Paul Hata


What is organic food? While we may have heard about it for over thousand times,many are still in the dark about organic food and its benefits.We hope this article would shed some light on organic food.

The Organic Revolution - The organic revolution is a global phenomenon witnessed in every part of the world. Global organic food market was about USD40 billion in 2006 and over 30 percent or USD12 billion of the global demand stems from the US. The world organic market has been growing by 20% a year since the early 1990s, with future growth estimates ranging from 10-50% annually depending on the country.

What Is Organic Food - Organic food are foods that are grown without the use of conventional pesticides, artificial fertilizers, human waste or sewage sludge.and processed without ionizing radiation or food additives.For livestocks, they are reared without the routine use of antibiotics or growth hormones. In most countries, organic produce must not be genetically modified.

The word organic food does not only apply to the food from your own home garden, but also to the store bought food products, in which no synthetic artificial inputs are used. In the contemporary times, the term organic food is usually used in reference to the certified organic foods. It has been claimed by health experts that organic food is more nutritious. Some of the features that can be associated with organic food are more attention to quality, good taste, proper selection of crop varieties etc.

Organic Gardening - Organic Gardening is gardening without the use of man-made chemical pesticides or chemical fertilizers. It is said by some of its supporters to be more in harmony with nature. An organic gardener strives to work in harmony with natural systems and to minimize and continually replenish any resources the garden consumes. Organic produce is also known for its superior flavor.

Organic Fertilizers - Organic fertilizers can actually be cheaper, because you can make them yourself. Fish emulsion is a common organic fertilizer. It is a sort of tea made from dead fish. Seaweed fertilizer is another tea-like fertilizer that many organic gardeners swear by.

And of course there is natural compost that can help you make use of your kitchen waste! The benefits of organic gardening far outweigh the few drawbacks. It may be a bit more work, but it is so rewarding!

Organic Food Consumption - Organic food consumption has become the trend of the time, but still there are many who do not have a clear idea regarding the definition of organic food and this can be attributed to the fact that we do not possess adequate organic food information. Well, organic food in simple terms can be defined as food that is natural and does not involve the usage of any kind of preservatives or artificial pesticides. Read further to explore organic food facts

Organic Food Production - Organic food production is legally regulated. Currently, the United States, the European Union, Japan and many other countries require producers to obtain organic certification in order to market food as organic.Organic products protect us from toxic and chemical induced diseases while nourishing our bodies to promote good health. Non-organic food only appears to be cheaper, but it costs us our health, our farmland, our eco-systems and taxes to pay for the disasters that chemical farming create. Chemical farming has led to dramatic erosion of the soil, killing off whole species of birds and near extinction of some of our beautiful wildlife. Sustainable Organic Agriculture is already feeding people around the world. Chemical farming can seriously damage farmer’s health.

Benefits of Organic Food - Organic foods contain phenolic compounds that protect you from developing heart disease and cancer. Organic food ensures high food quality, which other conventional foods cannot commit. Since organic food is natural and fresh, it boasts off its rich taste. So, head your way towards leading a healthy lifestyle, by eating organic foods.



Emma

Abhishek Agarwal


People who have tasted organically grown vegetables swear by its taste and find it extremely difficult to revert back to old eating habits. They often comment that one can taste the sweetness of the sun in the organically produced vegetables. So if it is the first batch of peppers during summers, the juice filled tomatoes, the first lettuce of the spring season or the pumpkins and squashes reaped in the season of autumn, the vegetables never tasted as better as they do when organically produced.

There are several other facts besides pleasing taste buds that justify the gradual movement of today’s society towards organically grown vegetables. Reliable scientific data testifies to the ill effects of fertilizers and chemical pesticides used in the orthodox cultivation methods. There is a clearly defined connection between diseases like cancer, neurological damages, hormonal imbalances and the chemicals that are used in non-organic cultivation. Organic vegetable farming is the need of the hour if we want to protect our children from the disastrous consequences of chemically produced vegetables. We all are aware that kids due to their lower tolerance levels are much more vulnerable to chemical residues as compared to adults.

Following are some important points that you must keep in mind during a transition to organic farming. These points will help you in maintaining the correct natural balance among the plants, animals, soil and the insects:

1. You must stop using all kinds of herbicides, synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. These chemicals do a lot of harm to human bodies in the long run.

2. You must develop the habit of not throwing the kitchen scraps into the garbage box. Instead, start turning that scrap into organically rich nutrient for your garden by making compost heaps.

3. Don’t go about killing the caterpillars and bugs in your garden. A lot of them actually help you in protecting your vegetable garden. There are books you can refer to obtain more knowledge about such good pests and bugs.

To get along successfully with the organic farming, you will have to learn to stop compacting your garden soil. Compacting normally done to get rid of the air gaps in soil bed. You must rather develop the habit of making pathways between the rows of planted crops, thus enabling you to reach and tend to each plant with ease. It is recommended to till the soil only once each in the season of spring and the fall.

