Growing Organic
Organic flowers are wild, fresh and smell real!
One of the reasons I started Salisbury Grange is because I hate pesticides (because they poison the environment and waterways) and in particular on the food and flowers I buy (because they poison me). But, I wanted to do something positive about, not just complain.
So I started to learn how to grow things for myself, and then when I knew a bit more and had some success, I decided to share it with others to show how easy it is to grow your own things at home and say goodbye to pesticides for good.
Salisbury Grange is 100% organic and it hasn’t taken any effort at all. But what actually is organic? Here are 3 ways I that I grow organic flowers and veg:
#1: I don’t use chemicals or sprays, ever
My one rule is that I do not use any chemicals or pesticides or fertilizers or insecticides (you get the picture) ever. While people often ask me: what is organic, no chemical use is basically the crux of what being organic is. The reason I would never put chemicals on my precious soil or anywhere near my garden is because I eat the food from my garden! I put my hand into the dirt of my garden on the daily! My dog digs in my garden! I serve food from my garden to family and friends!
#2: I have to be happy with the organic look
As Joni Mitchell sang: Hey farmer farmer put away the DDT, I don’t care about spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and the bees, pleeease! If I want organic I have to be happy with organic and that means fruit and vegetables and flowers that look imperfect and misshapen and not uniform. The huge upside is that real food tastes waaay better and real flowers actually have a beautiful scent. My absolute pet hate is those “perfect” roses from the supermarket that smell like nothing and I shudder when I see huge, plump, uniform tomatoes at a shop because it screams GMO.
#3: I reconsidered how I thought of “pests” and “weeds”
This was the trickiest for me because these two things are the reason why many chemicals are used. I’ve had birds eat my sunflower seeds and grasshoppers eat my beautiful roses and it annoyed me! But then I realise, we are all part of an eco-system and this is how animals get food. Nature is intended for everyone and I can’t just use chemicals to kill the things that are rightfully just looking for their dinner. The same can be said for “weeds”. Now I do the weeding early or and just deal with nibbles on my plants. Also, why would I poison my food and soil when research says that pesticides and chemicals just force nature to adapt into more resilient weeds and super pests creating a bigger problem.
Organic is what you do too!
Thinking about what is organic, also related to what you do in your garden too. If you buy organically-grown Salisbury Grange Seeds from me, you still need to make sure you don’t use chemical sprays on or near your garden at home if you want to grow an organic lettuce or tomato. This includes spraying the ground for bindies or using Round Up to get rid of a patch of weeds or adding a chemical fertiliser to the soil (there are heaps of other ways to improve soil).
If you have watched Al Gore’s An Inconveient Truth or read the famous book that inspired it, Silent Spring, you will know that one of the main reasons to start off organic is that: chemicals don’t just stay in the your soil and garden for days or weeks or even months, but years. Getting off to a good start is essential because you can’t go back and undo things.