Yes, greens, as you might expect are to be found in abundance. Lettuce, both mixed mesclun and small heads of leaf lettuce were everywhere as well as arugula, baby chard leaves and some spinach (we weren’t sure why there wasn’t more spinach around and nobody seemed able to tell us… is it because small farmer avoid the crop since it’s so voluminously represented these days in our grocery stores and organic markets?).

There were also beautiful stacks of red, white and mixed radishes, greens and all, some in perfect globes, some tubular. Judging from the number of people stopping to take pictures of them, they were thought to be photogenic by more than just me. Often next to them were equally photogenic stacks of turnips and, less frequently, bunches of beet greens pulled from the ground their tiny roots just beginning to swell. There were thick, dark green onions, with beautiful white roots. Asparagus was present and would be, one grower told us, for another week or two. And there was chard of various sizes, small baby leaves with white, red, and yellows stalks as well as big thick, deep-green bunches of the sort you’d expect to see mid-summer.

The abundance and size of the greens led us to ask questions and sure enough: those with bigger greens and root vegetables (and some with smaller sized harvest) were using covered raised beds, cloches, row covers and hoop-garden technology to push the season. One tip they offered: keep a close watch on day-time temps. It’s important to uncover, vent or otherwise protect young greens from the serious heat that can build up on these sunny, warm days. The results, as seen at the market, can be impressive.

There were also a few heirloom tomatoes offered and other late season plants like basil. These reflected the wide-spread use of green houses. Surprisingly, there were fewer tomatoes available for purchase than just a few months ago. One well-known, hydroponic-grown tomato vendor was missing entirely. The grower that was there with tomatoes said that this probably because its the time of year for growing new plants and general cleanup and green house maintenance.

The other commodity in abundance were potted plants and vegetable starts. Many of these two were started and grown in greenhouses. People were carting off beautiful organic tomatoes and squash as well as broccoli and cauliflower starts and a variety of landscape flowers. Home gardeners looking to justify the cost and/or work involved establishing a greenhouse should need look no further. The price of starting your own heirloom seed and getting a head start on the season, not to mention extending the growing and harvest period on the fall end of the year? Priceless.

The other impression the number and variety of vendors at the market made on me was that so many people are using their gardening skills to supplement or earn all of their income. Many growers have struck deals with our fine and varied local restaurants (many restauranteurs, chefs in their white cooking coats, can be seen browsing the market for the best looking ingredients and hauling big bundles of produce away from the market). And there’s more than good organic gardeners selling baby lettuce to cafes and discriminating individuals. There’s a gentleman pushing the virtues of garden worms — he uses the straw bale method — while selling worm casing, worm tea, and the worms himself. Another family that has a thriving orchard business markets oyster mushrooms during the off-season.

Your kitchen-crazy Planet Natural Blogger –still without a garden of his own — came home from the Farmers Market with turnips, beets, onions, and a beautiful basil plant. The greens and onions went to make a kettle of vegetable stock that will be used for a spinach and potato soup. We cleaned off the root vegetables — the tiny beets, the golf-ball sized turnips cut into halves and added them to some sweet potato we’d bought at the organic market, dumped it all into a greased baking dish, splashed it with olive oil and salt, and roasted the lot of them. When the roasting was almost complete, we threw on some thick asparagus, and a bit after that, an entire green onion or two. We made pesto with the basil, adding some green chile we’d frozen from the previous fall. We served our appreciative brood roasted vegetables and pesto that night with some good homemade bread. We’ll have a second night of homemade soup, made more flavorful by stirring in a dollop of the remaining pesto. And we’ll look froward to going to the farmer market again next week.

Okay, maybe that last bit is true. And there are similarities. It’s true that both hybrids and GMOs are genetic manipulations. Hybrids can occur naturally or they might be facilitated by humans. GMOs are always created in laboratories. GMOs and many F1 hybrids may both be realized in controlled conditions, but one is simply doing nature’s work: pollinating. GMOs involve gene splicing. Both are patented by the business/corporate owners (full disclosure: not all F1 hybrids are patented). What does the GMO patent mean? That you better be careful.

