Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Being Pure Organic

I have to admit that I might have really overdone it a bit with being completely organic, such as the hybrid tomato seeds and such. But I just don't want my garden to be non organic at all.
One of the most controversial subjects about this topic was when we were told that it would be a good idea to put in some soil additives. They are those little round pill things that you sprinkle around your bed. Being the paranoid person I am, I wanted to see if these additives were truly organic. The first pill was phosphate, which my dad says comes from a rock so this was organic. The phosphate is used to put phosphorous, a fertilizer, in the ground. The second additive was sulfur. This too is a mineral so organic and is used to put helpful organisms in the soil since they eat the sulfur. Finally, there was cow urea. This was a problem. Reading The Omnivore's Dilemma I know that conventional cows are treated quite badly and are stuffed full of unhealthy antibiotics. So I was wondering does the urea come from organic cows or conventional cows. I asked one of the starters of the community garden who is a seasoned gardener, and she replied, "Unless the organic farmers followed the cow around the pasture until it gave it's urea I'd say this was conventional." This made me uneasy. My dad reasoned that the antibiotics probably don't come into the cow urea, but I wasn't too sure. We each did our research for quite a bit and we both came to the conclusion, we would pass on the urea. My reason was that cow urine actually does have traces of antibiotics in it. That would make my garden non organic. My dad's reason was partly that, being a vegetarian, he didn't feel comfortable using an animal product. His main reason however was that it seems that even though the urea has lots of nitrates (fertilizer) and balances the pH (acidity and alkalinity) of the dirt, it kills the small organisms that sulfur brings. So, we decided to skip it. I don't know if my garden was affected because of my lack of cooperation for the urea, but I do know that it's a little more organic, because of it.

No comments:

Post a Comment