Garden Medley

Organic gardening is more than just hype. It’s a great way to give your family the healthiest food you can grow at home, no chemicals added.

Going organic can sound tough. It is indeed more work to make a compost pile than to run to the garden shop for chemical fertilizers. But it has some definite benefits.

A simple benefit of composting is that you are saving money. You’re taking food scraps that you would have thrown out and making use of them. For many families, saving money is a big deal. It’s better for the earth as well as for your family.

Going organic has benefits you really can’t see. You don’t see pesticides, after all, and you can’t tell directly which time that pesticides have caused a particular problem, unless it’s severe. But you also can’t see pesticide residues on your food, which may or may not wash off before you eat. These toxins can remain in your body as well as in your children.

Pesticides and chemical fertilizers don’t just sit where they are used. They wash into the water when it rains, where they can kill fish when they reach high enough levels. They make the water unhealthy.

Organic gardening can also be attractive. Marigolds can be planted to discourage aphids, for example.

I know not every gardener has the dedication to do organic gardening. It’s just so easy to buy chemicals, and the ads promising huge vegetables and flowers are so tempting. But when you use chemicals you may be doing just a bit of damage to the environment that you could have avoided.

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