But there are differences. The negative effects of GMOs on diversity and organic crops are markedly more serious than corporate- controlled hybrids. You can grow the “Heritage Hybrid Tomato” or the “Brandy Boy Hybrid” organically (marketing alert: notice how these relatively recent hybrids carry names that suggest heirlooms). A genetically-modified plant can’t claim to be organic. Saving seed from F1 hybrids, say tomatoes, doesn’t mean you’ll get the same hybrid when planting the next year. They don’t reproduce “true.” Saving seed from GMO plants and putting them in the ground the following year may yield the same plant, but will unleash a plague of lawsuits, exorbitant fines, and worse.

The big — and deciding — difference is in the way and number their genes are manipulated. Let’s turn again to Joseph Tychonievich’s wonderful book Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener. Here’s how he describes the important distinction: “Traditional breeding introduces genetic diversity by bringing together all genes of two individuals, most of which have nothing to do with specific breeding aims. Genetic engineering instead inserts only one gene, one specific section of new DNA, into a single individual’s genome…” That one gene can come from anywhere, be it a fungus or a bacteria or even a fish.

When you practice cross-breeding in your garden, when a botanist controls pollination in his laboratory, the entire genome — all the genetic information — is combined. That’s why you won’t have any luck trying to cross breed corn with tomatoes (cormatoes!) or your dog with your cat. But you could take one gene from a disease-resistant corn and force it into a tomato’s DNA. Or you could take one gene from bacteria that’s harmful to some insect predator and see what results. In doing so, you change more than that single gene. You could decrease the plant’s nutritional value or, in fairness, maybe increase it. You might make something that’s toxic to humans as well as insects. You might make something that’s totally inedible. Who knows what you might end up with? The variables are endless. Some might be good, others might be bad, all in the same genetic modification.

Tychonievich tries not to take sides in the GMO argument. But it’s clear that he thinks genetic modification is a “powerful” technology. He grants that it could yield results which aren’t necessarily harmful. But he also suggests that it has the power to seriously disrupt ecosystems and do harm to humans. Never mind that it gives few corporations the power to control most of the world’s important food supplies. And that it could do major damage to the diversity of the world’s food crops. The irony here is that lawmakers and business men don’t seem to care about even the possibility of these consequences. Testing? Why bother? Labeling? Forget it.

Inserting a single gene from a completely different source, say a bacteria, could have catastrophic results if the result turns out bad and escapes from the laboratory (some genetic engineering involves removing a single gene from the chain). But we’ve already had GMOs created that produce their own poisons and/or are resistant to herbicide, allowing more poison to be sprayed on it. Those GMOs have not only been knowingly released from the laboratory, they’re showing up on our dinner plates.

On the other hand, there’s nothing wrong with small farmers and home gardeners experimenting by cross-breeding plants to encourage desirable traits, whether it’s a better tasting tomato or a more fragrant carnation. It’s a natural process. Tychonievich explains, in detail, how it can be done. The process can take years or maybe just one growing season. And the results, as mother nature always is, can be unpredictable. But they won’t be evil. In fact, this kind of home breeding can be amazingly productive. More about that later. But for now… don’t tell us that GMOs aren’t any different than man-made hybrids. They most certainly are.

While we frequently urge patience on those who might plant too soon, there is a way to get quicker germination once your seeds are in the ground, a technique known to almost every gardener and practiced universally: Soak your seeds before planting. Soaking garden seeds, both vegetable and flower seeds, will swell and soften them and get their little embryonic selves thinking about coming out into the light of day. Here’s some things to consider when soaking seeds.

– First, which seeds are most appropriate for soaking? Big seeds. Wrinkled seeds. Seeds (as best you can tell) with hard coats. In the vegetable garden, this means peas, beans, corn, pumpkins and squash; even chard and beets. Smaller seeds — lettuce, radishes, carrots, and the like — are hard to handle once their soaked and don’t really need it anyway. Flower seed to soak? Sunflower, lupine, sweet pea, nasturtium take well to soaking.

