Going organic
Urban Harvest expert shares tips for growing healthier veggies
By Kathy Huber
Houston Chronicle
Jan. 20, 2006
Exercise and eat healthy food.
Want to check off both of these perennial New Year’s resolutions? Plant an organic vegetable garden. Nurseries are stocking shelves with a pantry of options such as broccoli, lettuce and kohlrabi, with tomato transplants soon to follow.
We asked Urban Harvest executive director and garden-book author Bob Randall for suggestions on planting an organic vegetable garden this spring. Urban Harvest is a community and school garden organization that specializes in organic techniques and the best varieties for our gardening area.
Q: What are the benefits of growing vegetables organically?
A: Growing organically is easier and cheaper. Conventional gardening requires the steady use of fertilizers and chemicals.
Organic approaches rely on building up the soil structure and the ecosystem so that pests have their own pests, and microbes make the soil healthy using air, nitrogen and nutrients in the clay. In nature, no one fertilizes or sprays, and it has worked for ages. I have not used a chemical or organic poison on a food crop for 20 years and have excellent results. (I have used low-toxic fire-ant organic poisons.) Organic is healthier. Pesticides in particular are engineered poisons that are best off kept away from people, pets and birds. See www.pesticide.org/factsheets.html and www.pesticideinfo.org. Gardens are more interesting and beautiful with the movement of lizards, dragonflies, butterflies and birds. These creatures don’t want poison on their food or home. Chemicals destroy the soil food web. A lifeless soil can be hard, and weeding becomes tougher.Q: Our native soils can be heavy and drain poorly. What are your recommendations for preparing and amending the soil for a vegetable garden?
A: I use an 8-inch-high raised bed framed by concrete blocks, landscape stone and other materials. I use a trucked-in garden mix of part loam and part quality compost (such as that from Nature’s Way Resources) and fertilize with MicroLife.
I always mulch at least by April, with a quality mulch that feeds microbes. My preferences (in order) are native mulch, leaf-mold compost or alfalfa hay.
Q: What common pests trouble these vegetables, and what organic treatment do you recommend for each?
A: Leaf-footed bugs are common on tomatoes and many other plants. Persistent trapping on long beans in late summer is my foolproof method. (Details are included in Randall’s book Year Round Vegetables, Fruits & Flowers, $22.50 at various nurseries.)
Tomato leaf diseases are discouraged by using cages that support plants and promote leaf drying with sun penetration and air circulation. Mulching encourages a soil web that eliminates disease organisms.
To manage phytophtora root rot, which attacks peppers, avoid overwatering and apply a quality mulch.
Bean fungus is less likely to spread if you avoid overhead watering.
Squash vine borers dislike tatume squash. Urban Harvest members can find seed in the organization’s seed library.
Corn ear worm is controlled by parasitic wasps. Cilantro flowers and carrot-family relatives attract these beneficial insects.
For more information, visit www.urbanharvest.org.
This article is: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/features/3601937.html
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Posted by: Paul on January 22, 2006 at 18:46:05