[Christine]

Now there's a good question for the average gardener/allotment holder.

So you buy organic compost and organic seeds and don't use chemicals. But have you really joined the loop completely?

Let's start with the compost heap. Are all your vegetable peelings and plant material organic? What about the cardboard, egg cartons, tea bags, worn out cotton clothing and such that you add? Oh and those leaves that you've swept up - are they off organic trees?

So - do you go for a non organic compost heap or go for an organic one and send more items to landfill (like our council can't take thick cardboard for recycling).

Do you only use manure that you know is organic? Or do you use the manure anyway (and risk the aminopyralid chemical contamination).

There's a lot more to this organic thing than seed, compost and no chemicals methinks.

[Jonajo]

I have to confess, I am not 100% organic at all. Nor do I particularly want to be. I will aim not to use chemicals but that is about it: although that is not to say I will never use chemicals if the need arises.

Good food for thought though in what you refer to in your post.

[stentman]

I always try to be organic, really I do, I won't use the vast array of chemicals, herbicides, fungicides, etc used by my grandfather and father in their gardens in the 50's and 60's. But I do draw the line at checking the ink type used to print on a cardboard box that's going in my compost, or questioning were my tea bags come from, or was something sprayed on the grass that a horse ate and then digested, then poo'd out onto some straw, whose origins I don't know, before being left to rot down for 2 years and anyway a rat carrying something horrible might have peed on it in that 2 years. How far do you want or need to go? The issue is a personal one I reckon, just how much of the "organic way" do you want to take on board?

[Christine]

I was looking at some of the rules involved if a farm wants to go fully organic which is what set me off thinking about how far we, as individuals, want to go on our allotments/gardens.

It's an individual decision but the line of thought that I followed with the compost applies to a lot of other things with regard to what is supposed to be "truly organic".

It's just that people say that they want to be organic on an allotment but don't realise all the things that they are letting themselves in for if they want to go the whole way.

An organic farm can only use organic manure from organically reared animals and organic leaves off organic trees. Oh there's pages of form filling - those are just the bits that stuck. It's a good thing I'm not into poultry keeping or that would be a whole different area.

I'm just thinking aloud for future on the allotment and looking for others to bounce ideas on.

[mumofstig]

I try not to use sprays and stuff so my veg is relatively 'chemical free' when compared to supermarket stuff  but could never claim to be organic.
I wouldn't get much harvest at all if I tried to grow without the slug pellets

[Christine]

Well mumofstig - here's a fairly definite read on slugs - it's taught me things I didn't know about slugs and those who eat slugs.

It strikes me that we possibly don't know enough about our foe the slug and the predators who deal with it.

[DavidT]

Basically, if you have an allotment you cannot be classed as organic. If the guy on the next plot uses a chemical pesticide then, because of spindrift, so do you. In fact, if anyone within a half mile of you uses chemical sprays, then you are affected.

[Nobbie]

The term 'organic' is really only applicable to commercial producers as it is a quality standard that require paperwork and certification by a competant body such as the soil association. Most allotmenteers who say they garden organicaly usually mean that they don't use artificial chemicals to control weeds, pests and deseases, which is a pretty reasonable approach.

[NigelB]

Isn't it weird, the way the people change the meaning of words?
As described above, a 'reasonable' use of the word 'organic' is to describe the growing of veg or whatever using no inorganic chemicals on their plots/gardens.
Recently, I made up some printed flyers to go up in the village notice boards, informing people of the allotments I'm trying to organise. I duly handed them over to our Mayor who promised he'd put them up himself..... two weeks later and I'm still waiting for them to appear, only to be told there's a 'problem' with the use of the word 'Organic' on them.
It seems that a local farm-shop owner told our allotments officer that the posters were 'illegal and misleading' as no-one can claim to grow organically unless they had been tested and approved by the Soil Association...
It's nonsense of course, because the posters, which include the words, 'Grow your own organic vegetables!', are not adverts for some commercial enterprise, but in fact public information notices... But still, the allotments officer, town clerk and mayor have not put the notices up, and I doubt they will now until the matter has been thoroughly discussed at the next council meeting....
*Rant alert!*
.... Which goes a long way to show the level of pettiness some folks, including a council reluctant to do anything that may require actually getting of their collective bums and serving the community, will stoop to. ..... Oh, there is also, apparently, a problem with the words 'Contact your local councillor to reserve your plot!'.. .. Bless 'em, wouldn't want to actually help inform the community when asked, eh? Even when it is quite clearly their statutory duty to do so....

The big bunch of jessies......



Ok.. Rant  over...   

