Plus, why would you want to, anyway? If you want to eat crap, your local supermarket is full of it. Since it's available at no effort to you, why not just go, and buy it?
Aping "conventional" agriculture will produce the same results as it does in matters of health, sustainability, environmental impact, etc. If that's what you seek, consider that Agribusiness is much better at it than you will ever be! So, rather than getting into "gardening", why not consider becoming a shareholder of a certain company in St Louis which is on a mission to destroy the planet? And enjoy the ride... While you can!
Now if bugs in the garden are your problem, there are many, many quite efficient natural ways to handle them. So why not learn what these ways are?
At any rate, the occasional bug is of course common, but bug infestations are a rarity in a properly designed "Edible Ecosystem" or "Edible Landscape". The wide variety of plants concentrated in a small area make such problems quite unlikely. To begin with, your garlic and onions and other aromatic plants are going to work for you on an on-going basis...
Bottom line: If you do it right, you won't need any man-made poisons. Period.
But of course, if you believe in them for religious or other reasons, again, it's all just up to you! No one can stop you of using them. Just ask yourself first, though: Is eating poisoned food *really* what I want?
When answering that question, remember Dr Otto Warburg, the only physician to ever get TWO Nobels in Physiology and Medicine, and the "Warburg Imperative".
Q - What is the view of cutting-edge architects and builders about the idea of Green Buildings, Green Roofs, and Personal Organic Gardening?
A - Here too, things are changing, and for the better!
For example, on January 21st, 2009, Ian Ritchie, Royal Academician and Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy of Arts (in the United Kingdom), concluded his speech about a new design paradigm in Architecture organized by USC (the University of Southern California) by a call to organize cities around sustainable community units, of which locally grown food, such as those promoted as Sustainable Organic Gardens, would be part of the new structure.
One of the most successful and outstanding architects of his generation, Ian Ritchie is best known for his leading participation in major government-sponsored projects in France, such as the Cité des Sciences and Parc at La Villette, the Louvre Pyramids with IM Pei, etc, and his creative use of cutting-edge low-energy concepts, materials and technology; as well as his design and construction influence in the political arenas of UK government.
For those in the know, it is extremely significant that a man of his stature supports the ambitions of Victory Gardening and similar ideas and developments.
In our opinion, such support will make it increasingly difficult for local and state governments to continue dragging their feet about sustainability and the necessity of widely embracing the concepts behind Victory Gardening 2.0. This is, indeed, very good news!
In fact, here too change is in the air. For example, in Los Angeles, the Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, seems in the process of expressing an increasing interest in "Green Solutions" that truly make a difference.
Q - Are there SUCCESSFUL MODELS FOR VICTORY GARDENING 2.0?
A - There are many. For example, just visit the website maintained by the Dervaes family in Pasadena, California, about their own personal experience in Victory Gardening. You can find it at:
More, and curiously enough, an entire nation can be cited as such an example, and the irony of it is that it was once the very model of the most unsustainable "bully-type" conventional agriculture, since it was a centralized communist showcase, relying almost entirely on artificial fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, hormones, and the like: Cuba.
After the fall of the Soviet regime in Russia, Cuba was cut off all the goodies of conventional agricultural coming from Big Oil, in this case, Soviet Big Oil. How they adapted, and the results of it, makes for a very interesting case to study.
Particularly with oil at $50 a barrel and gas at $2 a gallon, and the perspective to see them again at $150 a barrel and $4 or $5 a gallon, and more, as undoubtedly will be the case again soon, after the unavoidable final collapse of the dollar predicted by all experts, including by people such as legendary investor Warren Buffett himself.
Q - What is the "Warburg Imperative"?
A - A commandment we should all obey!
Shortly before their death, Pr.Dr. Otto Warburg, Head of the Department of Cell Physiology at the Kaiser-Wilhelm and later Max-Planck Institute in Berlin, the only physician who ever got two Nobels in Medicine and Physiology for his work on Cell Physiology and Cancer, met with Amb. Dr. Hans von Reichmann, who was at the time the highest ranking civil servant in the service of the European country of Austria.
They reminisced about their lives, the war, the more and more sorry state of the world, and speculated about where it was going (that is, where we are right now) and what to do about it.
Among many other subjects, the conversation got on food. Dr Warburg was well-known for basically refusing to eat any food that wasn't organically grown or raised in his own garden or the garden of people he personally knew and trusted, which obviously, at the time, made him the target of quite many a joke among his colleagues, and such.
During that conversation, Dr Warburg intimated that for anyone who wanted to be and remain healthy, there was no higher imperative, whatever it took, than creating and maintaining their own Organic Garden, and eating from it, as much as was humanely possible. Or teaming up with other people, partaking to and benefitting from the creation and maintenance of such a Garden.
And that as far as he knew, man-made chemicals were not only the trigger for most cancers, but also the ultimate causes of most if not all "modern" ailments.
Dr. v. Reichmann reported this conversation to Andre Birre, (the seminal author of "Humus, Health and Wealth of the Earth", founder of the "Organisation for the Service of Life", "Save the Earth" and "Nature and Progress" - now the Certification Authority for Organic Agriculture in several countries in Europe and Africa), and to Dr. Annenberg and other team members at the OSL, who all took both the idea and the mandate very seriously.
This has been known since as "The Warburg Imperative".
Even if, under the guise of advertising, the "mainstream" media and the secular arms of Agribusiness, Big Oil, Big Pharma, and the like, buries us under propaganda to the contrary, including with such total absurdities as that there are no problems at all with artificial hormones, antibiotics and GMOs in our food, the "Warburg Imperative" is clear, easy to comprehend, and simple to follow.
It is even more valid today than it was in the early 70's, as there were no GMOs in the 60's and 70's.
Whether you have the wisdom to follow the Warburg Imperative, though, is again entirely up to you. However, before you make a decision, perhaps just remember who Pr.Dr. Otto Warburg was, and what he advised us to do.
[VG2-FAQ-V102] PERMALINK - The permanent link for the present post is:
