Organic Gardening: Winter Salads

Far too many gardeners regard their season as starting in the spring and ending in the autumn. They will tell you that they put their garden to bed for the winter, and mainly occupy themselves with other activities.

This is a pity, as with a little planning and effort it is possible to provide a range of supplies for the kitchen. Salad crops are particularly useful as the ones available in the shops are likely to be even more heavily treated with chemicals during the winter months. Those produced in this country, for example, will have been grown in glass-houses or poly-tunnels where they are likely to have been sprayed several times with fungicides.

Indoors

Obviously without a heated greenhouse and considerable expense what we can do in our gardens is going to be limited, but we can make a worthwhile attempt to provide something for the table free from chemical contamination.

Take lettuces first of all. You may not have a heated greenhouse but you do have a house with warm rooms. Last winter l managed to maintain a constant supply of lettuces, albeit only a few leaves every day for lunch-time sandwiches, by growing them in pots on window-sills.

The lettuces l grew were called Kelly's and they are specially for glass-house cultivation. They were grown in 450g size yogurt pots, about 20 of them, and kept in trays on light window-sills. They are not lettuces that heart UP, but leaves can be picked from the bottom of the plants and new leaves are produced at the top until they run to seed in the spring, Their fresh green leaves look a treat on the window-sill on a sunny winter's day.

Another salad crop is chicory. These plants grew in the garden during the summer and autumn until cut back by the frost. The roots can then be dug up and kept in pots or boxes in a cool frost free place. They must be kept without light and will remain dormant until brought into a warmer environment. With light still excluded, the plants will soon produce the pale chicoons that can be used in salads

And outdoors

In the garden itself an exceedingly hardy plant can be sown in late summer for winter use. This is land cress, very withstand harsh winter conditions and continue growing during mild spells until it runs to seed in the spring. Its tangy leaves can be picked for salads throughout the winter.

Corn salad or lamb's lettuce is another winter crop that can be grown in the same way as land cress. Both these plants can be grown in the open, but they would be even more productive if protected by cloches or a cold frame.

Another green vegetable that can help out with salads is leaf beet or perpetual spinach. Although this is regarded as a vegetable for cooking, it is extremely hardy and will go on producing young leaves suitable for salads until the colder weather starts. As soon as the milder weather arrives in early spring, it starts again to produce a crop of young green leaves. Even in mid-winter, if you cover some of the plants with cloches, there will be some leaves for picking.

Root crops for salads can be sown in the summer and either left in the ground to be dug as required, or dug up and stored for winter use. Winter radish is such a crop. I leave mine in the ground and give them a covering of old grass cuttings or straw to keep out the frost and dig up the roots which are up to 6 inches long ; a tasty addition to the winter salad. Carrots and beetroot can be left in a similar way and, grated raw, add color to salads

A crop seldom grown but ideal for winter use is the Jerusalem artichoke. A neighbor gave me some tubers to sow over 20 years ago, and they have been providing winter food and tubers for planting ever since.

The tubers are planted around March and produce 8 foot high plants similar to sunflowers but without the flowers. The foliage is cut down and composted in the autumn and the tubers can be dug up as required. They are really good chopped up raw in salads as well as being useful for soups; they are also delicious roasted with the potatoes in the oven.

Jerusalem artichokes can be somewhat knobbly and difficult to prepare, but over the years I have selected the smoothest tubers for seed and now my crop consists in the main of good smooth roots. Some people swear by Jerusalem artichokes and some people swear at them, but l regard them as a first-class reliable winter vegetable.

Another good standby for winter are the squashes. I usually grow small pumpkins which store well in a cool place and are tasty chopped raw in salads. They are also useful for making soup.

With the growing prospect of global warming, we are likely to see changes in our climate. As well as an expected reduction in annual rainfall in our part of the country, we are also likely to find milder conditions during the winters. Despite the threat of more serious storms, this could make it easier to grow winter crops. Even without these changes, though, there is still much that can be done now.

Organic Gardening: Go Organic Essentials

Now Spring is in the air why not take a major decision and plan to have a go at gardening organically? Perhaps you have already considered the possibility but don't really know how to set about it.

It's simple really. Organic gardening is essentially learning to work with nature rather than trying to impose yourself upon it. As a start I would recommend that you write off at
once for the Organic Gardening Catalogue.

This catalogue contains the titles of several books and leaflets explaining organic gardening in simple terms.

The Essentials

The three essentials of growing organically are:

• The soil in which you grow your seeds and plants, and how it can be improved without the use of chemical fertilisers.
• The choice of what to grow that will flourish best without the use of chemicals.
• The range of techniques that can be used to reduce the effects of pests and diseases without using chemicals.
  

