Why Grow Your Own Organic Food?
You are concerned about environmental issues, health issues, and human rights. The tsunami of information blasted at you has left you bewildered. When the problems of the world are so huge, what can one person do?
With one small step in your own backyard, with little expense and just as much effort as you can fit into your busy lifestyle, you can reduce your environmental impact, improve your health, and develop vital skills for the future—you can grow your own organic food.
A few years ago, almost all agriculture was organic without anyone actually naming it as such. In the early part of the twentieth century, corporate interests began to flood the food market with various petrochemicals to improve the yield of crops. And make no mistake, the yields did improve. Improved yields meant improved profits, and big business took food production away from the local and individual.
From the 1930s on, people such as Rudolf Steiner became concerned about the costs associated with chemically enhanced growing, and not just the financial ones. More often than not, such people were labelled as freaks and primitives. Indeed, here in New Zealand, one of the first organic chain stores was named Cranks as a kind of joke against that impression. In the last few years, as environmental concerns have grown, organic growing has become more mainstream. Although it is still only a part of the world’s food production, it is an increasing portion.
It is encouraging that those with a vested interest in the technological approach to food production are beginning to speak the same language as the organic growers. Even Monsanto’s website is littered with references to being sustainable. Now I’m not holding up Monsanto as a light of good practice, but they do recognise that there is a valid argument. As far back as 1999, Robert Shapiro, then CEO of Monsanto, said “The commercial industrial technologies that are used in agriculture today to feed the world… are not inherently sustainable.”
My own journey towards organic growing began with my health. I had problems with my digestion and realised that I needed to eat healthier. Buying lots of fruit and vegetables from the local supermarket was my first idea. However, I soon realised that much of the produce had little or no taste, although it looked great and stayed “fresh” for quite a while. As a young man, I had worked on chemically dependant farms in several countries, so I knew how much fertiliser and pesticide could be forced into food, especially food grown for export, which needs to stay on the shelf for a long time.
I began to yearn for the taste of the tomatoes my dad grew when I was a kid, so I started to buy organic produce. But these days I have three kids of my own and I just can’t afford to pay premium prices for everything we eat. Growing some of my own food became the only option.
Some people could have other reasons for choosing to grow their own organic food. They may feel they do not want to contribute to an economic system that exploits both people and the environment; they know the use of enormous amounts of oil-based products to bring food to the table is completely unsustainable. Likely some are concerned with the toxic effects of the chemicals with which much of our food is laced. Some may just want a measure of independence in an increasingly dependant world.
Many people today are ready to make an effort to reduce their impact on the planet. If the scenarios of global warming and peak oil are correct, we are in for a century of huge change. It is unlikely we can rely on governments to solve our future problems. As individuals, we need to take responsibility for ourselves. What could be more responsible than learning the basic skills of producing food?
There is one thing that people who grow their own food using organic methods rarely mention, though it is as important as any of the health, environmental or socio-political reasons. It’s fun! There is a deep satisfaction in watching your kids fancy a snack, then wander out to the strawberry plants to help themselves. Serving up a fresh salad to your friends and being told that your lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and onions are delicious makes you smile. If you have prepared the soil, planted the seed, fought the slugs in hand to slime combat, and lovingly watered and fed your salad, you’ve earned a real sense of achievement.
We live in a world of increasing stress. Putting your hands in the soil helps. As modern busy people, we have lost appreciation for a simple pleasure our ancestors took for granted.
It’s not always easy to produce food. Pests, weeds, climate, and time constraints all conspire to defeat us. However, when problems are overcome, the satisfaction is that much greater. If something is hard won, we appreciate it more.
A packet of heritage seeds costs just a few dollars. From that packet you will be able to grow a decent crop and collect seeds for the future. Every year the garden costs less.
Eating better and cheaper food while reducing your carbon footprint makes you feel good. When you think in terms of “food yards” instead of “food miles,” the environment benefits. Whether you have a few acres where you can become self-sufficient, a backyard which can supply the taste of fresh produce in season, or just a window box for a few herbs, we can all grow some of our food organically. Give it a go. You’ll enjoy it and so will the planet.
