"K" wrote in message
...
Adam writes
Hello everyone

I am minded to try gardening organically in my new garden. If I'm brutally
honest, I'm not sure I completely know why I want to do so, but if nothing
else it sounds like a challenge. I'd be interested to hear some thoughts
on
the pros and cons of organic gardening.

Pros - 1) less hassle. You're not having to remember to apply fertilisers
and sprays at intervals during the year.

2) a garden which steadily grows richer in wildlife, which is a joy to
explore

Cons - 1) you need to be prepared to tolerate a certain level of pest
damage - for example, your roses will attract greenfly, which will then be
food for small birds who will be attracted to your garden and kill further
insects. But if can't tolerate the initial greenfly for a few days, then
organic gardening isn't for you.

I've seen hardly any aphids this year, even on the two roses I have. I
assumed it was too dry.

2) you need patience. If your garden has been tended with a lot of
pesticides, you won;t have much of a wild population. The plant eating
insects will move in first, and it'll take longer to attract the
predators. You'll see steady improvements over 5 years, but the first year
may be depressing.

It didn't take five years for us and the first year was hopeful rather than
depressing. After four years I have a garden to be proud of in terms of
production and this year has been the least labour intensive. I expect it to
get better every year, which will be good as we develop more aches!

The effect on wildlife is important, I think, and the effect on the general
soil condition. OK, our garden is an organic oasis round here but it's given
us great satisfaction and at no financial cost except for seeds.

Now I'm not planning to be a complete organic fascist. If some problem
arises which is a bugger to solve by organic methods but can be easily
solved by some nice little spray of something decidedly non-organic, then
I'll probably make an exception.

That's a mistake. You'll take out the predators as well as the pest and be
back to square one. Glyphosate for persistent weeds is probably OK, a
systemic pesticide for your scle insect wilkl have longer lasting effects.

But it's really not difficult to pull out a few weeds every time you go in
the garden. If you want a 100% weed free garden that won't suit you, as Kay
said you'll have to spend a lot more organised time and money to keep it
sterile.

I think I may have hit my first such problem, namely keeping the weeds in
my
lawn under control.

Consider why you need to do this. A mixed lawn of daisies, self heal,
bedstraw etc is a joy (I agree dandelion are not the most attractive).

Sorry to disagree again but I've always believed that if dandelions were
rare we'd pay a lot for them, the flowers are very beautiful. I let them
flower then pull of the heads before they clock, that way I get a lot of
beautiful flowers.

But I don't have a lawn, the greatest waste of ground, chemicals, water and
energy which has ever been devised, in my opinion :-)

Mary