First, then the soil. The main thing is to put back what you take out. This necessitates composting nearly all garden waste and vegetable waste from the kitchen. Virtually all
can go for compost (also see page 1 0) except woody material, diseased plants and food waste that might attract rats. It's best to chop the waste as small as possible using shears or a shredder to speed up the process.

Making good compost is an art that comes with experience and organic gardeners can never get enough to put on their soil. The catalogue lists a 75p pamphlet called 'Composting - all you need to know the subject' if you require help in making good compost. Some local authorities, including Rother, have been supplying compost bins at cheap prices to their residents, to reduce the amount of organic 'rubbish' that has to be collected. that will benefit the soil. Animal manures, leaf mould, fertilisers made from comfrey or nettles and a whole series of proprietary manures and additives that are free of chemicals. Over time, the fertility and structure of the soil in
an organic garden will improve and it cannot be bettered. It will contain all the essential requirements for healthy plant growth, and it will be a living soil, rich in worms, bacteria
and other life required by plants.

Next there is the consideration of what to grow. This will, of course, depend on the individual gardener, but there are several factors that will influence the choice. It is wise to concentrate on those plants that are suited to your type of soil and to the local climate.

Unless you have a real desire for a particular plant, it is better to exclude those that are especially vulnerable to certain pests and diseases. The Organic Gardening Catalogue mentions that a certain calabrese is tolerant of club root, another resistant to black rot and downy mildew.
Some lettuces are less attractive to slugs, some roses are resistant to blackspot. By carefully choosing your plants you can reduce the problems of pests and diseases, and if you choose plants suited to your garden they will grow well and be less likely to succumb to attack.

The third consideration is the techniques that can be used to reduce the effects of pests and diseases without having to resort to chemical methods of control. This really demands a book on its own, but the organic gardener will build up a range of measures to suit the problems of his
particular garden.

The problem of slugs in my garden, for example, is largely overcome by sowing seeds of vulnerable crops like lettuces, brassicas and beans in modules or pots. These are grown on to healthy plants able to withstand a few slugs before they go into the ground. Even then I will
protect some plants with rings cut from plastic bottles. As for snails, song thrushes deal with most of them.

In addition, the organic gardener can when necessary use acceptable organic sprays and powders. Recently, too, a range of biological controls has become available. These
introduce predators that attack slugs, aphids or caterpillars without harming anything else. All these products can be found in the Organic Gardening Catalogue.

Slow but sure

Successful organic gardening is a cumulative process. As one year follows another, so the soil builds up a healthy structure and fertility. When pesticides are not used , a balance develop, between predators and pests so that crop damage is minimised. When weeds are comported and returned to the soil, or left in situ and smothered by mulching with grass cuttings or shreddings weed killers are unnecessary and the soil benefits.

Changing from chemical to organic gardening takes time and can sometimes be problematic, but persevere. When the balanced environment is achieved it is worth the effort.

The Henry Doubleday Research Association is a valuable source of information and a visit to their new grounds at Yalding in Kent is well worth while. The monthly magazine Organic Gardening is also a g reat help and is available from newsagents

If you have any consideration for the environment there is really no excuse for not turning over to organic gardening. Good luck if you decide to do so.

Organic Gardening: Balcony Gardens

A friend of mine in a second-floor flat and he is an organic gardener although he hasn't got a garden or an allotment. if you walk up to the block of flats, you can tell where he lives. There is a
balcony that stands out from all the others as it is overflowing with flowers and vegetation.

He took up gardening several years ago because he became alarmed by reports of excessive residues found in such a wide range of fruit and vegetables in the shops. Herbicides, pesticides, fungicides were - and still are - found on most home-grown and imported produce. The effects of
cumulative small doses of many such chemicals over the years is unknown and untested. Many of the chemicals long-ago banned in this country as harmful, are still being manufactured here, exported to Third World countries, and return to us in the produce grown there for our consumption.

The Annual Report for 1995 of the Government Working Party on pesticide Residues has recently been published. This indicates that little progress has been made in reducing chemical residues in our fruit and vegetables. As in previous years, 75% of carrots sampled are affected, and government advice still applies that they should be peeled and the top inch removed
before eating. Celery, lettuces and fresh herbs are also reported to be badly affected. Two-thirds or more of apples, pears, oranges and grapes sampled all contained residues.