Planning Your Organic Garden
So you have decided to make a change in your lifestyle and start growing some or all of your own vegetables and fruit. Some careful planning now will save you money and effort in the future.
Many new gardeners begin in the springtime with a hiss and a roar. They plants lots of seeds and seedlings and enthusiastically set to weeding, hoeing, and digging.
The first time a garden is weeded the sense of achievement is palpable. New gardeners know they are getting more fit and their aching muscles are helping to improve their health. By the third weeding, caring for the garden has become another chore. Many give up. By harvest time, their weed choked beds and tiny harvest convince them they just don’t have a green thumb and perhaps growing food just isn’t for them.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
With a little planning, anyone can enjoy growing at least some of their own food. Planning a garden can be divided into three categories: where, what, and how much.
Where?
For some reason many people seem to find the sight of their vegetables to be less than aesthetically pleasing. We have been conditioned to believe ideal beauty is a “clean” lawn surrounded by geometric beds of perfect flowers, no matter how unproductive and ultimately pointless it is. Too often vegetable beds are stuck up at the end of the yard, away from the house and the water supply. These gardens are usually ignored, infested with weeds, and full of slugs, spiders, and snails.
To make the most out of your garden you need to position it with three things in mind: sun, water, and access.
Plants need at least six hours of sun per day; many types will need more than that. Watch your garden and work out which areas get the most sun. Many houses are built to take advantage of the sun so that the best place for your garden may well be right next to the house. This is ideal as you will then have a close supply of water for your plants. You’ll find weeding is much easier. Just stop and remove a couple of weeds each time you pass by and you won’t even notice the aches and pains. And come harvest time, you will spot the ripe fruits before the birds do.
What?
I grew zucchini in my first year of gardening. I realised about halfway through the summer as the first fruits were coming ripe that no-one else in the family would eat them. The compost pile did very well that year. A little planning would have saved me the wasted effort. Have a look at what vegetables and fruit your family eats regularly. In terms of saving money, it may well be that your favourites will be cheapest in the shops at the same time as you harvest at home. Never mind. Home grown will always taste better.
If you are a complete beginner, start with the easier plants. Carrots, radishes, tomatoes and potatoes do well for many beginners. Of course, it will depend on your climate. If there is a little bit of shade, lettuces and salad greens will probably be good for you. You have to realise, though, that for most of us gardening is not an exact science. You will go through a bit of trial and error before you get things right for your patch. It is probably best to concentrate on doing a few things well at first rather than spreading yourself too thin and growing lots of things poorly. Build your skill set one step at a time.
How Much?
This part of the planning can be further divided into two parts: how much food do I want to grow, and how much time can I spend in the garden? If your lifestyle is frantically busy and you really don’t think that you can commit too much time to your garden, it may be best to grow a few herbs and maybe a tomato plant or two in pots.
I am a firm believer in the nudge form of change when it comes to lifestyles. So, if you are too busy to run a full garden, start small. Those few pots will almost certainly grow into more and more. Gardening is like that—it’s addictive. If you try to make huge changes all at once, you are less likely to succeed. A few herbs and a tomato this year, some salad greens next year to go with them. Make the changes small and you can live with them more easily. Set yourself smart goals for each year.
How much produce you actually grow is a little more complicated. It is likely that you will have at least one crop that does much better than expected and provides quite a surplus of food. Once you have been through every recipe for cooking and preserving and find that you still have some left, it’s time to appreciate the community of gardeners. Give some away to friends and family. The fine flavour of home grown food may wellencourage them to take up growing their own, too. Swap some with other gardeners. Don’t forget to swap your tales of success and failure too. Most gardeners love a good chat over the fence.
Look at your garden. What do you eat? How much can you grow? How much time do you have? Plan for your success.
Further Reading:
My Journey into Organic Farming
As a brand new farmer, I farmed conventionally for two years and broke even both years on one quarter section. Not so good. No profit. Farming has to make money or there is no point in doing it, right?
I decided I could make a little more money if I converted to organic, plus I didn’t like spraying all those chemicals. So I began the next year with a crop of oats, and I didn’t spray. Well, in the spring, what popped out of the ground was a beautiful field of wild mustard weed. Again not so good. The oats did grow, but they suffered under the canopy of the wild mustard.
