Location: Southeast US
My Grandmother was an organic gardener but the term had not yet been coined. She knew to rotate crops in her vegetable garden, understood companion planting to limit pests and spent many hours with a hoe digging up weeds rather than spraying them.
I didn’t follow her example in my own gardens as a young adult. Why hoe or till when you can spray to kill weeds? Why worry about luring bugs away to another companion plant when you can just spray the plants and kill the bugs? After all, I was a “modern gardener” and up on the latest “techniques.”
During my second season of vegetable gardening a professional landscaper gave me a bottle of insect killer for lawns. The result of using that insect killer is what made me question my entire theory of gardening. Three months after applying the insecticide spray my lawn was still totally bug-free.
In fact, I could step from my yard to my neighbor’s lawn and have gnats and no-see-ums around my ankles in a moment. It wasn’t right. What value is a lawn free of the living things that reside in it naturally? I might as well install AstroTurf.
That feeling of something wrong motivated me to start researching garden poisons, weed killers and insecticides so commonly used. I quickly realized that in looking for easy and quick solutions to plant disease or insect infestations I was adding poisons to my property that would linger for years.
I washed my freshly picked vegetables but would a simple rinsing remove the synthetic residues of the poison I had sprayed on them? Would the roots of next years crops feed on synthetic poisons as well as nutrients from my garden soil? Once I began seriously thinking of the chemicals I was using my concern grew rapidly.
After two years of spraying and dusting various harmful products, I became an organic gardener. The first organic product I remember using was Safer Insecticidal Soap long ago. It quickly solved the aphid problem on my roses and proved to me that organic methods work.
Of course, to be honest, my first organic vegetables taught me how much I had to learn. I didn’t realize how well those little green worms blended with my beautiful broccoli until I ate a few of them.
In recent years, I’ve learn to be cautious of products labeled “natural” rather than “organic”. Any product can claim to be natural by simply containing a natural ingredient. That doesn’t mean the product isn’t also loaded with poisons. Organic products must meet standards to be certified as “organic”. It’s an important distinction when buying gardening products to control weeds or insect populations.
I am interested in the Safer Products, but only the “soap” says that it is safe for beneficial bugs. Question is… are all of their products safe for “beneficials” and how is that possible? I release ladybugs, lacewings, and pray mantis in my greenhouse and arboretum and do not want to kill them. Please advise
Hello Leaza,
First of all, thank you for your comment. The best way to answer your question is to inform you that our products are ‘contact kill’ products. Since the beneficial bugs are increasingly active the higher the sun comes up, the best advice we could give would be to treat your plants in the morning or evening, so you run the least risk of having the products come in contact with the beneficial bugs.