Chemicals

We haven't picked anything from the garden since Monday morning.  Why?  We sprayed Sevin, a fairly mild pesticide, and you really shouldn't harvest for three days from when you apply it.  Last year I used a little Sevin powder, but that was it.  This is the first time we've actually sprayed the stuff.  The squash were covered with bugs, the sunflowers seeds were being eaten by worms, and strange orange and black bugs are all over the broccolli.  I'm not apologetic about our use of modern chemistry to ensure a good crop.  The garden is work, and I'm not going to just roll over and let insects enjoy the bounty we've created.   

I fertilize.  Yes, I also compost and till manure into my soil, but plants need food, and fertilizer is cheap, easy to use, and safe.  I hand-broadcast this 10-10-10 maybe every 3 weeks or so on most everything except the tomatoes.  This is a 10+ year old bag of fertilizer that Mr. C left in the Batcave for me.  It's ammoniated, a high ammonia content can prevent fruit set in tomato plants.

This is what I use for the tomatoes.  I prefer using water from our rain barrel and mixing up the Miracle-Gro by the spoonful in the watering can.  It has a very low ammonia content.  I'm a fan of Miracle-Gro...the regular formula is what I used exclusively on the garden as fertilizer last year.  This year the free 10-10-10 is working just fine, so that's just one less cost.

I have a lot of respect for organic farmers and organic gardening.  That's serious work, and you've gotta really know your stuff to be successful.  I really don't know my stuff, and it's not massively important to me to reach that level of greenness.  I feel good enough about having a garden.  I know I've gone a little earth-love hippie with the composting and collecting rainwater in a barrel.  Chemical use moves me a little back to the center.