Home and away

Whether the produce was home-produced or imported, the story is much the same. Although only a minority of samples contained residues above the permitted maximum residue level, how confident can we be after BSE fiasco? The situation givesrise to considerable publice concern and recently there has been a substantial increase in demand for organically-grown produce. An example of this is the booming trade in vegetable boxes available from our local Scragoak Organic Farm at Brightling.

The other consideration that prompted my friend to grow some of his own food was the completely unnecessary trade in 'fresh' produce that could easily be produced locally. The knowledge that poor, under-developed countries, instead of producing much-needed food for themselves, were growing produce for us, was regarded as wrong and immoral. it has to be
trucked to an airport, flown perhaps thousands of miles to this country, and then distributed around our roads by heavy goods vehicles.

An enormous amount of environmental pollution is caused to bring us produce that is tainted with chemicals and possibly harmful to eat.

The second-floor balcony garden was developed over several years and now provides a significant supply of food throughout the year. Various containers were purchased but more were constructed to suit the space available. The soil used built up over time from gro-bags and bags of compost. In addition, a compost container by the dustbin receives the wastes from the garden and the kitchen - and from the kitchens of several neighbors as well. This helps to maintain the fertility of the soil.

It is quite remarkable how much can be produced in a small space. Seeds of a number of plants, such as lettuces, runner beans, courgettes, cucumbers and tomatoes, can be sown and potted up on indoor window-sills until they are ready for planting out. Dwarf varieties of most fruit and vegetable plants are available and so there is space for a range of different things.

Nor is there any need to sacrifice attractiveness. Flowers can be grown as well, interspersed with food crops, from bulbs in spring, to colorful annuals and climbing roses trainedup the wall with the runner beans. Many vegetables are attractive in their own right. The dark green foliage and
bright red stems of beetroot and ruby chard, the variegated leaves of lettuces like lollo rosso and red salad bowl, the cherry tomato plants. the blossom and fruit of strawberries, to name but a few.

Self-sufficient?

If a flat-dweller can enjoy such a significant addition to food supply in such limited circumstances, how much more can most of us do who enjoy the benefits of a garden, large or small. It always makes me sad to when people tell me that, although they have a garden, they don't have anyspace or time to grow any food crops. What an enormous difference it would make

to food distribution if we all tried to be partly self-sufficent and started to grow some ofthe food we need to eat every day. Our health and the environment would both benefit.

For all gardeners, but especially for organic gardeners, the 1997 Organic Gardeners' Catalogue is now available for the UK. this is published jointly by Chase Organics and the Henry Doubleday Research Association, and contains a wide selection of seeds and plants - vegetables, flowers and herbs. It also has details of tools, equipment and organic fertilisers, together with a large selection of books and pamphlets on all aspects of organic gardening.

Organic Gardening: Slugs away

The recent forecasts of what is likely to happen to our climate as a result of global warming in the 21st Century, set me thinking about garden pests. We have been told to expect an increase in cockroaches and fleas and even the possibility of malarial mosquito reaching our shores. However, I have been wondering about the prospects for one of the most troublesome garden
residents, slugs and snails.

From the complaints I hear, gardeners think these creatures probably cause more trouble than anything else. On more than one occasion I have been told that although a gardener has given up using chemicals for almost every use in the garden, the use of slug pellets has been retained because there seems to be no other way of reducing slug and snail damage to acceptable
levels.

The expected rise in temperatures with global warming will probably do little to help this problem. In fat if we experience milder winters we shall probably find that more slugs and snails have survived through to the following season. However, we in the South-East may be more favourably placed than elsewhere in the country. It is forecast that we shall experience less rain and more droughts, while the opposite will be the case in the north and west.

During prolonged drought or dry spells of weather, slugs and snails certainly become less of a problem, but as soon as the wet weather comes along so the pests return to make their unwelcome appearance in the garden.

Organic solutions

In the immediate future we can certainly expect regular or periodic visitations from these creatures and our problem is what to do about protecting our plants and crops right now. How do organic gardeners deal with the problem? For myself I do not resort to chemicals and, generally

speaking, I do not find slugs and snails particularly difficult to deal with provided I follow a number of precautions.

There is always the possibility of deciding not to grow those plants especially attractive to slugs and snails, for example, lettuces, runner beans hostas etc. However, if you want to grow them, you need to be more careful. Wherever possible I never sow the seeds of vulnerable plants directly into the ground. I would normally sow them in individual modules in propak trays. When the seedlings are large enough, I pot them on individually and plant them out later when well-established. However, I plant them out directly if it is good growing weather and they can grow away rapidly in the soil.

