What s classed as organic ?

[carly]

So I have always tried to be as environmentally friendly as possible and prefer to eat veg I know has no chemicals used in the growing process.
But what actually counts as organic?

I have done 2 things this year....
1. Used nematodes ( but have been using this for 4 years )
2. Companion planting ( new this year)
3. Did have some aphids on the plants in greenhouse and decided to try ladybird larvae. This was a new thing 1 week ago.... took me 2 hours to put them on the plants and I was curious as to whether it would actually work..... but after 4 days I am 80% aphid free and they are growing into adults.... I look each day and can see them moving onto the other leaves and they have covered a wide area.

I do feed the plants with tomatorite which I�m not sure if is counted as organic?

Anyway... looking to see what the standard is and to get ideas for next year.

Thank you

[Thelma Sanders]

Garden Organic have listed the main principles here
https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/principles

Lots of sensible advice as well on their site.

[bikermike]

IMO:
Unless you're selling them, whether you comply with the precise term "organic" doesn't matter - it's a line in the sand to allow consumers to have a fair idea of what is going on and for which a premium is chargeable.

If you use one non-organic-compliant product, your tomatoes don't become worthless or inedible, it is just something to take steps to avoid.

By growing it at home in a non-aggressive manner you are probably being for environmentally-friendly than buying organic veg in the supermarket anyway, as you cut out all the transportation and packaging damage.

I don't use any non-organic-compliant materials on my crops, as far as I know. but even if I did use one accidentally/non-regularly, I'd still consider that crop to be an environmentally-beneficial one.