For gardening with biodegradable or organic will make your garden organic and clean too. You can also save your time by using biodegradable pots that no need to pull from sprout before crop.

Gardening Without Plastic
By Robert Gettle

Plastic is a non organic substance which adds nothing to the soil. Plastics cause a lot of trouble if you try to grow crops were they have been buried. In fact some believe that plastics can interfere with plant growth. I have seen where plastic has actually killed the soil by cutting off the air exchange of the soil. One thing is for sure the organic gardener can do very well without plastic. When you think about it what could be more unnatural than plastic mulch? Plastic keeps the soil untouched by sunshine, air, dew, or rainfall. Plastic does nothing to enrich the soil. With an organic mulch it breaks down into compost, humus and minerals. It also lets the air rainfall, dew and sunshine seep through it to the soil beneath.

forkids6 lg Biodegradable plastic for gardening
Photo: www-tc.pbs.org

Of course you will have more work with an organic mulch. It will have to be replaced at least once a year as it breaks down and nourishes the soil. Plastic will set on the soil for years and do nothing for the soil. It will most likely damage it almost beyond repair. Hay, straw and leaves make good organic mulches, old newspapers, brown grocery bags and waste paper make an excellent underlayment for organic mulch. They provide a barrier to prevent light from reaching weed seeds and stimulating germination.

When you work the soil you bring weed seeds to the surface where the the light will stimulate them to germination. A layer of paper with a thick organic mulch on top will stop this from happening and greatly reduce time spent pulling weeds. Thus freeing you for the more pleasurable aspects of gardening. Organic mulch can be laid in thick layers to mulch almost anything. From a box hedge, expensive evergreen border, a perennial bed, or a row of rhododendrons. These are all garden spots that respond well to a paper mulch. If you use a permanent mulch on your vegetable garden, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the absence of weeds. The paper can be covered with something attractive and organic. Such as hay, straw, compost, wood chips, sawdust or anything else organic. You must cover the paper with something or the wind will scatter them all over the neighborhood.

The plastic industry has been with us for about 35 years now. During that time they have made it the great objective of their research to develop more and more indestructible material and more uses of this material. They’re great success, causes an ever growing burden on the sanitation department. This causes extra burden on the tax payers. You can garden just as well or better without plastic. Even if that were not true. Organic gardeners that are truly concerned with environmental contaminants must make up their minds to avoid using as much plastic as possible. It is one of the fastest-growing pollutants of all. A biodegradable plastic has required the industry to spend a sizable portion of its income on serious research and development. The biodegradable plastics are seriously expensive for anyone to use.

The reports regarding plastic have been extremely disturbing, for one thing plastic is practically indestructible, unless you burn it. Which causes air pollution. It cannot be composted or digested. It is non degradable and incapable of being assimilated into the organic cycle. Our societies obsession with plastic has caused a blight on our land that time will not erase. We need to increase our efforts to improve plastic or decrease the use of it. How much nicer a reflection on our society it would be, if an archaeologist ten thousand years from now would insert a shovel into clean rich soil, breathe fresh air, drink pure water. Then name our present society for those characteristics, instead of the litter of plastic that is fast over burdening us.

Robert Gettle bob@bobgettlelandscaping.com http://www.bobgettlelandscaping.com 25 years experience in landscaping. Get 4 free ebooks on landscape information from putting in a lawn to installing a backyard pond.

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13 Comments for this entry

  • lorna

    I garden organically, however as to your article above about plastics I should like to ask your opinion. I would like to have grow more vegetables all year round and therefore I am considering the use of a pollytunnel, as a green house is too expensive. However, I am concerned about the use of plastic, and I wonder if it is not also a health hazard as it ommits various toxins into the atmosphere as it degrades I fear that working in a pollytunnel overtime could be bad for ones health aswell as to the environment and wish to know if my fears are founded.

  • Michael Dutton

    There are many plants growing in the average garden that can be divided, or that have naturally self layered themselves. Where you could go along and take a rooted section, pot them up and with a bit of dressing up of the planting container, you could produce a really nice gift for someone you care about Growing Selection – Strawberry Plants By Indoor Grow Box Expert

  • Freddie Cook

    nowadays, it is sometimes to get fresh air in big cities and even in suburbs..-,

  • Olivia Smith

    i love the smell of fresh air in the morning. it is so rejuvenation.-’~

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  • Microwave Cart `

    i love breathing fresh air coz it is very soothing to the lungs, it also revitalizes my body-,~

  • Sheet Plastic :

    fresh air is hard to come by specially on those heavily populated cities-,:

  • Randall Tuffin

    Thanks for the article and for creating a nice site. I have been hunting for savvy information on gardening and may put these recommendations to practice. I have found it difficult to find solid information, as there are many sites with innaccurate information. Please keep it flowing!

  • Kendall Sniezek

    Thank you. I’m supposed to cook for my new vegetarian girlfriend next weekend and have absolutely no idea what to make! I found a ton of recipes at this vegetarian recipe site but with soo many to choose from I just got confused. Do you have any recommendations, like .. the tastiest vegetarian recipe, ever, or something?! Thanks in advance! I’m so clueless about this vegetarian stuff

  • PNP Transistor

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