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Have you ever wondered if your plants would grow better in organic soil versus regular potting soil?
Do you think all those manufactured fertilizers and chemicals really help plants grow bigger, better and faster, or is it just a myth? Check out my latest eHow article The Planting Experiment: Organic Vs Non-Organic Soil to see what I’m up to this week.
Go HERE to read the full article …
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Charles Sifers says
It really bothers me to read the word “chemicals” used as some kind of boogeyman. Everything has a chemical make up, and the fact that something is manufactured as opposed to mined does not make it “evil”.
While it is true that fertilizers based on raw materials can have more benefits than some manufactured fertilizers, this is by no means always the case.
Composts can potentially contain a wide varieties of ingredients that bring micro and macronutrients to the table, along with the fungi that makes these nutrients biologically available to plants.
OTOH, “Chemical” fertilizers are made to be pure analogs of specific nutrients that all plants can use without the intermediary of fungi finishing the refining process. All that is required is that the farmer make sure that the proper mix of nutrients is applied to the soil.
It is also not true that “organic” farming techniques are environmentally benign. Spreading manures on fields presents the same opportunity for nutrient run off that “chemical” fertilizers present, and incompletely composted manures can have significantly higher raw nutrient levels, along with disease organisms that are never present in “chemical” fertilizers.
In addition, it is precisely because of modern farming techniques that the United States has been able to produce enough food for our country, but for every other nation in the world. That is not to say that we actually feed every one, but that is because of political realities, and not production issues.
Can “organic farming” match modern high tech farming? It is possible, but hasn’t been demonstrated yet.
Personally, I grow my garden with compost. I find that there is an elegance to building my soil, and that is as much a part of the satisfaction that I receive from gardening, as any other aspect. But, I have been gardening for nearly 50 years, and I have seen disasters due to the use of “organic” fertilizers that weren’t the proper pH, or which contained some kind of pathogen that wiped out the crop that they were planted in and rendered the bed unusable for years.
Had I been dependent on that food for my life, my family and I would have starved.
As it is, we have an almost miraculous modern farming industry that is able to provide us with what ever we want, and an economy the delivers those products to a super market just down the road.
In short, the only reason that we can have this discussion in America is that Big Farm has our back.
So while I appreciate the arcane art of building living soils, I’d prefer full disclosure and honesty.
Good luck with your experiment.
Nichole says
I would think we’d need to have conversation even more so if we were more dependent on self sustainment. I can’t wait to watch the experiment. I’m a novice gardener but interested to see how well the organic, not born in a laboratory, soil does.
Mistie Clark says
So….What was the end result? I dont see a link to an outcome.