Organic Gardening in Perry Hall Community Garden

More and more gardeners are pursuing organic gardening. Perry Hall Community Garden was established with this idea in mind.

We are a diverse group of people from a variety of backgrounds. Some of us have been using organic methods for some time, and others are completely new to this kind of gardening. In my lifetime it has always been possible to run to the garden center and buy a pesticide if there was an insect problem in the garden. 

Commercial garden centers have always carried these products, but they generally have one goal in mind; they want to sell products. And in some ways this is respectable. After all, business owners are in business to make a living. We do not begrudge this activity.

What we DO NOT support is the indiscriminate spreading of chemicals across the landscape.  We question whether chemical pesticides, chemical herbicides and chemical fertilizers are as necessary as some believe.  We believe their use have simply become a habit. What you believe on a personal level is up to you. What matters most to us is having a CHOICE to eat and or grow food which has not been affected by chemicals. There is also a question of choice involved in using chemicals. I might agree with your choice to use chemicals in your garden or on your farm as long as those chemical do not migrate from your property.  Personally, I believe such use diminishes the sustainability of you ability to produce safe and healthy food. And if your chemicals find their way to the water table or to the Chesapeake Bay I have a problem. But, like I said, this is only my opinion. We all have one.

I came to organic gardening for health reasons. Some folks are frightened by scientific data which seems to indicate that these chemicals stimulate the number of cancer cases in our community. I am not a scientist, I am a gardener, but I have seen the effects of cancer of several family members. Some have survived a very difficult ordeal and others did not survive. Consequently, I gradually decided to make choices that I believe may reduce the possibility of cancer in my body. This was my choice.

So, now I try to eat organic food when I can, and I grow as much as I can myself. I have not always had the time for as much as I do now, but eating to prevent cancer is important to me. I am convinced that growing some of my own food this way will reduce my cancer risk.I really do wish I could grow all of it, but who has time for that?

When I began talking to others about the idea of the Perry Hall Community Garden, a frequently asked question was about the use of chemicals in the garden.  When we first gathered as a group we discussed using organic methods and then we agreed in March of 2013 to establish our project as an organic garden. Some asked what that meant. We agreed that we would not use either chemical pesticides or chemical herbicides. If there was a natural deterrent to a problem we were having, we would employ organic solutions.

Then a question was raised about chemical fertilizers. And this is a more difficult situation. All the elements in any fertilizer may be deemed a chemical. The six macro nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium and sulfur are all on chemistry’s period table of elements. The direction we decided to take was whether these fertilizers were to be natural or synthetic. Yes synthetic fertilizers are generally less expensive than organic fertilizers. A typical reasoning for their use is that they are generally more concentrated which allows for a more efficient use of both the fertilizer materials and the money spent on buying them.  This might be true if that was the end of the conversation. I would ask: “How does that cost averaging pan out if health risks and expenses were factored in?” My belief is that my personal health care costs might be substantially lower than they would otherwise be if I ate a diet laden with chemicals.

In the end, most plants need to be fed in order to maintain their healthy condition which in turn improves crop production. The other given is that pests will need to be controlled in any garden.

The question is not do we use pest deterrents or fertilizers. The question is how do we do this in a sustainable way? Our answer is to use natural and organic solutions in place of their synthetic substitutes.

There are organic fertilizers available and I personally prefer to use these products. If you are the do it yourself type, you can make compost and then brew it into compost tea. Compost tea is very effective and ultimately inexpensive compared to commercial synthetic fertilizers.

So, in the end you do have a choice and its up to you.

We are working on setting up a presentation about how use organic methods in your backyard or community garden plot. Stay tuned for the details of this very informative program. In the mean time please visit our Facebook page: Perry Hall Community Garden