Invariably I give each young seedling planted out the protection of a collar from a plastic bottle. You can cut two collars from each bottle, and Gardening Which? magazine found in their trials that this method of protection vies as efficient as slug pellets. Other advantages of this
protection is that each seedling has an individual mini-climate, and when watering you can supply 2/3 inches of water directly to plant without waste.

Another important point to remember is never to plant out vulnerable plants anywhere near to foliage or vegetation that could provide cover for slugs and snails. If there are problems with these creatures, I provide my own cover for them. My beds are surrounded by 12 inch wide strip of carpet to keep the paths weed free. This carpet also provides a cover for any slug to retreat to during the day, so instead of going out at night with a torch to collect them as a number of my friends do, I go out the next day and collect them from under the carpet.

Does the death penalty work?

If there are unusually high infestations, I put bricks, or strips of wood, cardboard or carpet around the areas affected and lift these to collect the slugs the next day. I have been told that if you kill such collections, by pouring boiling water on them for example, and scatter the dead remains around vulnerable plants, it acts as a deterrent to other slugs.

It has been likened to hanging the highwayman and leaving him hanging as a deterrent to others!Personally I have not tried this method, nor the other deterrent that involves putting human hair around the plants to be protected; a number of gardeners have said this is highly effective. If anyone has any other suggestion for dealing with slugs that they have found effective, I should be very interested to hear from them. But not beer traps; I have tried these but they normally catch more useful beetles that slugs, and I find the smell of stale beer revolting. I would rather drink it than use it as a trap.

Since organic gardeners do not use chemicals, their gardens usually contain plenty of predators that feed on the pests. Beatles, frogs and toads, hedgehogs etc. and there is a double welcome to the song thrush that sings from the top of the oak tree and leaves little piles of snail shells on
paving stones around the garden. I should hate to feed it snails poisoned by pellets and lose its lovely song.

Finally a mention of a recent biological technique for dealing with slugs and snails. A packet of nematodes can be purchased. These are microscopic creatures that are added to a watering can and sprinkled over an affected area. They parasites and kill their prey and are said to be very effective. However, this is not cheap, but if anyone has used them I would be most
interested to hear how well they worked.

Organic Gardening: Earth Matters

Earth Matters

When I came in from the garden as a small child, I remember being told to take off my muddy shoes and wash my dirty hands. The garden was muddy and dirty and it soiled your clothes.

However, much later in life, I learned that without the 'dirt' and 'mud' our life would be impossible. Organizations such as the Friends of the Earth and the Soil Association which regulates organic farming, have shown to us all the importance of a healthy living soil in the process of producing wholesome food.

One of the tragedies of the second half of the 20th century is the way in which agriculture has become dominated by the application of chemicals to production. This has mostly reduced the soil to a sterile, poisoned state which has disastrous effects upon its myriad inhabitants and upon the wildlife dependent upon it.

At last, however, this situation is becoming more widely recognized, not least because of the reaction of consumers like ourselves. We are waking up to the fact that the poisonous chemical residues in our food are highly undesirable, if not dangerous, for our health

Take steps

Almost all of us can take some steps to remedy this situation by growing some of our own food whether it be in gardens, on balconies, in window boxes or even on window sills. I provide us with lettuces - one of the most contaminated crops -all winter by growing them in pots on window sills. They both look and taste good. This leads to my main point, summed up in the title of the Friends of the Earth magazine, Earth Matters. The surest way to produce good healthy crops is to develop a good healthy soil. This means that it must be free from chemical fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides and fungicides, so that the vast array of creatures from earth
worms to bacteria, are able to do their work.

Improvement of the soil is the first step. For those of you wanting to start gardening organically, it is easier to proceed in stages. l suggest that you take an area of soil about 8ft by 4ft and convert it into a raised bed.

To do this, surround the plot by 6 inch by 1 inch (approximately) boards; the best are treated gravel boards from a DIY store.Three boards, one cut in half, will enable
the bed to be surrounded. Any secondhand timber, such as floor boards, will also do the job, but they may not last as long.

The next step is to thoroughly dig the ground and remove any perennial weeds. If the sub-soil is compacted, it may need loosening, but don't bring the sub-soil to the surface.
This should be the last serious digging needed for years as you should always treat the earth with respect; never tread on it unless really necessary, nor create too much disturbance for the creatures in it.

Now comes the task of improving the soil. The aim should be to enhance its fertility and structure by adding garden compost, leaf mold, or well rotted manure. Other natural
products such as spent mushroom compost or peat-free soil conditioners from a garden centre can be used. Growing a green manure crop such as lucerne or fenugreek for a
couple of months and then digging them in can be a good start. Grazing rye or tares are particularly useful as they can grow over winter and be dug in in the Spring.

