Should you grow your own fruits and vegetables or buy them at the market? What about landscape plants? Should you buy big ones and get a head start or grow your own from seed or starts.
Evans Bali Cherries can be grown in cold climates
Well that all depends! What are your goals and how do you see your relationship with your food and environment?
The national gardening and landscaping industry is pushing heavy reliance on pesticides, fertilizers and use of water for consumers that makes even some of the worst growers of, Round-Up Ready, GMO, commodity agriculture look like environmentalists. Organic isn’t a panacea either. Wiith over 54 pages in the USDA Organic Rule of all of the things that can be added to organic foods that include certain pesticides, chemicals and other additives should make consumers pause. And then of course there are the companies promoting “natural”. Asbestos, lead, radon, mercury, great white sharks and bubonic plague are after all, all natural. What is a person to think?
Greens for salads can be grown in small spaces
In the landscape industry, bee, butterfly and bird friendly plants are often grown using pesticides that kill the same species. Even inoculous bird seed doesn’t get a free pass. How exactly do you grow bird seed without killing or displacing the very birds you want to feed?
You can make some choices to reduce your environmental impact and enjoy it in the process:
Garlic is an easy crop to grow for yourself
- Grow what you like best and try doing it without pesticides or other heavy inputs
- Grow the stuff that has the highest value to you
Search out growers for your purchases that have your values - Do it differently. We found that planting potatoes very late in the season allowed us a Fall new potato crop without potato beetle damage
- Concentrate on improving soil and water conditions with what you do plant
- Grow plants that bring in the butterflies and birds you desire without providing artificial food
- Search out specialty growers of landscape stock that use biological methods to grow their plants
Smart consumers are coming around to putting more thought into their health and the environment in their purchases. You can too with a little research and by asking the right questions.