 

[Christine]

It seems that a local farm-shop owner told our allotments officer that the posters were 'illegal and misleading' as no-one can claim to grow organically unless they had been tested and approved by the Soil Association...

Technically and legally I fear that the farm shop owner is totally correct  unfortunately - although there are a number of organisations in the UK besides the soil association who will do certification.

The council will be in all sorts of trouble if they put up a notice that implies that the ground in question is already approved as suitable for organic cropping when people take over their allotment. It won't be and can't be as it takes three years of work to get it to that state.

If you want to grow organic vegetables you have to keep the organic rules. Otherwise the vegetables are only partly organic in that you may have used organic seed and not used chemicals on your plot whilst growing them.  But this takes us back to the question of whether your compost and/or manure is really organic, whether you have used as little water from the tap as possible, whether you have suffered from chemical spray off other plots, whether the wood that you use for your raised beds is from an organic and sustainable source and so on. Your tools must only be used for organic growing (if you work in an area that you are not running organically, you need different tools).

Remember too that it takes some three years before the soil is organic if you follow all the rules. I've been sitting reading the outline of the organic farming rules for a few hours here and there. And they make my eyes water (despite have managed to scrape through a law degree that included trusts and housing law).

You can only really claim to be chemical free to a degree - and that depends on what you put in your compost heap thinking of cardboard, egg boxes, cotton and the likes which may not be chemical free you realise. Here it's a fine balance between being chemical free and sending compostable "stuff" to landfill because your council won't recycle it.

So you have to weigh up your council's legal responsibilities against what you consider to be organic. And there you have two very different things sir.

[NigelB]

Technically and legally I fear that the farm shop owner is totally correct  unfortunately - although there are a number of organisations in the UK besides the soil association who will do certification.................


..................So you have to weigh up your council's legal responsibilities against what you consider to be organic. And there you have two very different things sir.

Many thanks for your reply Christiene, and I can see you've gone to a lot of trouble to wade through what regulations you can find that apply...
 

I would argue though, that those rules do not apply to allotments, because allotments are not licensed for the sale of any of their produce, nor are they in any way a commercial entity. There is no farm-to-factory route for the produce of allotments.

Allotments are, if you will, an extension of our garden. The ownership of an allotment is a right bestowed on everyone in Britain over the age of, i think, eighteen, that pay council tax or it's equivalent, and if I or anyone else want to grow orgnically in our gardens, we are free to call our produce organic if we so wish.
Doing so may not satisfy the rules of modern commercial food production, but that is agriculture, not gardening.
Secondly, the council are not advertising anything. The notices are merely information notices telling people they can, if they so choose, grow their own organic produce, and there is nothing to say they cannot arrange to garden themselves organically.


That is the outline for the case for the defence, M'laud. ; )

[Christine]

We probably can Nigel but I think that you will find that the lawyers will come down against you in the end. You are using your allotments to grow food, same as the organic farmers.  And that is competition for business. If the local farm shop kicks up a rumpus, the council will go with him rather than you.

When something becomes a technical term, as organic has done in law, you will find that you can't half hitch it into a similar but not quite related situation.

Your council's lawyers will cover the backsides of the council and you may just not get away with what you want to do (- even if in three years time you are keeping all the rules on said ground).

Life can be a bummer sometimes. 

[Yabba]

Thank god for the nanny state that saves us from unscrupulous commercial growers huh? :roll:

Personally I see "organic" as "the least chemicals I can introduce into my food chain" ... if friends and family want to trust my integrity, that's their decision

Juuuuust in case a lawyer representing an organic farmer reads this thread ... there is no competition, I wouldn't buy your clients produce based on the air-miles it travels before it hits our shelves

Been ages since I was on the norty step

¥

[Rowan]

i think for "home grown" stuff it matters less that truely certified veg, for example we use organic methods to grow our veg, but do not buy organic seeds. I'm more concerned about the chemicals i ingest directly form the vegentables in my back garden.

Our problem is we could never bee truely organic as we live on a farm and beyond our rear fence is an arable field, which i guess they use pesticides and fertilisers on, which will inevitably leak into our soil.

[DD.]

Thank god for the nanny state that saves us from unscrupulous commercial growers huh? :roll:

Personally I see "organic" as "the least chemicals I can introduce into my food chain" ... if friends and family want to trust my integrity, that's their decision

Juuuuust in case a lawyer representing an organic farmer reads this thread ... there is no competition, I wouldn't buy your clients produce based on the air-miles it travels before it hits our shelves

Been ages since I was on the norty step

¥

Yabba, I really ought to tell you off.

Problem is ...... truth be told I'd be joining you.