What is Organic Gardening?
From a philosophical standpoint, the organic gardener strives to promote ecological balance, cycle resources, and preserve biodiversity. From a practical standpoint, this involves abstaining from the use of synthetic chemicals, pesticides, and additives.
Organic gardening is not just about ethics, it’s about growing tomatoes with actual flavor, raising chickens with personality, and cultivating roses that... well... smell like roses. Sustainability is not just good for the planet, it’s good for your wallet, your eyes, and your tastebuds.
Do you know about the "plastic island" (the size of Texas) in the middle of the Pacific ocean?!, a leak in the Gulf of Mexico that’s already spilled more oil than Deepwater Horizon and Exxon Valdez combined (with no end in sight), and a newly-elected Brazilian president who plans to build a road through the Amazon (aka “Earth’s lungs”), the ethical imperative is manifest: Organic gardening is key to building a future for humanity.
Everyone knows the horror story of historical DDT use, not to mention the modern abuse of chemicals such as the Monsanto herbicide “Roundup” which will wreak havoc on insect and human populations alike (read more about honeybee awareness).
Why Urban Gardening?
“Today, around 55 percent of the world's population is thought to be living in an urban area or city, with that figure set to rise to 68 percent over the coming decades, according to the UN.” — CNBC
Everyone knows that when humans breathe, we depend on plants to absorb the waste CO2 and turn it back into usable oxygen. As the population becomes increasingly urbanized, we’re left with more pairs of lungs and less plant volume to handle them.
So let’s make the “concrete jungle” into a real jungle!
Here’s something to be proud of: At 1,400 acres, Balboa Park is the nation’s largest urban park—that’s almost as much area as all of downtown (to contrast, NYC’s Central Park is 800 acres). That’s a lot of converted CO2, and when you consider that every acre of parkland is an acre not used for other less-wholesome purposes, the benefit is twofold!
“When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.”
— John Muir
