I don’t grow a lot of annual vegetables because my spring is really busy, relying instead on perennial fruit and vegetable crops.
Annuals that I do grow, like my harvest of small and fingerling potatoes in the picture, are things that are simple and fast. You can choose to grow healthy vegetables like I do with out the uses of any pesticides, added fertilizer or irrigation. The crop might be smaller but the savings on inputs are so significant that it can’t be ignored. Besides saving money, the lack of pesticides creates a healthier lifestyle for you. If we just treat our garden crops like commodity agriculture with a lot of water and pesticide use; wouldn’t it make more sense to just buy them at the store?
“Beyond organic” is a phrase that some people are using to describe growing crops in a way that treats the environment and the food with greater respect. This is a departure from the Organic Program that is part of the Code of Federal Regulations and is over 50 pages in length. There are all sorts of food additives, pesticides and non-organic substances that are allowed in the Organic Program. And the program really doesn’t address soil erosion, water contamination or how workers are treated. How many times have you heard people say they only buy organic because it’s pesticide free? If only they really knew!
Beyond organic gives consumers another choice and it gives growers an opportunity to produce food and other plant materials in ways that protect the environment that we all depend on.