Organic allotment problem.

[carolinej]

Hello,

I garden organically in my garden. I am about to take on an allotment, but some other allotment holders arent 'organic'. Will this make life difficult for me, as , if they are either killing or discouraging natural predators, there will be very few to help me and my plants out?

Do you think growing a small mixed bed of flowers in the allotment will help?

All advice gratefully recieved :).

cj

[carolinej]

[kt.]

I dont mind organic or non organic. I use as little chemicals as I can but do use some or I would hardly get any crop due to pests and disease.

Unfortunatley due to the nature of the beast, you can be organic to the best of your ability on your allotment, but What you cant stop is any vapours that blow from non-organic plot holders allotments onto yours due to wind. Windbreaks between plots such as fences, your shed may help a little but this is minimal.

[kitten]

Hi CJ, i think we're gonna have a similar problem. We've already been told in no uncertain terms that 'organic gardening doesn't work' by our lottie neighbours, and i know for sure that they all use slug pellets & various other chemicals against pests etc. :-X

However, we're going ahead with our plans the way we want to (companion planting, crop rotation, etc) and we're just hoping that all of the chemicals they spray won't blow over crops!

I don't really know what a good solution is to this, awaiting replies from more experienced peeps! Best of luck, & let us know how you're getting along! x

[supersprout]

Agree with previous posts - windbreaks and barriers will help you avoid chemical 'drift'. Companion planting will certainly help attract beneficial insects. More info here on A4a if you search, and a new thread
http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/joomla/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,91/topic,27059.0

The degree to which anyone can garden without chemicals is a personal choice. I can get pony poo and straw easily, but 100% organic? No - it's a compromise ::)

[daninlondon]

We grow organically on our allotment, and so do a lot of other people on our site.

However, I’m not very good at it, and I’m not sure I know what a natural predator looks like. For instance, organic gardening is supposed to encourage birds which eat our insects, but we just seem to get pigeons which eat our vegetables.

[Robert_Brenchley]

There are plenty of plants you can grow to encourage insects onto your plot. A few well-chosen flowers at the ends of the rows can make quite a difference. Borage is a good onwe; it's an annual, but it soon seeds all over the place. It grows quite big (be warned), and it attracts loads of bees.

[Curryandchips]

I prefer to describe my gardening as natural so I don;t get bogged down with semantics regarding organics ...

[triffid]

'Natural'... neatly put, Derek.
Not so likely to put the backs up of the old-timers' that carolinej encountered   ;)

[carolinej]

Thanks for all the relpies ;D

Yes, I like the term 'natural' too. Probably makes people less defensive.

cj :)

[cornykev]

I think I'll go natural Curry. ;D ;D ;D

[kitten]

OK then, i'm up for a bit of 'natural' gardening too! Just got to talk the hubby into it now ...  ;D  :-*

[Mrs Ava]

When you are allotmenteering naturally, please be careful of those nettles.  They can really make your eyes water!  :o ::)

[moonbells]

I recommend pot marigolds as a good way of having cheerful flowers and an insect attractor on the plot! And they're hardy, and self-sow, so after year one you've got them for good :)

It's also worth noting that slug pellets have two main chemicals - an attractant and the poison. The attractant is pretty non-soluble but the poison isn't, so if it rains, the poison leaches out but the pellets still attract the slugs. It means that any plot using them is a slug magnet, so if you don't use them, hopefully they'll go to the plots which do and leave your veggies alone!

I agree 100% with the compromise approach. Occasionally I have to resort to topical (painted-on) glyphosate gel to get rid of persistent weeds like hedge bindweed (the white one) growing in the fruit bushes. There's no way I'll ever be able to dig it out without killing my currants, so I pull as much as I can out of the first growth and then paint the leaves when it regrows (hopefully weakened). So far the bindweed is winning  ::). The next plotholder to me sprays *everything*. By July, anything planted is usually blue-coloured, as he sprays everything with bordeaux (It didn't help last year - his tomatoes collapsed on the same day as mine with blight). We agree to disagree, but I have asked him nicely that if he's going to spray insecticides, can he please do it on a calm day, same as he would weedkillers. He was happy to agree to that, even though he doesn't understand what I'm fussing about.

moonbells

[froglets]

Like the concept of "natural".  I had to stop & think the whole thing through after one of Monty's rants about how in the bigger picture bone meal was (in his view) against the concept of working with the land as it was a byproduct of mass production meat farming methods.  In the end I agree with Supersprout about it being a compromise.  I did what I could on my little plot and that worked for me even though our site ran alongside a railway line.   I just let the brambles grow on the railway side & hoped they acted as a filter.

[Froglegs]

I grow the tight arse way, will not pay for a small bottle a chemicals that tell ya you may need to buy another bottle in 4 weeks time if the first application did not work. The Froglegs way is to bung a few more plants in!, that way ya pests & diseases gets1, the wildlife gets 1, and you still end up with 1.The longer you grow the "natural or organic way " the better it gets, in the end you end up with 2 or 3 instead a 1. ;)

[carolinej]

Sounds like a good plan to me ;D ;D ;D

cj :)

[theothermarg]

the one next to me is a bed of blue slug pellets every thing grows very well
including weeds so i don,t know what else goes on every thing is close together
but are fat and near spotless I watch most of it rot as he has too much
mmm very mixed feelings here gggrrr I shall continue to grow naturely( even if I can,t spell it)
;D ;D ;D ;D

[cambourne7]

yep sign me up on the natual sanity check please.

I am on a site where all the organic type plots are up wind but still we have some occasional infringments simply to deal with infuriations.

I have myself sprayed a small section of my plot with weed killer ( roundup ) on some deep doc roots ( 3ft down and under the fencing ) sprayed it on a still day begining of dec knowing i was not going to be planting anything there till end of jan.

Which ment that the posion will have lost its power and hopefully done the job by the time i need to use the site.

That was a last resort as i had tried digging out the doc and using vinager but nothing.

[kt.]

That was a last resort as i had tried digging out the doc and using vinager but nothing.

Why vinager ???

[Tee Gee]

I don't know if my way is a compromise or not e.g.

I have gardened for more years than I care to remember and I would say I am basically an organic gardener but that is not to say I never use chemicals.

My reading of this 'organic' thing is based on commercial growing where they use 'preventative treatments' hence the reason for high levels of chemical residue.

Personally I only use chemicals as a curative measure, meaning some years I don't use them at all.

Basically the case with me is if the plant is likely to die then I will try to do something about it but I won't use sprays/powders just for the sake of it.

Afterall if I did take preventative measures who is to say had I not, that my plants would have been affected by anything. ??? ??? ???

I heard a comment on TV once that the 'commercial organic' gardeners can, and do, use chemicals providing the are within certain guidelines.

Is this another case of rules for them and rules for us.

Personally I will let common sense prevail and garden as I see fit and when you consider most of my stock goes to my children and subsequently my grand children I am not going to use things that might harm them, but as I have said if needs must I will operate to my own constraints.

I hope that last comment is not considered as spamming, in my mind it is just an honest opinion on the whole issue.

Your comments please! am I an organic gardener or not bearing in mind 'commercial  rulings'??

Let me tell you a case where organic gardening is often frowned upon..............

When produce is grown for exhibition

If I enter say a Dahlia under National rules and their is just one aphid on it my exhibit I will be NAS'd  (not as schedule).  :'(

and yes I have experienced this  >:(

So chemical control is sometimes the only way to ensure this does not happen.


Ah!!! the joys of gardening ;) ;)