– How to soak? This is the easy part. Put the seeds in a shallow bowl and cover with water as you would a bean seed before cooking. We’ve also put seed in zip-lock bags with just enough water to keep damp and then sealed the bag. Many garden how-to texts suggest using hot water. We suggest a bit of caution if you do. You don’t want the water so close to the boiling point — or to be held at a high temperature for so long time — that it “cooks” the seed. Warm water; fine. It will reduce the soaking time, which means you should pay extra attention.

Some gardeners recommend adding something acidic, like a tablespoon or three of coffee or a few drops of kitchen vinegar. The idea is to recreate conditions in an animal’s stomach, the place where many seeds first get the warm, dark, damp idea to germinate. Anybody who’s seen a berry-laden pile of bear scat understands. We haven’t tried this method — no bear would cooperate — so can’t vouch for the claim that it hurries the soaking process or increases germination rate.

– How long to soak? Just long enough for the seeds to swell but not so long that they might begin to sour and rot. Overnight is usually good. Many sources recommend 8-12 hours and no more than 24 hours. Again, too much soaking and the seeds will start to decompose. If you use very hot water, the soaking time will decrease. We’ve always liked to use warm water and start the soaking at bedtime, then plant first thing in the morning. We’ve been told the soaking water should be changed and we’ve been told it shouldn’t. In our experience, it doesn’t seem to matter.

– Particularly hard seeds like beans will benefit from scarification before they’re soaked. Scarification means nicking the seed coat (be careful not to puncture it completely) but scratching with a dull knife or buffing the seed with a nail file.

– Other considerations that I’ve learned the hard way. Don’t soak your seeds the night before a rain is expected. Wait ’til the forecast promises good planting conditions, so you’ll be able to get int the garden and not compact the soil too much. You don’t want to hold on to your seeds once they’ve soaked. You want to get them in the ground. And just because your seeds have been soaked doesn’t mean you get out of watering them as soon as they’re planted. Your good, organic soil will hold just the right amount of moisture around your seeds and allow the extra to drain deeply into the soil. So water just as you would without seeds being soaked first.

– Really in a hurry? We’ve placed beans, squash and even corn seed between damp paper towels and kept the towels moist for the days it takes to germinate. Then we placed them carefully in the planting trough and covered them gently so as not to break the fledgling stem or root. Don’t worry if its on its side. Gravity will help it find the way down. Want activities sprouting seeds this way with your kids? Go here. Find further discussion of soaking seeds — I’ve got to try that kelp trick — here.

Some 93% of the soy grown in the U.S. is genetically engineered.

Bowman’s lawyer, Mark Walters, told Bloomberg News in an e-mail that the ruling “makes infringers out of 95 percent of America’s soybean farmers, dependent on the grace of a single company to avoid liability. ”A pro Monsanto patent attorney said simply, “this is fantastic for their business model.”

Last month, Monsanto reported that its net profit rose 22% in the last year. It’s genetically engineered seed business increased 10% while its sales of herbicide, much of it tied to genetically engineered crops, rose a whopping 37%. Roundup, the herbicide tied to Monsanto’s GMO crops, increase 73%. (Editorial comment from your friendly Planet Natural Blogger: Oh, boy! More chemical herbicide in the environment.)

Meanwhile, world-wide protests against Monsanto’s control of food production have been scheduled for May 25. Here’s the official website for the event. ‘Nuff said.

Healthy soil is living soil, filled with billions of microbes and beneficial, microscopic fungi; nematodes, earthworms and other beneficial organisms. It’s alive. Frank Tozer, in The Organic Gardeners Handbook says that growing plants is the secondary activity of the organic grower. The first? Growing soil. Grow soil full of organic material from compost, full of living organisms, and the other necessary ingredients plants require, and growing gardens, without chemical fertilizers and the use of pesticides and herbicides to control problems,  becomes vastly easier.

Healthy soil, it turns out, may not be important to just the gardener but to the planet as well. It seems that soil health is the basis of the earth’s store of biodiversity. When we lose healthy soil, we lose everything.

That was the crux of author Jim Robbins’ piece this weekend in The New York Times. Robbins is a Helena, Montana based journalist whose latest book is The Man Who Planted Trees: Lost Groves, Champion Trees and An Urgent Plan To Save the Planet.  His piece, “The Hidden World of Soil Under Our Feet” elevates the issue of soil’s importance to a level that not only makes healthy soil critical to gardeners and farmers but to everyone. In short, the future of the planet rests in our soils.

