The Seed 1: Organic Gardening, Planting, and Compost

Organic Gardening, Natural Abundance

Many gardeners who have been trained in the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides may be wondering what the hype surrounding organic gardening is all about. With synthetic products on the market that promise miraculous growth and weed free gardening some may wonder why anyone would bother with “old fashioned” methods of gardening. Anyone who would consider switching to an organic approach to gardening will first need to be assured that the results they see from organic methods are at least equal to if not greater than their “conventional” methods.

Gardeners who have either made the switch to organics or who have always practiced organic methods can easily lay these questions to rest. Organic gardeners focus first on soil health. Plants depend on the microorganisms living in the soil to digest nutrients in the soil and turn them into forms that the plants may absorb. When we focus on the health of the soil we attempt to create an environment that is desirable for these microorganisms to exist. Compost is an organic gardeners main tool for building soil health as the same organisms that the plants rely on are fed by rotting vegetable material. Compost is not only full of beneficial microbes, but also helps to build the perfect loose crumbly soil texture that the roots of many of our garden plants need for proper growth. As a gardener who has used both conventional chemical methods and organic gardening methods I can attest that after my first season spreading compost and watching the gardens respond with phenomenal growth I was amazed! The growth results that I achieved organically in one season were easily three times greater than I had ever gotten through using chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Watching my tropical annual plants grow to completely fill in there garden spaces and witnessing a quadrupling in size of standard perennials was just the miracle I had always sought, but never found until I found compost.

After many years of using only organic gardening methods and reflecting on the health of the soil that I work with, it now seems strikingly obvious to me that if we wish to find abundance and beauty in our gardens we need to follow in the footsteps of mother nature. The microbial life that causes health in our gardens is the same life that has existed as long as the plants that rely on it. In this way compost can be seen as the most ancient of gardening traditions. We don't need any chemical concoctions to provide us with the miracle of abundance that nature has worked so long to perfect. We only need to respect the traditions of the planet that made all that we are and all that we garden.

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