Organic farming and water sprinklers don’t go together. The water sprinklers deliver water too fast for the soil to absorb effectively. Hence, it is a good idea to rather use a hose and use it slowly to wet the soil bed comprehensively. You can also try rotating the locations of crop cultivation year on year. This helps in effectively preventing pests and crop diseases.

In the organic method of vegetable cultivation, you will need to keep the garden bed regularly covered in organic mulch like grass clippings, straws or the chopped leaves. Such regularity will curb the weed growth and help the ground absorb water more effectively. This is one of the best methods to achieve optimum results for the organic vegetable garden.



John

Muna wa Wanjiru


To grow your organic vegetable garden is not a difficult thing and in fact many people who enjoy gardening are now turning to organic gardening methods. This doesn’t mean that you need to grow only organic herbs and vegetables in your garden. Organic gardening can encompass all aspects of gardening, including a flower garden or an ornamental garden as well.

Just because you want to have an organic vegetable garden that doesn’t mean that you only need to stick with the organic vegetable garden. You can expand to include such things as herbs as well if you like, not mention flowering plants and others.

The one thing that you do want to look out for when you’re growing your organic vegetable garden alongside your flower garden, is that your flower garden is also grown organically. After all, it kind of defeats the purpose of growing an organic vegetable garden if right next to it you use all sorts of chemical pesticides and fertilizers in your flower bed.

Other than that you should be fine when constructing and maintaining your own organic vegetable garden, but if you feel that you neighbor’s pesticide filled garden is too close to your own garden and that all your good efforts are going to waste you might want to look at either moving your own organic vegetable garden further away, or using pots, tubs and troughs to grow your vegetable garden.

The first thing that you need to decide when planting your organic vegetable garden is what types of vegetables you want to have. The next thing is to finding the right place to have your garden, along with how large you want, or can have, your garden. It is entirely possible to grown your organic vegetable garden in a small closed off patio on the 44th floor of your high rise apartment as long as you are willing to accept your limitations and work with them.

This means being aware that although you might want to plant an acre’s worth of organic vegetable crops, you will instead have to make do with a small 4×4 or even smaller sized enclosure in which to grow your organic vegetable garden.

Once all of these things have been factored in and you have a rough idea of what you want in your organic vegetable garden, and how big you want your garden to be, you can then move on to the serious subject of just where to get your organic vegetable seed or plant stock from.

Here, you might have to make a decision as to whether you want your organic vegetable garden to be planted from completely organic seed or plant stock, or whether, if you have difficulty in obtaining these, you want to resort to using plant stock from a nursery which is not organic, but which you will grow from scratch utilizing organic methods. Once all these are done, you can then get started on your organic vegetable garden.



Christopher

Paul Hata


Organic Gardening is gardening without the use of man-made chemical pesticides or chemical fertilizers. It is said by some of its supporters to be more in harmony with nature. An organic gardener strives to work in harmony with natural systems and to minimize and continually replenish any resources the garden consumes.

The organic revolution is a global phenomenon witnessed in every part of the world. Global organic food market was about USD36.7 billion in 2006 and over 30 percent or USD13.6 billion of the global demand stems from the US, according to Datamonitor.

Organic food refers to food items that are produced, processed and packaged without using chemicals. Organic food is increasingly becoming popular due to its perceived health benefits over conventional food.

The organic concept is not limited to food items. Due to excessive usage of harmful chemicals in cosmetics, people are turning towards organic cosmetics also . One can often see organic skin care products, organic shampoos, organic soaps, and organic make up products on the shelves of organic stores.

Droves of people are turning to organic produce as a way to feel safer about the foods they eat. People are worried about the foods they put into their bodies. With all of the reports of food poisoning from fruits and vegetables, many people are worried about what they are eating.

We now know just how dangerous all of those chemicals that we spray plants on can be, too. Many chemicals have been banned because they were shown to cause cancer! But some of these dangerous chemicals have not yet been banned, and there may be plenty of hidden dangers that have not yet been discovered.

When you garden organically, you can feel safer about the food you eat. You will know that the food you are feeding your family is safer and healthier than the questionable stuff you find in the grocery store. You and your family deserve to eat food that will not give you all cancer!

Organic gardening is also extremely beneficial to the environment for several reasons. For one thing, every time you spray your plants with chemicals, those chemicals wash off of your plants and onto the ground. From there, those chemicals wash down into the ground, and eventually make it into the groundwater!

When the insects on your plants are poisoned, they can be eaten by birds or other animals. These animals can then become sick and die. If the toxicity was high enough, any animals that eat those animals might also perish. This can have a very strong environmental impact.

By killing too many of a certain species of insect, you can also cause an imbalance in the local wildlife. If you and your neighbors kill off a large portion of the population of one insect, then anything that depends on that insect for food might also start to die off.

Then anything that depends on the second species for food might start to die. This could spin out of control if the problem became too widespread. This is unlikely, but it is not impossible. Organic produce is also known for its superior flavor.

For example, organic carrots are widely known for being much sweeter than traditionally-grown carrots. They do not have the same bitterness that other carrots can have. This is a very good reason to grow your produce organically, even if you aren not worried about the chemical effects to your body and the environment.

