The First Organic Gardener
Nature was the first organic gardener, slowly scraping up a thin blanket of rock particles over much of the barren planet, then feeding it with the bodies of tiny, spore-bearing plants and gradually cloaking it in green.
By the mid to late 19th century, chemists decided that they could help gardeners and farmers with new inorganic fertilizers and alike manna from heaven. This seemed to be the answer to the problems that these workers of the land were having. However, no one at that time was looking into the future, to know that these chemicals could sicken children, and might even sicken a whole family.
Birds and fish and other animals were disappearing and would probably not return, and the soil was growing barren and became as dust, and would soon blow away. Some visionary scientists and gardeners believed that there must be a better way.
In France, market gardeners near Paris had been growing enormous quantities of vegetables from just a few acres of land, using little more than horse manure that was well composted and about 2ft deep. The soil was so rich that they could grow their crops ‘cheek by jowl’ forming a living mulch that discouraged weeds and kept the soil moist. With the use of this technique, no manufactured fertilizers were required.
In the 20th century Sir Albert Howard, an English agronomist, came to understand that healthy humus-rich soil, not chemical fertilizers, promoted nutrients and pest-free crops, as well as taking care of the animals and humans who ate them.
To help farmers replenish the land without using up scarce stores of animal manure, Sir Albert developed a layered form of composting that drew upon thousands of years of agricultural tradition. In his native England, compost piles would make possible the organic amendment of soil, and the subsequent growth of soil fertility, even as sources of manure dwindled.
Other pioneers would follow, including J.I.Rodale, who founded ‘Organic Gardening’ magazine in the 1940s; Rachel Carson who wrote ‘The Silent Spring’ published in 1962; and Alan Chadwick, whose West Coast teachings in the 1960s and ’70s inspired a new generation of gardeners.
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