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I started gardening for the first time this year. I put in two raised beds in my back yard. Although I want nice, clean, nutrient rich, chemical free vegetables, I also want a green, healthy lawn (fertilizer) and I don't care to pull weeds every three days (herbicide). Even though I am using lawn fertilizers and herbicides outside of the direct gardening zone, is there any danger in the various chemicals infiltrating and affecting the soil in the raised beds? Are there any natural remedies people use for weed and pest prevention?
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May 26, 2014 05:52
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faarcyde posted:Are there any natural remedies people use for weed and pest prevention? Certain leaves have naturally-occurring insecticides. Rhubarb leaf "tea" is the one my Mom always used on her garden, but I believe tobacco can be used to similar effect. Doesn't do much about weeds, though.
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May 26, 2014 06:06
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faarcyde posted:I started gardening for the first time this year. I put in two raised beds in my back yard. This is a very involved topic, and has a lot more to do with lowering your dependence on weed and pest prevention "things" by choosing the right plants and the right methods of planting, watering, and fertilizing. Organic or not, these choices/methods are just good practice. I'd suggest you start reading up in the gardening thread. Most of us are mostly or entirely organic in our methods. I personally don't subscribe to "organic or bust", but I do use the least amount of non-organics possible (like deploying ladybugs for aphid infestations rather than chemical sprays and using natural ingredient fertilizers like compost and fish emulsion). http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3085672 As far as your grass.......honestly the best defense against weeds is to make sure your grass is healthy. It will outcompete the weeds when treated well, but may need a lot of help to get there. The #1 problem most people have is that they cut their grass too short (anything under 3" is WAY too short, I cut at 3.5") and/or cut more than 1/3 of it at a time because they let it get too long. The #2 problem they have is either not fertilizing it or randomly selecting whatever fertilizer they feel like has the prettiest bag. NO. You call your local county ag extension and ask about soil testing. You pick up a kit and send it back in, and they tell you using actual scientific analysis how much of what nutrients and pH correction you need for the type of grass you are trying to grow. This makes HEALTY grass, not super lush green grass with no drought tolerance or root structure like you get from the nitrogen bomb toxic waste mixture that Chemlawn or whatever they are calling themselves these days puts on there.
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May 27, 2014 00:58
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I use raised, small garden beds for anything I want to eat. There was a good Gardening Australia video on a particular way I like. Wicking is pretty easy. I find it helps most of my pest and weed problems. Though since I check every couple of days, I don't have any issue weeding or getting rid of bugs. I don't subscribe to 'organic or bust' either and mostly just do whatever is easiest. But I've never had any issues with green grass, I don't fertilise or water it and it's still nice and green. I just assume whatever grass survives best just took over. My house is on old cattle land in some of the more fertile areas of my country so ymmv.
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May 27, 2014 01:19
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As far as pesticides go, most organic pesticides only kill pests on contact. Insecticidal soap, horticultural spray oil and diatomaceous earth all work in the same way, by disrupting the cuticle, the lipid coating on the carapace of the insect. Soap and oil need to sprayed directly on the pest. DE is applied to the soil around the plant, so it only affects insects that crawl on the ground. Another alternative is to use the natural counterparts of conventional pesticides. For example, using teas from the Pyrethrum Chrysanthemum, or from Nicotiana plants (ornamental tobacco is quite pretty too and has very pleasant smelling blossoms). Companion planting plants like these work well too. Other plants to consider as companion plants would be marigolds, alliums and wormwood. Neem oil (containing azadirachtin) and orange oil (containing limonene) also are recognized legitimate organic pesticides, but at the same time, they're overhyped too. As far as preventing weeds, prevention is reall the best way to go, using a mulch to prevent weed seeds from establishing is all I can think of.
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Jun 8, 2014 21:20
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Plant some kidneys and livers in the ground, water them, and in a few months you'll have fresh organs blooming.
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Jun 8, 2014 21:32
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faarcyde posted:I started gardening for the first time this year. I put in two raised beds in my back yard.  CHEMICALS in your vegetables."Organic" is a huge fad.
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Jun 8, 2014 23:51
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Oh no, wouldn't want Natural Remedies **THEY** don't want you to know about
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Jun 9, 2014 00:43
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Oh no, wouldn't want Treflan is God's greatest gift to man. 2,4-D, glyphosate, and pyrethrin as necessary. That said unless you have a massive garden or a specific problem you really shouldn't even need to use much in the way of chemicals anyway. Regular hand weeding and good practices can generally make it so you'll rarely be in a situation where you'll want/need chemicals.