“Soil is the foundation on which the house of terrestrial biodiversity is built. Without robust soil ecosystems, the world’s food web would be in trouble,” Robbins writes. He goes on to compare the soil under our feet to the oceans, saying that what goes on there is still largely a mystery. And he explains how we endanger our soil: through tillage agriculture, through the use of pesticides and herbicides that destroy the soil’s biodiversity, through acid rain, a problem that’s been largely controlled but has left a harmful legacy in our earth. Then there’s simple paving over, something that we’ve done at an alarming rate, a practice that literally suffocates the life out of the soil.

He also makes an interesting point about climate change, plants and their relation to soil. It’s often said that once we can no longer grow wheat in Kansas because of heat and drought, we’ll just move those crops northward. But growing wheat isn’t just dependent on climate conditions.  It’s dependent on soil conditions, too. The supportive, beneficial soil condition of Kansas may not exist further north.

At one point, Robbins also points out how soil health can help prevent disease in humans by holding down dust.

The upside of Robbins’ article is that scientists are starting to pay attention. Recently scientists have founded the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative, a group formed to examine the importance of the very dirt we stand on. (Dirt seems such an derogatory term for something so critical.) Robbins quotes Dianah H. Wall, the chairwoman of the Initiative, regarding what can be done. “Practice no-till agriculture for one, Dr. Wall said, which means not plowing every year and allowing dead vegetation to decompose. Backyard gardeners can do the same. Avoiding synthetic chemicals is also important. Adding compost, especially worm compost, can help by making soil ecosystems more robust.”

Adding compost. How many times have we said that making compost, that organic gardening might save the world? More and more, we’re beginning to believe it. Save the soil.

Well, your talkative PN Blogger, raised in the Midwest, had heard this before and, indeed, had told the story himself a number of times. And having just read up on the history of corn, we felt we had to put our two cents in (though what we said was probably worth half that).

“That’s good, old fashioned, home-grown corn,” I explained. “This commercial stuff has been bred to keep it sugars longer, so it can be shipped and held before sale. But it’s not as good, it’s not as sweet as good, home-grown sweet corn. The sugars in homegrown sweet corn aren’t as stable. But the corn is tastier.”

“The sugars turn to starch,” said the person in line behind me. “They’re better, but they have to be eaten right away.”

Everybody wants to get into the act.

But it’s actually true that modern commercial sweet corn has been bred so that its natural sugars stabilize and don’t convert to starch as quickly. And, as every gardener knows, they’re not as tasty, either in sweetness or good, corny flavor. We had just read the first chapter of our current favorite gardening book, Plant Breeding for the Home Gardner: How To Create Unique Vegetables & Flowers, and its author, Joseph Tychonievich, opens with a discussion of corn. Needless to say, it’s fascinating.

He talks about a Mexican grass he grows, one that’s short, slender, has tiny flowers, and yields a few equally tiny, extremely hard gray-and-brown seeds. Its common name is teosinte but its scientific name is Zea Mays. Next to it, Tychonievich grows another member of the Z. Mays family. This one has a fist-thick stalk, grows very tall, and produces hundreds of seeds that dwarf those on teosinte. It’s called sweet corn.

The transformation from skinny grass to productive food crop was brought about by hundreds of years of selective gardening. Small-scale, pre-Columbian, subsistence farmers saved seeds from plants that had desirable qualities; namely more, less-hard seeds. These plants were the result of natural cross-breeding, a kind of ongoing hybridization. The actions of these farmers, over generations, came to yield something that resembles the sweet corn we know today. In the last hundred years or so, corn has been rapidly changed so that we have breeds that are sweeter, grow in less favorable climates, or have desirable commercial traits like the ability to stay “fresh” — maintain their sugar content — for days rather than hours. And, too, corn has been bred for commercial purposes other than human consumption.

