Tmmmmsmmtmsmmimmmmmmims# ORGANIC LIVING By Robert Rodale HUNGRY WORLD NEEDS ORGANIC GARDENERS I’ve said before, and I’ll probably say again, that organic gardening is an idea whose time has come. Pick up a newspaper and somewhere in it you’ll find a blaring headline announcing the world's growing shortage of fertilizer. To an organic gardener, a shortage of chemical fer tilizer means about as much as a dropped nickel to a Rockefeller. A true organic gardener wouldn’t be caught dead with a bag of the stuff m his garage, let alone on his vegetable patch.' Organic gardeners know how to supply all the plant nutrients crops ever need, just be composting plentiful “waste” materials, such as leaves, grass clippings, garbage and manure. That homemade fertilizer contains nitrogen, phosphorus, potash and important trace minerals. Well-rotted organic material increases the humus content of soil as well something no chemical fertilizer will ever do. 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W.ilK l[l Wt clO'v Si , fpi/il/ 8 an 'o I an THAT'S NOTHING NEW. * No Service Charges * No Savings Account Requited * No Minimum Balance Required * No Strings Attached CLOSED FEBRUARY 17 - WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY BLUE BALL NATIONAL BANK CBBN3 MORGANTOWN 286-5101 <- 1 iC > ur f Wdif up W' (K I<f' ‘V a ’ Despite his thrift and self-sufficiency, the organic gardener has been mocked and scorned for years by those who continued to douse gardens with pounds of chemical fertilizer that hardened and sometimes even poisoned the soil while replenishing only a few key elements. Now, because of the fertilizer shortage, everyone may suddenly be forced into adopting organic methods, willingly or not. But rather than bemoan that possibility, we should welcome it. Cost alone makes organic gardening logical for everyone. In addition to the savings on fertilizer, you don’t have to buy poisonous insecticides and weed-killers, Sam to ? p m m 2 o r» to a TERRE HILL 445-6741 k V I f»s r 10 S‘l (Driv° op A AM'k up Winot'v- C' v •'CMv Ram to 11 dm either. And the food you grow Is better. There arc no lingering residues of aldrip, dieldrln or the dozens of other poisons that scientists arc continually warning us about. Organic gardeners don't add to the environmental problem they help solve it. Probably the most important aspect of this kind of food raising Involves the added measure of security the organic gardener attains. When a family has a stock of frozen, canned and dried home-grown food to cat, un settling fluctuations in food prices and supply don’t pose a threat. But what about the old argument that you could never feed the world organically? That’s just what’s going to have to be done, at least if the predictions of many analysts are correct. If we run out of petroleum-derived fertilizer, what are people in the world going to do? They just can’t call time out on eating until some new production technique arrives three or four years from now. The obvious answer is to teach the world about organic gardening not as far-out an idea as it first seems. In a thought-provoking letter that appeared recently in The New York Times, Elizabeth Rutledge of Warwick, N.Y., wrote that a “large reservoir of talent” in the form of millions of organic gardeners exists across the United States today. That nucleus could teach millions of others the proper technique of organic food-raising. “As a subsidized agricultural corps, they could spread out to the starving nations and demonstrate how to use the locally available materials to rejuvenate their wretched soils,” she wrote. “At first, the yields might be small, but any yield would be better than no yield. Where is the foundation (or other source) free of influence from commercial interests that could underwrite this self-help program''” The idea is sound. A world filled with organic gardeners would certainly be a much better place in which to live. And the manufacturers of chemical fertilizers and pesticides could put their managerial talents to use elsewhere in an organically farmed world. (Editor’s Note: the opinions appearing in “Organic Living” are those of its author, Robert Rodale, an in dependent columnist. Rodale’s comments do not necessarily reflect the thinking of the Lancaster Farming editor or anyone else on the Lancaster Farming staff.) About 125 acres of state owned land has been made available for low-income people to participate in Gov. Milton J. Shapp’s Anti- Inflation Garden Program, it was announced today by Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Jim McHale. McHale explained that the Department of Welfare, one of several agencies mvolved in the program with the Department of Agriculture, has made up to 5 acres available at each of its 25 institutions located throughout the state. The state, said McHale, will plow and prepare the land for prospective vegetable gardners who will then be assigned 30’ by 30’ plots. These plots will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. McHale said requests for a n 'o 2 p m b ai” o p n spm lo 7 p'n Lancaster Farming. Saturday. Feb. 15.197 S State Lands Set for Low Income Gardens MARTIN'S MANUFACTURING CO. Custom Made • FREE STALLS • BARNYARD FENCES • SILAGE CARTS in stock • PIPE GATES 6 ft. to 16 ft. (every 6") in stock MARTIN’S MANUFACTURING CO. DISTRIBUTOR OF CENTRALTRACTOR PARTS CO RDSMyerstown Phone (717) 933-4151 TAKE RT 645 3 MILES NORTH OF MYERSTOWN FOLLOW DIRECTIONAL SIGNS .use of the state-owned land should be forwarded to James B. Reagan, project director, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, 2301 North Cameron Street, Harrisburg, PA 17120. Deadline for receiving requests is March 1. The Anti-Inflation Garden Program, announced in December by Gov. Shapp, is an effort to encourage citizens to grow their own garden plots. The state land available for the program is for low-income people who do not have access to plots of their own. Currently, the Agriculture Department is processing bulk orders for family seed packets of ten varieties. The seeds are being provided by Asgrow Mandeville of Cambridge, N.Y. 45
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