When you go into the garden, do you rely on weed killers, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers to keep everything just right?

Ever thought about going organic?

With the green movement now at full speed there are lots of organic alternatives to those chemicals.

Instead of killing all that’s bad in the garden organics enhance all that’s good, and you end up with a beautiful landscape that doesn’t pollute your world.

Mitch Baker’s garden is an organic Eden, healthy and vibrant.

It hasn’t tasted a chemical in years.

“I don’t have the insect and disease problems I used to have. I haven’t applied an insecticide in the garden in five years,” says Baker.

Baker is the horticulture specialist at American Plant Food Garden Center in Bethesda, Maryland, which became fully organic seven years ago.

Organic gardening means you see the garden from the ground up, so you feed the soil.

“What we’re trying to achieve is sustainable soil system that you achieve by using organic fertilizer. Organic fertilizer has microorganisms in soil that cycles nutrients into plants including the turf and suppress disease.”

For your lawn, it starts with organic fertilizers.

Organics deposit just the right amount of nutrients in the soil, reducing the overrun of phosphorus and nitrogen that cause so many problems.

A properly fed lawn is naturally stronger.

“With an organic lawn, it’s not chemically dependent, it has wider tolerance for heat and moisture so during the summer my lawn is green while other lawns are yellow in that hot dry period.”

Bugs.

They’re not bad.

Nature put them there for a reason. Reaching for pesticides at the first sighting is a terrible practice.

“What we’ve been using in the past is broad spectrum that kills everything in the garden.

Organic gardening asks that you respect the bug, by inspecting the bug.

“Positively identify the insect. Make sure that insect is causing that damage you’re seeing and see if it’s really threatening the health of the plant.”

If it’s just cosmetic, ignore it. If the plant is healthy it can take it.

“Plants have that ability, they have that natural resistance if we just let them be.”

But if it’s infested, there are now tons of organic products to turn to.

“Anything from insecticide to fungicides to weed control, all organic.”

Look for the Omri symbol on your products, it means it’s been certified by the Organic Materials Review Institute.

Be forewarned, switching your garden to an organic diet may cause it to go through withdrawals at first.

Going organic may be harder for you than your garden, because we humans like to have full control, and organic gardening requires us to stop interfering with nature.

source : www.ksdk.com