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Jun 9, 2014 03:24
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Oh no, wouldn't want Well the whole "chemicals = bad" thing is certainly a fad. I'd like to see a list of the chemicals inside a bag of chicken poop or blood and bone. It will be a far, far longer list than what's inside a bag of superphosphate, and the chemical names will be far longer and have more unpronounceable syllables. The pseudoscience bullshittery side of organics drags the whole green movement down. Synthetic fertilisers are, ultimately, unsustainable, though we have a few hundred years before Morocco is mined dry and it becomes a problem (the peak phosphate scare turned out to be a supply flow problem IIRC). Then again, so is organic agriculture if we keep using current sewage, waste disposal and dead body disposal methods and rituals, because bit by bit various minerals will leave the cycle and get buried or scattered. ("Soylent green" makes the best organic fertiliser name.) Anyway, on-topic, if there is any "infiltration" of chemicals from your lawn to your raised chemical beds, it will be so slight as to have no effect. It would take something on the scale of replacing your entire lawn with a freshly poured concrete slab to affect the soil pH in the raised areas, for example. Just if you feed your vegetables to anyone who believes in homeopathy, don't tell them where they were grown, because that's the level of chemical infiltration you'll be getting.
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Jun 9, 2014 08:37
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If you're gardening for food you do need to be careful about what chemicals you put on your plants. There are some pesticides that say right on the bottle they shouldn't be used on plants that produce food. As far as the lawn chemical issue goes, just make sure you don't mulch with your grass clippings then. If you plan to compost your grass clippings to be used in the garden, you need to look at the chemicals you use because some of the herbicides might not break down before you'd use them in your garden.
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Jun 9, 2014 13:05
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I also recommend getting the soil tested and finding the grass that grows best there and then testing the soil in the garden and figuring out what you need to do to get balanced soil for your plants. I found the best way to start is working on a garden is composting first while you are working on getting your soil figured out. Also finding a source of reasonably good manure around your area might be solid. Most farmers in my area are fairly happy to have their extra manure hauled away at no cost to them. Look for Alpacas they all poop in one spot which makes it easy to get! ~note~ let manure sit for a year in your compost before using in a garden.
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Jun 10, 2014 11:12
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Oh no, wouldn't want Virtually all garden "chemicals" are ultimately derived originally from natural compounds, engineered to be easier to use (and also to be patentable, so money can be made). For example, most pyrethroids are altered so that they can withstand UV exposure without breaking down as quickly, and are prepared with spreaders, stickers and other inert chemicals which improve their use. Pesticides which are legitimately dangerous to humans, for the most part, have been phased out of use. The main issue is that rampant commercial misuse (420 spray pesticides everyday) renders most pesticides ineffective within a few years, as pests develop resistance. This isn't sustainable; just as antibiotic misuse portends havoc for human health, pesticide misuse predicts eventual calamity for our food supply. Worth considering, however, is that the raw starting material for most pesticides is petroleum. Even if the material is not burned into CO2, it supports the petrochemical industry, which is probably something that we as a society should be stepping away from for many reasons.
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Jun 13, 2014 18:01
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(censored by Monsanto)
Muttonchips fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 19:26
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Muttonchips posted:Even if the "chemicals" you use are safe to consume, some of the companies who make and sell these chemicals are doing a lot of harm to the environment. Just google this company called Monsanto if you want more details. Farmers throughout history never needed chemicals to take care of their crops. You don't need them now. Don't listen to the detractors. Going with poison is definitely the easy route, so I can't say I blame these "farmers" for needing to depend on it to control their backyard garden. Either way if you grow native plants you shouldn't have too much trouble. I live in a hilarious giant swamp full of kudzu and bugs the size of my fist though so I am I pretty huge fan of modern agri-science. Rent-A-Cop fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Jun 13, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 19:30
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Rent-A-Cop posted:I honestly can't tell whether this post is sarcasm or not. I'm afraid it's not. And this is the type of absolutist view that turns people off. Also, gardening is not "farming." Anyone who's ever worked a farm can attest to that.
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Jun 13, 2014 21:06
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(censored by Monsanto)
Muttonchips fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 21:18
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Muttonchips posted:If you're a real organic farmer you do not use chemicals, period. You don't use H2O? Seriously, get a grip. Turn down the rhetoric and you might have some useful information in your head that others want to hear. But when presented this way people just assume you're a nutter.
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Jun 13, 2014 21:22
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(censored by Monsanto)
Muttonchips fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 21:31
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What exactly qualifies as a chemical? Why isn't neem oil a chemical, in your eyes?
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Jun 13, 2014 21:38
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The thing you're not piecing together here, Muttonchops, is that distinctions like "chemicals", "natural," "organic," "synthetic," and so forth are quite meaningless. Your definition of "chemical" is completely weird, you're using it as shorthand for "poo poo that's bad". Best practices may or may not be organic. There are "organic" and "natural" things you can do to your garden that would poison you; there are synthetic compounds you could use that would only have positive effects. Posters started dumping on the OP was because he wasn't asking about how to have a thriving, healthy garden that would create the best food and be the best for the environment. He was asking for "natural remedies" and "chemical free" because he assumed that's how you get to that garden, which is strictly pseudoscience. In practice, though I am no master gardener, I'm pretty sure most of the best practices are in fact organic for a home garden, but they don't have to be, and it's stupid to ignore everything synthetic or "chemical" as a rule.
