On 20 Jul, 13:28, Judith in France
wrote:
I'm afraid I am not too organic, mea culpa although I am trying hard
to be. *I wouldn't buy meat, eggs or poultry unless I know where they
come from and they have to be free range. *I have been messing around
with soap sprays instead of chemicals but for the potatoes we have to
use a spray as the Colorado beetle is endemic here and without
spraying, twice, we would not get a crop. *I hate the spray as it says
do not eat for x days, even I have worked out that is bad *- what's an
alternative?

Being organic is not spraying weely neely with chemicals on anything
that's moving. Never. You've said on the allotment thread that you've
sprayed quote 'some awful clinging stuff climbing up some bushes, I
put a tray behind it to protect the foliage and let it have all of one
barrel, hopefully it will die off soon'.

The alternative would be to stop spraying - find out what the
'clinging stuff' is, find out what 'some bushes' is, and then you'll
will understand why some creatures are climbing and eating your crops
and remedy in an organic responsible way. What did the 'awful clinging
stuff' looked like?

As for the colorado beetle - unless you're feeding thousands and
exporting tons of food to europe and the world, you shouldn't use
anything to kill it in your garden. You simply should purchase your
spuds which have been growing organically in some fields which doesn't
use chemicals and leave the spraying of the colorado beetle to large
farmers who understand how to control it, in a safe way. Having said
that, regulations are not entirely maintained everywhere - but I'd
like to think we're getting there. I'm not also entirely against
chemicals - I can't when it comes to our livelihoods. It would be
silly to think we can spray 500 acres with washing up liquid.

But when it comes to our allotments, our gardens, I really don't see
it to be sensible at all.