What is Organic Gardening? What does Organic mean?
www.3rlighting.com/tutorial
Q: What does "Organic" mean?
A: Many people have the opinion that organic gardening was invented by anti-establishment hippies in the sixties and is the only and best way to grow anything, everywhere, at any time. However, the term "Organic Gardening" was coined by a grocer's son named Jerome Rodale in 1940, further back in the 20th century. Mr. Rodale was part owner of an electrical equipment company who founded the very influential magazine named Organic Gardening which still is published today.
Q: So did Rodale invent organic gardening, organic farming, and organic fertilizers?
A: Mr. Rodale started the American movement. As Americans, we have a great appreciation for promotion and business which grow large enough that finally American lawyers wrestle it to the ground and regulate its every move.
Q: It's the American dream.
A: Mr. Rodale was an incredibly gifted businessman. While he did not invent the techniques which became called "Organic Gardening" he created the BRAND "Organic".
In some ways a cow is a cow is a cow. When you slap a brand on the cow's hind quarters it becomes more than a cow--the cow becomes an extension of the rancher who owns the brand. Coke and Pepsi are more than just carbonated sugar water; they are Brands which can carry a lot of connotations. A "Brand" is a symbol or loaded words that brings to mind a full collection of concepts.
Q: So "Organic" is a concept? You can't eat a concept. A concept is not a vegetable.
A: Organic Growing is an assortment of techniques guided by some general principals. But unlike brands like IKEA, Sony, or Budweiser, there is no one person or organization who owns the term "Organic". Jerome Rodale and the Rodale family used to shepherd the movement and the Rodale Press still publishes Organic Gardening Magazine as well the Rodale Institute guides research. Many States regulate what can be sold with an "Organic" label and the Federal Government has gotten into the act. Yet anyone can print up T-shirts with "Organic" across the chest and sell them without paying royalties to anyone. Just try that with "Metallica".
Q: Where did these gardening techniques come from?
A: Many of the theories were first written down by an Englishman born in 1873, at the end of the Victorian Era in the 19th Century. This was the time when India was the "Jewel in the Crown of the British Empire". A man named Albert Howard was sent to India in 1905, as part of the British Foreign Service during the Edwardian Era of the early 20th Century, four years after the death of Queen Victoria. Mr. Howard, later Sir Albert, was an agronomist--not a farmer--who made observations about the techniques used by local Indians to grow food. After the disaster of the Great Hunger caused by British Policies in the Irish colony-just fifty years before, the British Foreign Service was very keen to keep the Indian colony well fed and under control.
Sir Albert studied the techniques used by successful farmers in India and set about duplicating these results with Scientific principles. His overarching conclusion was that the health of the soil was the key to growing healthy plants. Soil health was obtained by composting and aeration. Composting accomplished two important things: providing a full spectrum of nutrients-including trace and micronutrients and encouraging a healthy population of beneficial micro-organisms.
Under British rule, India was unified; this stopped the seemingly constant warfare between local rulers. As well, organized sanitation services and Western medicine had effects on increasing the population of India resulting in the pressure for ever more food. Despite these efforts, it was not until Independence in 1947, Democracy, and The Green Revolution of the 1960's that India started to achieve a measure of food security. Nevertheless, situations like the Stalin Famine of Ukraine during 1932 through 1933 in the Soviet Empire were avoided in the British Empire in the 20th Century. Sir Albert returned to England in 1934.
Q: That's a lot of history. Why is that important?
History is very important to understand Organic Growing. India has had a civilization in place since the Stone Age became the Bronze Age. In order to have cities, there has to be enough farm technology to produce enough food that not everyone has to work in the fields all day. Only some people become farmers. This means that farmers have been working on better farming techniques in India for about 5,000 years. In fact, it is possible that Indian farmers even used stone tools to farm before bronze tools were invented.
Sir Albert was a Scientist. He took the Scientific concepts of Observation and Study, Experimentation and Testing, and Documentation and Writing it Down and just went outside and looked at what these farmers were doing. In any economy, there are some people who do better than others. Sir Albert worked to find out what the most productive farmers were doing that made them successful and what the farmers who had problems were doing that made them have problems.
His conclusions were that the health of the soil determined the health of the crops grown in that soil as well as the health of the animals who ate the crops grown in that soil.
Organic techniques depend on a respect for the past. You can only compost materials that have been left to you. If material to compost or the soil were contaminated in the past, it may carry that contamination into the present. Yet, as Americans, we carry the unshakable knowledge that we can fix things in the future.
Likewise, if soil is fertile and productive it is worth the work to keep it that way.
Of course, the soil you are standing on, what you have to work with is likely to be somewhere in the middle.