But its important to remember that something’s lost in the process. Usually this doesn’t matter. Wouldn’t you rather be eating plump, juicy sweet corn than those hard little grass seeds? But when the desirable traits have commercial application, like those commercial sweet corns or those hard, never-to-be-ripe tomatoes that don’t bruise during shipping, then the loss is truly tragic. The solution here is simple: grow your own corn. Find the best tasting, most adapted sweet corn for your growing conditions and grow it. Sure it’s only available for a few short weeks each year. Then, if like your PH Blogger you must, buy commercial sweet corn from Florida or some place. But those days you’re picking corn that you’ve grown yourself are among the most rewarding a gardener has.

The term PGR has come to include many things, not all of them potentially harmful. But technically, a PGR is a spray or chemical used to treat seed or growing plants that, through cellular mutation, makes the plant in some way more desirable, often more to the seller than the buyer.

PGRs are used for a host of reasons and function in a number of ways. They are commonly categorized and regulated as pesticides but mostly deal with growth, flowering and fruiting issues. Some, especially those used to encourage rooting, are organic compounds. But most of those used in commercial agriculture — and that includes the sale of nursery stock — are synthetically derived.

Here’s an interesting paper on the growth regulator Sumagic. Notice that there are strict restrictions on how much and when this PGR can be used. Scroll down to “Post Transplant (sic) Concerns” to find that one concern is residual Sumagic in the fruits. These are the kinds of things that make us suspicious.

Why use them at all? “PGRs like Sumagic are gibberellin biosynthesis inhibitors which suppress plant height by inhibiting internode elongation,” says the report. In other words, they keep plants — in this case tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, tomatillos — from becoming too leggy.

It doesn’t take much to figure out why commercial nursery growers might want to discourage large growth. Here’s Joseph Tychonievich discussing PGRs from his wonderful new book Plant Breeding For the Home Gardener (more on this great resource coming in another post): “Short, compact plants are easier to sell because they look more balanced in a small pot. Short stems also don’t get tangled together on the bench and are less likely to get broken during shipping; and you can stack many more flats of short plants on shelves in a semi truck.”

Flowering plants, like marigolds, have been treated with PGRs for years, resulting in small plants with blossoms that you see so widely available. But it’s only in the last few years that PGRs, specifically Sumagic, have been approved for use on vegetable plants. It’s telling that one can look in vain for testing on the safety of  individual commercial PGRs used on edibles. The fact that the Sumagic paper cited above suggests testing is needed to see if the compound can be found in the tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers from plants treated with the PGR is not only telling but frightening.

Again, if you’re buying nursery stock this planting season and want to avoid PGRs, be sure you’re buying them from a reliable organic grower. Until we know more about any risk that might be associated with commercially used, synthetic PGRs, organic gardeners will want to steer clear.

Our critical friend has a point. It’s so much easier getting rid of dandelions with Roundup or other herbicides that are designed to penetrate the length of the dandelion’s long tap root. But then you have a frightful chemical, one that’s been shown to put embryonic and kidney cells at risk, lingering in your soil. The other problem with these kinds of herbicides: they don’t stop new seed, which may have blown in from far away, from germinating. Once a new dandelion plant starts growing in your yard, it’s time to spray again. And Again. And… well, you get the picture.

So, if you have a yard, and you don’t want to tolerate dandelions — or can’t eat them fast enough to keep them from taking over — what do you do? The answer is, of course, get to work. And now, as early as they start to appear in spring, is the time to begin.

Your odd and unusual Planet Natural Blogger will here make one confession: we like digging weeds. Digging weeds is good exercise and it puts us in close proximity to our growing things. Digging weeds also means we aren’t spraying weeds. And that’s the best feeling of all.

The problem with dandelions is their long tap root. Leave any part of it when digging them out and the plant will regenerate. So what to do? Dig them anyway. Then follow up. Now –early May or whenever dandelions begin to make their springtime appearance — is the time to go after them (it’s also the best time to harvest their leaves for salads). Use the “forked-tongue” or some variation dandelion tool; we’ve found it works better than knives or screwdrivers. You want to get the root from as deeply as you can. Here’s where the perfectionists among us will be disappointed: You’ll never get it all unless you dig it out– deeply — with a spade, taking a big chunk of sod along with it.