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Jun 13, 2014 21:55
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(censored by Monsanto)
Muttonchips fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 22:56
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Muttonchips posted:There's not much to piece together here. If you use chemicals which have been manufactured in a plant, you are not an organic farmer. Fish emulsion and blood meal (among plenty of other things) are typically manufactured in plants. And you still don't know what "faming" is. Your gardening is not a farm. There is a difference in both scale and monoculture. Words have specific meanings that are generally agreed upon, which is what makes meaningful communication possible. How are you not getting this? Yes, some of us here understand what you are TRYING to say, but you're doing it all wrong. If your goal is to educate people about organic gardening you are doing more harm than good.
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Jun 13, 2014 23:07
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(censored by Monsanto)
Muttonchips fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 23:26
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Muttonchips posted:Why do you care so much what I'm calling it? And in what shape or form does any of what you said have to do with what the OP asked? To farm is to grow crops. I'm a farmer. You can disagree, but that's just your opinion and has no weight. It's not my opinion. It's the english language. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/farm I'd hardly consider every accepted english dictionary as "having no weight." And you still didn't answer the important part: where you do think these "not chemicals" you claim are the only acceptable things to use are coming from? Muttonchips posted:Sorry for the derail, OP but it seems the trolls are out in full force today. Don't let the trolls discourage you from organic FARMING. Yeah, the people with a grasp of the english language and without barely-understood absolutist views are the trolls here.
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Jun 14, 2014 00:03
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(censored by Monsanto)
Muttonchips fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 14, 2014 01:09
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typically one only gets to refer to themselves as a member of a profession if they actually do that thing for monetary gain also as someone who grew up on an actual farm I think you're insane
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Jun 14, 2014 01:22
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Organic is when instead of using fertilizer you just take shits on your plants everyday.
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Jun 15, 2014 08:31
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Muttonchips fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 15, 2014 13:35
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Muttonchips posted:I can't tell if you're joking or not, but human fecal matter is great fertilizer. I stay away from it personally, but I've talked to several organic farmers who have used it to great effect. You have to process it before you use it though, for obvious reasons. Pshh thats corporate machine based fertilizer made in a factory, not organic. To really do this right during growing season you need to switch to an all liquid diet, take a few laxatives, just run naked around the garden.
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Jun 15, 2014 16:18
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(censored by Monsanto)
Muttonchips fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 15, 2014 16:45
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You sure have a lot of extra time for spewing bullshit online, being a farmer and all.
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Jun 15, 2014 19:22
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While it is a good fertilizer that's also a fantastic way of spreading disease if improperly sterilized. Do you really want to take that chance as a producer or a consumer? On the other hand you can't get sick from your own poo poo so if you're the only one eating it go crazy.
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Jun 15, 2014 20:34
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Muttonchips, you never addressed the fact that most of these non-chemical you are using were probably also manufactured in factories and that there's no rational reason to consider something like neem oil "organic" and (insert random chemical you don't consider organic) inorganic. While I don't disagree that so-called organic farming/gardening isn't just a fad, people have been doing all sorts of dumb irrational things for all of human history. While you should absolutely feel free to do whatever you feel comfortable with, you cross a line when you start to try to convince others that what you're doing is meaningful or even follows an internally consistent logic. In this specific case, it is probably more beneficial for people to explain to the OP that there's no harm in using any chemicals that aren't actually harmful than it is to reinforce whatever misconceptions he/she might have. edit: Also, you might want to look at that science misconceptions thread in D&D (I think it has Monsanto in the thread title). While Monsanto isn't good, a lot of people (myself included) found out from what others said in that thread that most of the bad stuff they do is the same sort of bad stuff most other large corporations do and that they aren't particularly unique.
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Jun 16, 2014 01:05
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(censored by Monsanto)
Muttonchips fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 16, 2014 01:47
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Muttonchips posted:Now, can you tell the OP anything about organic gardening? If not, what the hell are you doing here? More organic gardening, less about me please. The OP is likely asked about organic gardening not because he was fascinated with organic gardening per se, but because he has particular goals in mind, and people came in here to educate him, so quit going on your silly semantic crusade. If someone posts "tell me about chiropractors" then it would be intelligent and Good Discussion if their post implied they could use information about physical therapists or orthopedic specialists.
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Jun 16, 2014 02:04
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(censored by Monsanto)
Muttonchips fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 16, 2014 02:12
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Handmade neem oil, chemical free! This is like a case study in high grade, slick trolling.
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Jun 16, 2014 16:36
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litany of gulps posted:Handmade neem oil, chemical free! Yeah, I always bite on the pseudoscience trolls because it's in my professional interests, I can't help it. Oh well. He was performing well until that last post.
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Jun 16, 2014 17:10
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(censored by Monsanto)
Muttonchips fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 16, 2014 19:14
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