Editors Note: Organic gardening soil has been debated for decades. The below article or opinion was penned by F.F. Rockwell over 60 years ago.
What organic gardeners do is really worthwhile. However, what they say is often unbelievable. How do you define organic gardening?
It’s not about natural pest control. It’s about improving the soil by a constant program. It is just what home gardeners need for a practical approach to a controversial subject.
There is an ongoing controversy over organic versus inorganic gardening. It seems to crank up and down in horticultural circles, social media sites, and avid growers.
As is usual in such fiery debates, it is doubtful if the heat generated had much effect in melting down the resistance of either side or if either won many converts or lost many supporters.
This is not surprising. It is foolish to speak only in terms of black and white when there are so many shades of gray in between. Perhaps it is now time to make a reappraisal of the whole situation.
What Does The Term “Organic Gardening” Mean?
Organic gardening used to imply keeping the soil well supplied with humus (decomposing vegetable matter) supplemented, where needed, by specific plant food elements such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and calcium, that is one thing.
Suppose we interpret the term to imply that only humus, manure, and other organic materials should be used and that never, under any circumstances, should chemical substances be employed to supplement them. In that case, that is quite a different matter.
Our own experience with organic gardening – of both the types mentioned above – extends over many years, in our gardens and those of others.
Excellent crops may indeed be grown with organic materials alone – especially animal manures and manure composts – if they can be sourced in sufficient quantity.
It is equally true that most home gardeners cannot readily obtain a sufficient quantity of those materials.
Therefore, the most practical program is to use all the organic material obtainable, especially in composts and green manures (rye or other crops dug into the soil), plus moderate amounts of fertilizers, applied either in the compost pile or to the growing crops.
To depend upon concentrated fertilizers alone is to take the road to disaster, which is usually a shortcut. This is because the growing of top-notch plants depends quite as much upon soil structure as it does upon plant nutrients.
They are a team, and neither one, no matter how good, can do as much alone as when hitched up with the other. Here are some of the things that organic material, in sufficient quantity, does for the soil:
Maintains moisture supply at the roots by absorbing and holding water, which otherwise would rapidly drain off. As a result, plant roots can take up nutrients only in solution.
Encourages growth of soil bacteria, which must have moisture to live and multiply and die off rapidly as the soil dries out. These bacteria convert plant food elements into forms that roots can take up.
Maintains balance of nutrients, some of which leach out rapidly from dry, humus-deficient soil.
Lessens danger of nutrients becoming “locked up” chemically in forms that prevent their becoming available as plant foods that the roots can absorb.
It keeps soil open and porous, permitting water to penetrate readily instead of being lost through the process of surface run-off.
FGR-1160 by F.F. Rockwell