegradable pesticides, those "approved for organic use". And use them very sparingly when I do. As for the stronger and more toxic products from the garden centres - nope, not on food I'm going to feed my children.
- My one experience of using a weedkiller on a part of my plot was not a happy one. Good initial clearing by hand worked a lot better, and then consistent cultivation over the years has kept my weeds well under control - they have become another usable harvest!
- Rip-offs - I'm a mean old cynic. And spend no more hard-earned cash on -
- highly processed, brightly coloured, plastic sacks of all-singing, all-dancing "organic" s..t, elephant or chicken. Am I alone in my suspicion that "organic" on the label sometimes means price hike?
- "flashy-over-priced-garden-centre-boxes-and-bottles", "artificials", "chemicals" - use whatever other term you wish.
- Don't get hung up over "organic rule-books", The Soil Association criteria, and the like. These apply if you are thinking of selling your produce under an "Organic" label, and are designed to protect the consumer.