From a distance, the field looked like a canola field. I hung my head in shame thinking that once again, I would not make a profit. Some farmers laughed. Some jokingly commented on how beautiful my canola crop looked. And some probably thought I was one bale short of a hay stack! In desperation I searched the web for a solution, but could find nothing. I resigned myself to just let it grow and harvest whatever I could in the fall instead of plowing it under.
That summer I spoke to many farmers and eventually met up with an old timer who used to farm organically. Over coffee at his place, I told him about my field and all the things that went wrong. To my surprise, in one hour he gave me more info on how to farm organically than I had learned in months of searching on the net.
With this new-found knowledge, I purchased a few more pieces of old farm equipment to help me out. Fall came, and the oats, wild mustard, wild buckwheat, and all the other weeds that offered me their seed were pouring into the combine. It was a mess that looked like a dog’s breakfast, but, thanks to my friend, the old timer, I used an old-fashioned screening system I had found for $400.00 at a local farm auction to separate the small weeds from the larger oats . It worked so well, I was able to remove 99% of all the junk from the oats.
With this new found hope, I felt confident I could farm organically. But what was I to do with all these weed seeds like wild mustard? Most farmers just dig a hole in the field and bury them four feet under. I did some brainstorming and research, and then it came to me. I could crush them like they crush canola seeds to make my own fuel.
Since then, I have designed and built my own bio-diesel reactor, purchased a grain burning stove, and purchased a small canola crusher. My tractors and trucks run on my homemade bio-diesel, a major reduction of my fuel farming costs. I also heat my home on weed seeds, saving even more money.
The second year I planted wheat and was able to keep the weeds to a minimum. During the summer, I noticed I had a wheat midge problem. (A midge is a little bug that eats the wheat.) It wasn’t an all out devastating infestation, but I asked around to a few farmers who all told me I should spray to get rid of the pest. However, I knew if I sprayed, I would no longer qualify to be organic. So I went back to the web in hopes of an answer. I found nothing but chemicals used to kill the bugs.
I once again resigned myself to just letting the crop grow and harvesting in the fall if the bugs left anything to harvest.
I once read a quote by Ambrose Bierce, “Patience: A minor form of despair disguised as a virtue.” That sort of summed it up for me. But this story gets better. Much better! I have to tell you! Are you sitting down in your chair?
A miracle happened. About a week later, I noticed a new critter in the field. Lady bugs. Lady bugs and more lady bugs. What seemed like millions of them. Everywhere I looked and everywhere I walked, lady bugs would land on my arms, hands, and hair. I wondered what in the world they were doing in the field because I had not seen them there before. To my amazement, they were eating the pesky wheat midge. Just when I thought all hope was lost, the small seemingly insignificant lady bug came to my rescue.
Every day I would walk through the field and marvel at the tiny creatures that were now living in my field creating balance the way it was designed to work. You know the best thing I ever did was choose not to follow the conventional wisdom. Had I sprayed the first year for weeds, I wouldn’t have all this free bio-diesel. Had I sprayed the second year for the bugs, I would have killed the wheat midge, but I also would have indiscriminately killed many other critters like the amazing lady bug. I wouldn’t have let the natural cycle of the field follow its course. I would have missed out on a major blessing.
Organic agriculture is sustainable. I can’t help but wonder what we as a people could accomplish if we were just a little more patient.
How to Start an Organic Garden
The first step in creating your organic garden is to determine its best placement. The closer it is to your house, the more attention it will receive. Make sure water is readily available, and it is in an area that is fully exposed to the sun.
Soil preparation is the single most important factor in creating a successful garden. I call it “dirt making.” You begin by gently turning the soil. If this is the first time the land is being used to grow food, a tiller may prove helpful. Subsequent soil preparation can be done with a spade or garden fork. Too much tillage destroys soil structure.
After opening the soil, add copious amounts of organic material such as compost, leaf mold, well rotted sawdust, or decomposed animal manure. You can make your own compost or purchase it from most garden supply stores. If you create good healthy soil, you will grow healthy, disease-resistant plants. Nutrient rich soil grows nutrient rich food.