Once you’ve removed the root as deeply as you can you’ll be left with a small hole where the plant was removed. Carefully spray or pour standard white vinegar down the hole. The acidic vinegar will kill the root that’s left in the soil. Be careful applying it. The stuff is acidic enough that it will destroy grass or whatever else it touches (but it won’t hurt you).

If you have a lot of dandelions, this will take some time. Don’t make it too much work. Mark off a space and leave the rest for another day. This is a task you want to finish. If the dandelions are starting to flower — and this happens quickly in the spring — have your kids pick the blossoms before they can go to seed.

What about using the vinegar directly on the plant, without digging, or “flaming” the plants, burning them off with a torch? You’ll see a lot of organic references referring to these old methods but they have one problem. They seldom take care of the tap root and the plant will eventually grow back.

Once weeds are removed, how do you keep them from reseeding? The light, parasol-shaped dandelion seed carriers that kids love to blow off the flower can come to your yard from great distances. To discourage them, spread corn gluten on your yard. It will prevent any broad leaf seed from germinating that comes in contact with it. Studies have also shown that mulches of maple and ash leaves will naturally discourage dandelions from showing themselves in the spring. As with any mulch, don’t apply so much that your grass might be smothered. Here’s a great essay on how to rid your yard of dandelions organically.

Once again, healthy soil is the key to discouraging dandelions from getting started in your yard. The thicker and lusher your grass grows, the less chance dandelions will have to get a foothold.

You can see where diligence and a good work ethic is required to deal with dandelions organically. There’s one other quality that can help: tolerance. Just as organic gardeners learn to tolerate some insects in our gardens (especially the beneficial ones) and a few weeds poking up through the mulch (until they compete with our plants for moisture), tolerating dandelions will save you a lot of that work they require, especially when you have large areas of lawn or fields. After all, they can be attractive depending on your point of view. The one thing we know that’s definitely beautiful? Not using chemical sprays to control them.

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Second story: Here in the U.S., the federal government released a study citing a variety of reasons for bee decline. In addition to pesticides, mite infestations, lack of nutrition, and genetic variation all contribute according to the study. The study was seen as a response to the EU’s banning of certain pesticides linked to bees deaths. “At E.P.A. we let science drive the outcome of decision making,” said Jim Jones, the agency’s acting assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention. “There are non-trivial costs to society if we get this wrong.”  Translation: Risking our entire population of honey bees is trivial in the face of losing a few dollars for big chemical and agricultural companies.

You can just hear chemical-soaked, agri-business breathing a collective sigh of relief because there might be other reasons for the decline in addition to pesticides. Notice that the article in reporting the study in Farm Futures, the mouthpiece for “large scale, high income farming” (their words, not ours), doesn’t use the word “pesticides” again after a cursory mention of the factors. And when it comes to recommendations? Pesticides? Nothing to see over here. Can you say fair-and-balanced… not?

Here’s a broader look from Environment News Service including a photo of a honeybee with a mite square on its back. As any bee keeper will tell you, mites are a continual problem in some areas. What’s not stated in this study is that mites have developed a resistance to the chemicals used to control them. In the world of non-organic farming, the solution for one problem is really just the creation of another, larger problem. There are natural ways to control mites, including dusting bees with powdered sugar, using “drone combos” (a specially designed bee frame), and, in the case of large infestations, finding and separating the infested hives; or destroying them if necessary.

Or maybe it’s the high fructose corn syrup? Another factor not mentioned in the bee decline study is the use of honey substitutes in hive feeding. Turns out that these manufactured products — can you say processed food? — don’t provide the enzymes that boost bees’ immune and detoxification capabilities. These enzymes come from the pollen and other components of flowers that cling to bees’ legs as they work flowers. Without them, bees are more susceptible to disease, pests, and the rigors of drought and other climactic factors.

