ORGANIC or NOT ORGANIC ??

Well, you certainly couldn't prove it by me. I often wonder what makes a banana organic. If it is organic, wasn't it always organic?And if this is so, why does it cost more money, since it supposedly doesn't have any work done to it? Otherwise, it would not be organic, and therefore costs less to produce. They probably throw them in with the ??unorganic?? if they don't get their distorted upwards price, to sell for the reasonable everyday price.

Don't believe every sign you see as it may say 'Lovers Leap' at the top of the gorge and it will be too late if you take this advice.

Now, I have you thinking on this subject, how did people survive one hundred years ago without organics? Well, they did have organics, but no media to tell us how good or bad it was for us. Organic farming to me is a big pile of poop, spread over the fields to fertilize them, so they will grow bigger and better crops.

If it means nothing added to you, then you will soon deplete the soil of all the nutrients required by the plants for growth of the large crops required to feed the nations.

So yes, you do need the poop or the added fertilizer to maintain the growability of the soil.

It can be anything that will decompose to make nutrients for plant growth. This, plus good cultivation, crop rotation, green crop plough down and sufficient moisture make up the rest of the organic picture, and pray that no insects attack, in my mind.

Not too many piles of poop around most farms these days do I see. So is the fertilizer used by farmers organic or not organic?

The fertilizer analysis I like is 6 - 24 - 24 as this is a general fertilizer for all growing plants in the outdoors, to supply foliage nutrition, root and stem growth, and flower, fruit and ripening nutrition that all growing plants require.

I consider this farm fertilizer to be totally organic, but why do I consider it in this way?

Lets have a look at it ----this 6 - 24 - 24 stuff.

THE 6 is NITROGEN (N).

It is contained in the air we breath in great quantity. God would not let us breath this stuff if it were harmful to us, would He? We have clover plants that take this nitrogen out of the air and into the nodules on their roots. When we plough this down, the nitrogen fixed in these nodules breaks down into fertilizer for promoting growth to any plant you choose to plant there. Man has figured out (bless him) how to take this nitrogen from the air and make it into a fertilizer called a prill that is 33-34% nitrogen. Another process that I am not familiar with makes Urea which is 46% nitrogen. Either of these fertilizer products used with common sense is as organic as the clover nitrogen fixation plough down process, in my mind. So again I ask you "IS IT ORGANIC OR NOT ORGANIC"? You breath the stuff (N) in and out of your lungs every day you live.

PHOSPHOROUS

Now let us look at the middle 24 of the above fertilizer analysis. This one in the middle is always Phosphorous (P).

Where does it come from?

Would you say that an animal that dies and decomposes becomes organic after, say, being dead for 10 years and completely decomposed except for the bones that are left? I believe it has now become organic matter to feed any growing plant near it. Even the bones can be ground up and spread over the land to supply calcium and ‘phosphorous'.

In Florida they have been digging up dinosaur bones for many years. The supply seems never to run out, and these bones are big, and partially rotted away from age. These organic bones are ground and processed into calcium phosphate and used in farm fertilizer. Back in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century three million bison (buffalo) roamed the North American grass lands, and man nearly killed every one of them including the famous 'Buffalo Bill Cody'. Bill Cody came from near Embro, Ontario , Canada, and went west to make his fortune killing Buffalo, supplying the US Cavalry with meat, and selling the hides to be taken back east. In those late nineteenth century times, nearly every easterner with a wagon or sleigh had a ‘Buffalo Robe' which was the hide of one of these stately animals. They used them to keep the cold out when traveling in cold weather. When it was all over and nearly every Buffalo killed off, the bleaching bones of these animals were left all over the western plains. Many of the first settlers to these plains made their first money by picking up these bones and taking them to a broker who shipped them east to a factory to make ‘farm fertilizer'. Three million carcasses make a lot of bones and they were used for the phosphorous content to grow better crops. So, I ask you again about phosphorous ‘IS IT ORGANIC OR NOT ORGANIC'? In my mind, you cannot deny that it is indeed organic (from animal bones).

POTASSIUM (K)

Now we come to that last 24 which is always Potassium (K) in any analysis of fertilizer and is often called Potash. I did not study this subject but from what I glean from others who have, the potash deposits in Russia and in Saskatchewan Canada were from burned up trees from vast acreages of forest. Glaciers pushed down from the north and pushed this ash into heaps that were eventually covered over by silt and receding glacial waters left them there to crystallize. Today these vast deposits of 60% potash are dug up and also used in farm fertilizers. So if Potash is formed from burned up trees, it too is in my question. Potash that is in farm fertilizers , ‘IS IT ORGANIC OR NOT ORGANIC' ?

I don't mind if you put insecticides and fungicides into non organics, but you would starve much of the worlds population without the use of Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potash to grow bigger, better tasting, completely organic crops. So don't push farm fertilizers into the non category, because it is indeed as organic as you can get. What is not good about these fertilizers is excessive use and poor conservation practice that put these fertilizers into our waterways. Used with common sense, they are wonderfully useful and organic healthy for all of mankind.

You decide ‘ Is it organic or not organic?'. I am going to use my 6 - 24 - 24 on everything I grow because it grows bigger, ripens completely, therefore tasting much better and my uncle George has lived to be 105 and his dad (my grandfather) used farm fertilizer, and manure, and good clover plough down farming practices, so I will look toward him for; Is it, or is it not organic? My father taught me the value and prudence of using fertilizer sensibly. I also prefer to pay regular prices and not inflated ‘organic prices'. You only need to use your noodle to understand this crazy phenomena is just inflating prices needlessly. Don't believe everything the salespeople tell you. They didn't grow it.

There, I have spoken my mind as Gardener Harold. I invite your comments. The debate is on, and I will stick to my hub on, "? Is it organic or is it not organic?".