Saturday, May 05, 2012

I am not an organic gardener

One of my readers left a comment saying she wished I would not use Sevin on the plants in my garden.  Well, very early in my gardening life back in the sixties, I subscribed to Organic Gardening and other similar magazines.  I tried my best to stay away from gardening chemicals.  
I learned there are some crops that do fine without pesticides:  beets, carrots, radishes, turnips and peppers, for example.  I don't spray the vegetables that don't need spraying.  Unfortunately, I have not found the magic wand that will keep loopers off cabbage and potato bugs off potatoes.  Yesterday when I sprayed the potatoes, the bugs literally swarmed off the plants.  Early green beans are usually buggy, too; later-planted ones, not so much.  
And yes, I use fungicide on my tomatoes, as well as changing their location every year.  It's either that, or I end up eating the plastic, high-priced tomatoes in the grocery store.  Blight destroyed so many tomato crops for me that I totally stopped gardening for several years; it just wasn't worth the heartache of doing all that work for nothing.  


when I find these eggs on my viney plants, I know they don't have long to live
I still haven't found anything that will keep squash bugs from destroying my vine crops, but I try again, every year, to raise a few cucumbers and zucchini.  Three years ago I succeeded; I guess the stars were properly aligned.    
So yes, I may be using carcinogens in my garden, but the alternative for me is to buy everything frozen or in cans at the store.  Do you think the farmers don't use anything on the crops they raise for Del Monte and other companies?  Of course they do.  Don't tell me to "buy organic", either.  Imagine yourself living on $2,500 a month and paying the kind of price folks have to pay for organic produce.  
I am a mortal; I am not going to live forever.  I'll have to die of something, and it may as well be from carcinogens.  My mother, by the way, lived to be 92, and when I was a kid, she and Daddy used arsenate of lead  on their potato crop and DDT on everything else.  When I was a child in Harlem (Kansas City) in the fifties, trucks came along regularly spraying DDT for the mosquitoes that plagued us there by the Missouri River.  
We have come a long way.  When I see an eagle soaring overhead, I remember that those mighty birds were almost extinct as a result of DDT.  
Did you know that Monsanto, which practically rules the agricultural world, sells genetically modified seeds with an inborn talent that resists insect pests?  There you have a whole other mess.  If the bugs don't eat the crop, maybe we shouldn't either?  I will soon be sixty-eight years old, my time here isn't long, and I'll leave the worrying up to the next generation:  Oh wait, they are sipping aspartame and eating fast food at such a rate that garden chemicals are the least of their worries.  
And then there is the state of the world in general.  Yeah, we're pretty much doomed.    

16 comments:

  1. what you need is chickens. they eat bugs, I learned this in kindergarten.

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  2. I've had chickens. They don't eat the right bugs, or enough of them. They do love fresh tomatoes, though. And the possums and coons and wandering dogs love chicken for supper.

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  3. I haven't used sprays yet, but I might this year because of the darn japanese beetles! I hate those things! I might try the fungicide for the tomatoes too. I will probably head to the nursery tomorrow to get my cold weather crops going. I should of started them by now but it hasn't stopped raining for about a week now!

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  4. Guianas love bugs and they do not eat the veggies

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  5. Everyone who lives healthy lives, avoids pesticides, exercises, and keeps meat consumption to a minimum.... Dies....

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  6. Celeste, we had to kill my last guineas because they went to the neighbors and ate their tomatoes, and the neighbors complained.

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  7. I agree, there has to be a middle ground. Zucchini grows like crazy here. One year I planted a couple of plants and we had approx. 100,000. :)

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  8. This earth's days are numbered, but not because of insecticide or mankind and our recklessness. But because it has an appointed time to end. - Barbara
    Life & Faith in Caneyhead

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  9. I remember the glue bottle and yes I am old as dirt.
    I use sevin if it's called for and yes guineas will eat tomatoes plus stratch up the sees in the new garden and what they don't eat spread across the neighbors yard.

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  10. I LOVE it when you get on your SOAPBOX. You are right. "Wisdom comes from experience." Often we have to compromise our principals because of cold, harsh reality staring us in the face.

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  11. We used to use Sevin dust on just about all our gardening produce. I do know from the hard way if you put to much on your squash vines it will kill them quickly. In the country if you don't use something the bugs will eat it all before you get a chance to.

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  12. thanks for the invitation but I just am not able to go any where. I haven't been to my sister in well over 2 years and that was just to make a appearence at a family reunion. If i was going to meet anyone it would be you.
    I have been reading your blogs ever since I got a computer and I think that was 2005. You were the first I read back on AOL. I started my blog because of your AOL "blog" and some woman that I read from a link on yours.she took photos and I think she lived in Conn. maybe not?? but anyway I have followed you across the years.

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  13. Technically you ARE an organic gardener since you are made of flesh and bones.

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  14. All the fruits, vegetables and flowers in Mexico were sprayed with some sort of chemical. We went into the fields and gleaned. I washed everything and 30 kids and I ate them. I'm not dead yet. My time will come when God is ready to take me home, not a moment sooner. Blessings, Penny

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  15. I'm sorry if I pushed some wrong buttons, Donna. It wasn't my intention. I'm passionately organic... and passionately against the use of things on our foods that cause cancer in innocent people... plus in generations to come. I honestly didn't mean to insult you. I've been reading you for a long time & care enough about you to not want you to pray carcinogenic chemicals on the food you ingest. For that caring I will not apologize.

    Bless you~ Andrea

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  16. Pray OR spray carcinogenic chemicals on the food you ingest. *ha-ha* Sorry for the typo!

    XOXOXO

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