ORGANICS 101
Organic gardening is not about not using chemical sprays. It is more than that.
Not using chemicals is certainly part of organics, but only a small part. Organics is about working with nature, understanding the life cycles and gently manipulating them to get the results you want. Organic is not a trendy, hippy, messy or lazy way of gardening, but a level of understanding of what goes on in your garden and enticing it into your desired form or production. It’s about gentle guidance, empowering and enhancement rather than force, submission and genocide.
I am staunchly and publicly organic because I sincerely believe it is the healthiest and best methodology for my soil, my water, my plants, my health and the future of our planet. But I try not to preach. Growing methods can be a bit like a religion when people have deeply entrenched beliefs and don’t wish to consider anything contradictory, and I have no need to convert. But like the faithful, I believe my way to be the right way and feel condescending pity for those who have not reached the level of enlightenment and understanding.
Because that is what I believe organics is – a level of understanding.
If you understand the cycles of life in your garden, you know how you can enhance or disturb them to get the results you want.
And you can get the results without the need for chemical interference.
Take sooty mould on citrus, that unsightly black coating on the leaves. This is a fungus that feeds on the honeydew produced by aphids, scale or mealybugs living in the citrus tree. (Honeydew is a polite name for what comes out the insect’s bum.) Eliminate the insects, no more honeydew, and – voilà! – no more sooty mould.
Chemical growers will use a general purpose insecticide while some “organic” gardeners will brew up concoctions of garlic or rhubarb or tomato leaves, soap and oils – and all will kill the insects responsible. So, problem-causing insects eliminated, sooty mould problem solved.
But actually, a vacuum and a neverending downward spiral has been started. Because a general purpose insecticide is exactly that – general purpose. It doesn’t matter if it is brewed in a saucepan from homegrown ingredients or developed in a research laboratory. It kills insects – all insects – including the good guys that eat and control the honeydew-producing scale and aphids. That includes the predators such as ladybirds and praying mantis.
A general insecticide leaves a vacuum and so the only question is, who will be first to repopulate that vacuum?
A few ladybirds with nothing to eat or another generation of aphids (which, by the way, can reproduce without fertilisation and a single cabbage aphid could theoretically produce offspring totalling 822 million tonnes in one year – which is three times the weight of the world’s human population). Anything that can reproduce that efficiently needs full-time control, so a monthly spray – organic or chemical – will only win the battle, not the war.
And do not forget the birds. Aphids are an important food source for the little wax-eyes who are also great pollinators, distributor of seeds and eater of spiders.
So organic methods are not about blitzing the aphids into oblivion. Instead methods are used to reduce the aphids to a level that sustains a controlling population of predators and isn’t detrimental in looks or health to the citrus. It’s about balancing nature.
Since aphids like nice sheltered warm snug safe spots, I simply prune citrus trees open to wind, the rain, the sun and the wax-eyes, and wait. The weather inhibits the aphids’ breeding cycle, the wax-eyes move in for a feast (and I have seen a dozen wax-eyes feast in a newly pruned orange), and the ladybirds and praying mantis clean up the rest. Balance restored – problem resolved for the next three to four years when you suddenly notice black leaves and realise the citrus has grown and filled out again and go get the secateurs. It just takes understanding, observation and patience.
And that is my definition of organics. It is not identifying a problem and solving it. It’s not immediate results. It’s seeing an undesirable issue and manipulating nature to generate a balance that is acceptable to you.
Yes, it does take time and there are sometimes compromises, but the benefits far outweigh the negatives.
I have an extensive library of gardening and organic reference books.
But by far the most used are Andrew Crowes’ Which New Zealand Bird? and Which New Zealand Insect? These are a great guide to identify and explain the life in your garden.