Permit your friendly and concerned Planet Natural Blogger some editorializing here. Can we see the decline in honeybees as a larger symbol — a warning — about chemical intensive, profit-at-any-cost corporate agriculture? Is this an example of simple chemical fixes leading to larger and potentially catastrophic problems? Can we trust chemical corporations and their minions in government to consider our best interests? Is there a lesson for humans in the feeding of high-fructose corn syrup, a heavily processed, manufactured product, and the results it has on bees? What’s wrong with natural, organic farming techniques? Just asking…

First by making a commitment. You must promise to learn as much about organic practice as you can. This is really a life-long process. But when you consider that a little organic knowledge (the basics) goes a long way and that the details bring you closer to perfection, you begin to understand how easy it is.

The second commitment is the promise never to go back. No matter how many problems you encounter — and it’s important to remember that even conventional gardeners encounter failure, and lots of it — you will not go back to your old, chemical ways. When the neighbor points out that he doesn’t have any bugs in his garden and you do, it’s time to be strong. (It may also be helpful to point out that he doesn’t have any beneficial bugs in his garden, as you do.) When he says you spend a lot more time in your garden than he does, smile. In a year or two of organic gardening, that probably won’t be true. When he says that turning that compost pile must be a lot of work, put your hand on your abs and then look directly at his belly. Or maybe stretch out your muscled arms.

Once you’ve made the commitment, it’s time to move on to the specifics. We’ve dealt with many of these issues in previous posts and you can consult them as you begin the transition. But here’s general guidelines to get you thinking.

–As Doug Oster and Jessica Walliser point out in their book Grow Organic: Over 250 Tips and Ideas for Growing Flowers, Veggies, Lawns and More For First- Timers and Old-Timers Alike (now that’s a title!), it’s best to start from the ground up. This means improving your soil, freeing it from its addiction to chemical fertilizers and healing it with plenty of organic matter. And that means compost.

Sure, after testing, you may find your soil needs bolstering with certain minerals and other components, especially in the early stages of transition. And you’ll want to make sure the pH level is perfect for the plants you’ll be growing. But soil building with organic material is an ongoing process that results in growing rewards as the seasons progress. Your goal? To make your soil come alive. Remember, the more microbial life in your soil, the less problems you’ll have with poor growth, disease and insects in the future.

–Plant carefully. Whether sowing seeds directly in your garden or setting out transplants, give your plants enough room. Crowded plants don’t grow as quickly and healthily when they’re forced to compete with other plants. Previously, you may have just poured more fertilizer to your crowded plants and hoped for the best. Often this resulted in disease and pest infestation which sent you for the sprays. Not any more. Also consider sunlight and watering needs. And don’t forget to utilize companion planting where you can. A well-planned garden is a well-grown garden.

–Deal with weeds as soon as you spot them. Get on all fours and weed that garden! Learn to prevent weeds with mulch.

–Learn to identify insects. Not all are bad; in fact, some may help you rid your garden of those that will do damage. Learn to tolerate a few bugs… even the most heavily sprayed gardens have them. Get down with your garden (yeah!). Examine your plants, top and bottom. Learn to look for damage so you can apply proper, organic solutions. And if you see a bug doing harm, don’t be afraid to squish it beween your fingers or under your garden shoes. Some of us believe (without any proof but with plenty of faith) that a smashed bug discourages other bugs. Whatever…

–Learn and practice preventive measures. If you had trouble with mildew on your cucumber or squash vines in the past, hit them before fungus starts with a mild soap and baking soda solution and continuing spraying them every couple of weeks.

–Monitor your garden carefully, not just for bugs, but for moisture levels, the need for shade and other complications. Take care of problems as soon as spotted. Getting close to your garden, watching it carefully as it changes from day to day, is one of gardening’s great joys. And it’s the best way to guarantee success.

–Keep a journal. Make an entry every day or two. When did the tomatoes make a growth spurt? How deeply did you water and when did it rain? When did grasshoppers make an appearance? Were those ladybugs effective on aphids? And don’t forget aesthetics: Just how tasty were those homegrown tomatoes?

Converting your existing garden to an organic garden is something of an adventure. Remember: the most important step and the first to make after making the commitment, is to improve your soil. From there on, it’s not that hard; certainly no harder than conventional gardening. Converting to organic gardening is mostly a process of becoming a better, more knowledgeable, more effective gardener. And isn’t that what we all want?