Whats organic gardening all about?
Organic gardening is way of working with nature, taming it gently to produce the plants fruit, vegetables, flowers etc. that we want. Organic gardening does not use synthetic chemicals to kill pests and diseases, or weed killers to do the work of the spade or hoe. Synthetic chemicals designed to kill aphids can also kill friendly insects like bees, hoverflies and ladybirds, which are essential pollinators at the flowering stage. Toads, hedgehogs and birds can eat slugs and snails that have been poisoned by pellets. Weed killers can be helpful in extreme cases, for instance, where the roots of pernicious perennial weeds like Japanese Knotweed (see Pests and Diseases, below) cannot be removed without making things worse. But on the whole, weedkillers are strong poisons and have no place in an organic garden.
