The Ten Minute Activist
Easy Ways to Take Back the Planet
Your Own Private Gaia
It creeps and crawls, slithers around in and out of the dirt, has feathers, fur, and cilia, and sometimes rows and rows of ears. It's that little plot of ecosystem out back: your garden.
Like any living organism, gardens need clean, toxin-free food and water in order to thrive. People have been farming organically for the past ten thousand years, but the modern emphasis on synthetic chemicals in farming only took off in 1939. In other words, energy-intensive products like chemical fertilizers and pesticides are very seldom needed if the soil is well tended. Composting organic waste from the kitchen is the best way to do this. But composting from within the garden is also a good idea. In fact, throwing away weeds is probably the most common mistake people make. When weeds are removed, the overall nutrient level of the soil declines, thus reducing the nutritive value of the garden's food. But be careful, your compost heap must generate sufficient heat from the breaking down of organic matter in order to kill the weed seeds before you use weed compost.
So do like your great-great-great (to the 150th power) grandparents did, and go organic in the garden.
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