There are obviously a few drawbacks to gardening organically, too. You have to deal with pests differently, and it can be a longer and more complex process to rid your plants of certain pests. Instead of picking up some chemicals, you have to pick off insects by hand and drop them into soapy water.

You have to spray your plants with solutions made of things like hot peppers and garlic to prevent some bugs from eating them. It can be difficult. You also have to stick to organic fertilizers, rather than using easy chemical fertilizers.

But organic fertilizers can actually be cheaper, because you can make them yourself. Fish emulsion is a common organic fertilizer. It is a sort of tea made from dead fish. Seaweed fertilizer is another tea-like fertilizer that many organic gardeners swear by.

And of course there is natural compost that can help you make use of your kitchen waste! The benefits of organic gardening far outweigh the few drawbacks. It may be a bit more work, but it is so rewarding!



Kylie

Dominic Ferrara


ardening is not as difficult as one may think. It actually helps us to conserve the soil we plant on and also keep our level of trash low. The basic concept of organic gardening is to make full use of the natural resources that one has in the area without destroying any of them. The use of chemical pesticides and chemical fertilizers are not encouraged in organic gardening.

Soil

This is one of the most important things in gardening. The soil is used to contain the nutrients and the water that the plant needs to survive. Although, there are now gardening methods wherein the soil is abandoned in favor of other materials, soil is still the primary medium used for organic gardening and farming.

For those who wish to use soil as a medium for gardening, it is best to choose the kind of soil that the plants you wish to grow are comfortable with. Clay soil is usually ideal for those plants that like watery areas since this kind of soil holds water best. It is not ideal for those plants that like sandy soil, though. Sandy soil drains water the best and is used for plants that do not need that much water or whose roots rot easily if steeped in water for too long.

Compost And Organic Matter

Organic matter is anything that was once alive and is now decaying. These are important in organic gardening because these will serve as compost mixed with some stuff to make them more viable as compost. Organic matter that is great for organic gardening can include fish heads and sometimes entrails, kitchen scraps, grass clippings, manure and many others. Organic matter or compost is often used to condition the soil and in place of fertilizer. Some organic dairy products can also be used for organic matter mixes.

Pest Control

Pest control is one of the major reasons why organic gardening is more expensive than other kinds of gardening. Workers and gardeners need to work overtime in protecting their plants from insects and other animals that are attracted to the plants. Inspecting the plants manually in order to remove damaging insects may be hard work but this is beneficial for the plants and the other animals because you do not use pesticide to control them. The best way in organic gardening in controlling the pest problems is to get the help of some useful insects to control the other insects.

There are some organic pesticides available to make the job easier in organic gardening but some farmers do not like to use these if they have a small garden or field which they can work on manually instead.

Taking care of the environment and the so which give us the food should be the top priority of the farmers and their regulating body.

Dale Martin


Organic gardening can be described as gardening without the use of man-made chemical pesticides or chemical fertilizers. Some say it provides the gardener a harmony with nature. It is not a new concept, but has become an increasingly popular type of gardening in recent years given the fact that everyone is going “green”. Organic can mean different things to different people. Organic gardening is a little more than just not using chemicals or non organic fertilizers on your garden. An organic gardener should consider his/her garden as part of the bigger picture in nature and life itself.

Organic gardening is a simple way to ensure that you are growing the highest-quality produce in a sustainable way that is healthy for the plants and the planet. It is one of the oldest methods of cultivation, and the food it will produce is not only healthier for you it’s less expensive to. You may find that it might become the most rewarding hobby, or lifestyle, you have ever undertaken. Organic gardening is a simple healthful way to convert living organisms into carbon compounds in a way that considers the whole of nature and its integral place in that scheme.

Organic gardening uses natural compost and manure to fertilize and grow plants and flowers. Since you will be using natural compost no harmful chemicals or pesticides are used on your plants. Some gardeners are willing to invest in some extras required by organic gardening because it ensures that no harmful pesticides or fungicides will be used. By growing a garden without chemical fertilizers, you will naturally build the soil to support healthy plant life. Chemical fertilizers and additives will, over time, damage the soil’s ability to provide what plants need to resist disease, insect attacks, and stress.

Organic gardening is all about balance between the soil and its nutrients, the water, the air, and of course your plants. It is easy, relaxing and fun. Being a green gardener means you don’t use synthetic fertilizers or pesticides on your plants. It is all about working with the land to build healthy soil and plants. Think of organic gardening as a system that combines all aspects of gardening: soil, water, plants, animals; even insects!

So if you’re considering organic gardening, it is an excellent way to grow your trees, shrubs, flowers, vegetables and plants. Your garden will benefit greatly from organic materials. It is an environmentally friendly, people friendly style of gardening. And its methods can be utilized by virtually anyone to create and maintain sustainable gardens, in the city or country. If you are thinking of starting an outdoor garden project you should consider giving the organic method a try. You will enjoy the accomplishment of growing you own healthy foods and enjoy the health benefits it can provide. It may take a while to figure out the best ways of doing things. I suggest picking up a few books on the subject and doing a bit of research on the types of tools you will need and the plants that work best. With a little practice you will be an expert gardener in no time at all.