Gardening SSC: Garden Prep

It wasn't until winter's end that the store of food from Joan Gussow's garden finally came up short. "I had to buy a carrot," says Gussow, a Columbia professor and author of This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader (Chelsea Green, 2001, $16.95). There were still, however, potatoes, garlic and onions in cold storage, a freezer stuffed with beans, tomato sauce and roasted eggplants, plus all kinds of berries. And this abundance is produced organically, without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers.

Unfortunately, that's not how everyone's garden grows. "In the United States alone, gardeners spend an estimated $1 billion per year on pesticides . . . inevitably self-defeating, as pests eventually develop resistance. . . ," writes Howard-Yana Shapiro in Gardening for the Future of the Earth (Bantam; 2000, $19.95). Worse, pesticides may be linked to the rise of certain cancers, such as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), according to the Center for Children's Health and the Environment (CCHE) (childenvironment.org). A study published in 2000 found that the children of parents who use lawn and garden pesticides have seven times the risk of developing NHL.

Here's how to "work with nature," in Gussow's words, rather than against it.

1. Plan for your locale

Contact the nearest USDA extension office (go to reeusda.gov/1700/statepartners/usa.htm) for free advice about local climate and growing issues. This will spare you the heartache of trying to grow arid-climate succulents in Seattle, say, or water-guzzling groundcovers in Arizona; also, which species are native, and therefore well-suited, and which are invasive and should not be encouraged.

To conserve water, organic growers often practice "xeriscaping," choosing plants that require little or no watering other than what falls from the heavens (see xeriscape.org). Shapiro encourages gardeners to collect rainwater. Sunlight is another necessary "input." Survey your plot, looking for places that "get about six to eight hours of sun a day" for your vegetable patches, advises Nell Newman in The Newman's Own Organics Guide to a Good Life (Villard, 2003, $14.95) (see also Nell Newman's interview with The Green Guide, "A Conversation With Nell Newman").

2. Start with the soil

Many gardeners have their soil tested before making planting choices. Ask your extension office if they sell soil-collection kits and provide analysis (many do, for as little as $10). This will help guide you toward plants that thrive in sandy, clay-laden or whatever soil you've got. Before planting, you should condition your soil to provide the right nutrition and structure, says Fred Kirschenmann, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. "Organic farming and gardening systems recycle their wastes back into the earth and invite earthworms and other organisms so essential to healthy soil."

John Jeavons, author of How to Grow More Vegetables (Ten Speed Press, 1982, $17.95), advises "double-digging" the soil to a depth of 24 inches, to provide good aeration and water flow. Then mix in compost or organic fertilizer. After planting, place mulch around base to conserve moisture, reduce erosion and discourage weeds. Use straw, hay, grass clippings or, as Gussow does, wood chips scavenged from tree-service crews.

3. Pest control without pesticides

When Gussow was plagued by a beetle infestation in her bean patch, she introduced tiny wasps. The wasps bypassed the beans and ate the beetle larvae, which never reappeared. Plants can help, too: Daisies, for instance, attract the wasps that eat bean beetles.

"Biopesticides" range from red pepper and rosemary oil to diseases that attack specific pests. Newman has set out "small dishes of cheap beer sunken into the ground" to attract, then drown, slugs.

For plant pests, Monsanto's Roundup herbicide is so heavily used that "Roundup-resistant" weeds are cropping up. Predictably, organic growers are Roundup-resistant, too, preferring to reduce weed growth in nontoxic ways, including mulching, pulling immediately so seeds can't spread and eating such varieties as dandelion, purslane and lamb's quarters in salads, when young and tender.

Online Resources

theorganicreport.com for organic garden suppliers

organicgardening.com for how to's

gardensalive.com for organic fertilizers, soil-testing kits

planetnatural.com for rain barrels, biological pesticides

highcountrygardens.com for planting in arid regions

epa.gov/pesticides/ for biopesticides

www.thegreenguide.com/doc.mhtml?i=95&s=seeds for sources of organic seeds