Compost added to gardens improves soil structure, texture, aeration, and water retention. When mixed with compost, clay soils are lightened and sandy soils are better able to retain water. Mixing compost with soil also contributes to erosion control, soil fertility, proper pH balance, and healthy root development in plants.
Separate garden beds with walkways. You should not walk in the area where you plant your vegetables. The weight from walking on a vegetable bed compacts the soil and retards plant growth.
Utilize the garden space wisely. Select crops you will eat and enjoy or your garden space and the food you grow will both be wasted. Decide what you want to plant and where you will plant it. Know what you will plant after the spring season crop is harvested.
Southern exposure has the most light (if you live in the northern hemisphere). Plant your tall crops on the north and west sides of the garden to prevent shading of smaller plants.
Use known or recommended cultivars for your main planting. Always buy good quality open-pollinated or heirloom seed from a reputable company rather than hybrid seed, or buy transplant seedlings to save time.
Watch the moon and learn its phases. My own experience has taught me that things grown above the ground should be planted during the waxing moon, and things grown below the ground should be planted on the waning moon.
Water your garden as often as needed to maintain a uniform moisture supply. In the absence of rain, an inch of water once a week probably will be adequate for heavier soils. Light sandy soils might require more frequent watering. It is best to water early in the morning so foliage dries quickly. This helps prevent diseases.
Good luck with your garden! Growing food can be a rewarding, spiritual experience. Not only will you benefit from consuming the healthful food you produce, but you will also bring yourself closer to the ultimate realities of creation.
In the future we will delve deeper into some of the items discussed in this piece. Feel free to send any questions you might want us to address.
Meet K. Rashid Nuri
K. Rashid Nuri is a farmer. If this statement conjures an image of a white two-story farmhouse situated at the top of a rise, overlooking acre upon acre of planted fields that have been handed down through six generations, put a pin in it. Nuri is not that kind of farmer. A city boy, he grew up in Boston. His father had been an educator, his step-father a Navy man, and his mother a community activist. Nuri enrolled in Harvard to pursue a life in politics. He graduated with a degree in political science and enough math and science under his belt to pursue medicine if he was so inclined. But Rashid was a child of the ‘60s who dedicated his life to making a difference. He understood the fundamentals behind nation building—it doesn’t start from the top down; it starts from the bottom up. A nation’s first need is to clothe, shelter, and feed its people. Nuri chose food. “I set out to learn all about food from the seed to the table, and wanted to do this through practical experience.”
He started with a Masters in Plant and Soil Science from the University of Massachusetts. Practical experience began when his first job after college took him to San Diego County, California, where he installed organic gardens. Since that time he has worked in more than 35 countries around the world. “I have built farms, managed farms, worked with government, managed a 30,000 rose bush garden, taught organic farming, and spent years in agribusiness working with feed, seed, poultry, cotton and oilseed processing, and commodity trading.” He also served four years as a senior executive in the Clinton Administration, which included time served as the Deputy Administrator of the Farm Service Agency and Foreign Agricultural Service for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In 2006, Nuri brought his 40 years of experience to the creation of Truly Living Well Natural Urban Farms. This community supported agricultural project grows food on four sites in the Metropolitan Atlanta Area, providing nutritionally-rich, fresh-picked, organic produce to the community. Organic, urban food production minimizes the carbon footprint. Crops are not stored and shipped over great distances. Food does not lose its nutritional value. Crops are not contaminated by unwashed trucks or storage bins.
Most of the food produced by the farm is sold through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) subscriptions, which are sold on a revolving basis. Each subscription punch card is good for 13 boxes of food, to be redeemed at the buyer’s convenience. Member subscription fees provide capital to purchase supplies and fund the operations. Truly Living Well also sells produce to local restaurants and to the community at large.
Yes, K. Rashid Nuri is a farmer. He is also a social activist. He fights hunger through his outreach efforts to help students, organizations, and individuals plant sustainable, organic gardens and through teaching opportunities at his farm. He serves on the board of Georgia Organics and is a member of the Atlanta Local Food Initiative. He is also OLM’s newest contributor and advisor.
Check out Nuri’s article on How to Start Your Own Organic Garden in the next issue.