How To Convince Someone Reluctant About Organic Gardening?
Living in harmony with nature, harvesting the best most natural fruits, vegetables and herbs possible without harming anyone or anything. The idea of organic gardening sounds great. You may have read about the advantages for the ecosystem like the benefits for bees, better groundwater or the proliferation of useful microorganisms. But even the biggest bio-enthusiast will become skeptical when his first harvest is threatened by a horde of gluttonous grubs. How to overcome those challenges? I´m going to tell you one little secret in the following article.
Fast and Easy Growing Isn’t Always the Solution
Grubs, snails or funguses are threatening your harvest? Your options for a quick and easy intervention are minimal within the organic gardening boundaries! After several researches, you will find a pesticide, which will solve the problem within hours. No more work and no more thoughts. Your plants would be saved! It is because of this obvious that many gardeners are willing to forget all negative aspects of pesticides. By the way, the same goes for mineral fertilizer and other conventional gardening methods.
If you talk to conventional growers, many will tell you similar stories on why they still haven’t shifted to organic gardening. This makes sense if you can imagine the urge of feeding your family, making a living of your production. Or in a smaller scale, the fear of failure can be a setback for a hobbyist. This way of thinking might be described as egoistic, short sighted and less global. Not everyone evaluates the same way the importance of nature, its conservation and protection.
Go For An Organic Gardening Lifestyle
I believe that it should be our goal to convince everyone of the biological/ organic way but also to remind ourselves that we do the right thing. That’s where my little secret comes into play, which is honestly kind of obvious:
Biological grown food, fresh out of our gardens is probably the healthiest things we can get. Store bought conventional grown food are not even coming close.
There are many health risks, which come into play with conventional grown veg, but also the time spend developing and growing varieties of plants.
Nitrates, A Curse And A Blessing At The Same Time
Nitrate is an essential resource for the growth and metabolism of any plant. However, if the supply of nitrates in the soil is too big, it will burn your plant. Large amount of nitrate is often the case in mineral fertilizer. Nitrates can be metabolized by the plant resulting in nitrites, which themselfcan cause bodily harm especially for infants.
Nitrites tend to bind to hemoglobin, a substance which is responsible of transporting the oxygen in our blood. This is resulting in signs of cyanoses. Nitrites can also be converted into nitrosamine especially when they are heated. Some of those nitrosamines were shown to be carcinogenic. So, it might make sense to keep the nitrate exposure as minimal as possible. Scientific researches evaluating the health risks of nitrates on plants need to continue.
Many Chemicals, Many Problems
Pesticides and herbicides also contaminate plants. A great example is tobacco leaves. They are often contaminated with dozens of pesticides and fungicides. Due to the special climate, they are grown indoor to compensate for the lack of autoregulation of the ecosystem when growing monoculture. Most of the chemicals are still on the leave, so when smoked you let those toxins in. The tobacco smoke is more toxic as it contains more toxins than on its own. This is equally true for additive free tobacco.
The same goes for salad leaves, lemons and every other plant you are going to eat. Lemons are another great example. Few years ago, the lemon peel was tested to be totally unsafe for consumption due to pesticides. Even if you wash or peels them, toxins are penetrating the fruit/ vegetable. Click here to read more on how to wash out pesticides from fruits and vegetables. This is one reason why you should always go for biological grown untreated lemons if you want to add some of that zesty flavour.
Helping The World At The Same Time
Your body will profit big time from the switch to biological/ organic grown food but also many other humans, animals and the ecosystem. The start might seem hard but with every year not only your body will be healthier also the nature surrounding you.
If you have your own garden, micro-organisms will proliferate. They’re going to do some of the hard work for you. Bees will become your best friends and you will learn that most problems tend to get solved on their own.
If you buy locally grown food, you will give farmers the chance to keep up their great work and to keep their lands out of the hands of big cooperation to farm them.
Better, Tastier And More Nutritious Food
Next time, when you lose your global view, thinking about solving a problem the conventional way, or talking about organic gardening, remember these benefits. If you want to know more about organic diet for your plants, click here. Organic gardening isn’t only beneficial for you but also for the world around you.
If you have any advice on how to convince some who is reluctant about organic gardening,
or want to share your personal motivation,
or why you decided for the organic (gardening) lifestyle,
Let us know in the comments below.
Personally, before giving my plants anything besides water,I ask myself if I would like to drink a glass of water with even the tiniest drop of the chemical used on the plants added to it because eating treated plants is essentially the same.
*This article is an opinion and reflection solely reported by the article’s author.