What you have now should be about 3 inches of material that can be lightly forked in to provide a soil containing plenty of humus - decayed vegetable matter - that provides nutrients and helps to retain moisture in the ground. It will also attract earthworms and the array of beneficial creatures essential for healthy plants.

Fertilizers

A word on fertilizers. The Consumers' Association magazine, Gardening Which? . reported on its trials of a large number of commercial fertilizers. They found that feeding flowering plants had very little effect and that soil structure and water retention were as important as nutrient content for vegetables.

Their Soil Analysis Service found that less than 1 % of samples sent in had any serious nutrient deficiency, and that about 50% were actually too nutrient-rich - often as a result of over-zealous feeding by vegetable growers. Greedy feeders such as tomatoes my benefit by the addition of a liquid feed such as comfrey, and of course plants grown in pots or containers will need regular but not excessive feeding. Your raised bed should now be ready for growing flowers or vegetables. The plants will benefit from regular mulching with grass clippings, decayed bark chippings or garden compost which will rot down to make more humus. An annual addition in spring of garden compost leaf mold, and small amounts of well-rotted animal manure should be lightly forked in ready for the next season's growth.

The aim should be to extend this type of cultivation to the whole garden to provide masses of flowers and healthy vegetables. Don't forget that the Henry Doubleday Research Association's Organic Gardening Catalog can provide you with advice and materials to be a complete organic gardener.

Organic Gardening Tip

Plant seeds such as lettuces, brassicas and beans in modules or small pots under cover in greenhouses, cold frames, conservatories or window sills in the . house. My
window sills are always full of seedlings in early spring. They can be planted out, after being hardened off, when the weather if right. ln this way they get a flying start to cope with outdoor hazards and attacks from garden pests such as slugs or snails.

What is Organic Agriculture?

Organic agriculture is about more than just growing food and fibres without synthetic fertilizers and chemical biocides. Organic farmers use growing practices that include:

• nourishing and improving the soil by adding organic matter and other natural fertilizers, so that it isn't depleted by repeated harvests


• rotating crops so that insect and disease damage is reduced naturally, and so that the best crop for the existing fertility is grown; using intensive rotational grazing to ensure that livestock are well fed while spreading their organic nutrient wealth (manure) around, thus reducing water-polluting runoff from manure piles


• using natural biocides, such as Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), pheromone lures, hand-picking, and other techniques to reduce damage from disease and insects


• using open-pollinated seed whenever feasible


• avoiding genetically modified plants and animals


• using cruelty-free livestock management methods.

These practices benefit the planet we live on by increasing the soil and ecosystem health and biodiversity. They also benefit us and our future generations by not adding to the toxic soup we call our bodies. Please note, however, that given the state of Earth today, there is no food grown anywhere that is chemical-free.

Organic farmers, particularly certified organic farmers, guarantee that they have not used toxic chemicals in the production of their foods or fibres. However, none can guarantee that you won't find chemicals in your organic food. Some chemicals have been found in soils in jungle areas, and they've been found in the Arctic, two places where they hadn't been used. Wind and water disperse these and other chemicals, and they make their way into our soils, where they're taken up by the roots of plants.

Growing organic involves unusual risks

Organic farming involves unusual risks and demands unusual initiative. So why have many Illinois growers chosen this row to hoe?

A farmer in northern Illinois grows high-quality tomatoes for upscale restaurants in Chicago. Another in southeastern Illinois markets a variety of produce to consumers in Evansville, Ind., on a subscription basis. A third in central Illinois sells soybeans at more than three times the normal market price for export to Japan.

The common factor in these diverse operations? All three farms are certified organic.

Conventional agriculture is a tough business. Organic agriculture, which involves giving up chemical defenses against pests and weeds and adopting other practices in their stead, is even tougher.

For goods to be labeled "organic" by food processors, or to be marketed as organic regionally or nationally, farms must meet extensive certification requirements and pass annual inspections. A few states have certification programs, but in most, including Illinois, growers must apply to one of various private agencies for certification. In 1994 a USDA survey found that just one-third of one percent of U.S. cropland in production was certified organic.

Given the risks and headaches, what motivates someone to grow organic, and what traits enable them to succeed?

These questions have intrigued Leslie Duram, an assistant professor of geography, since she was a doctoral student. They're especially relevant now, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture soon to announce the first uniform certification standards.

For her doctoral dissertation several years ago, Duram compared organic and conventional farms in Colorado. In 1996 and 1997, she followed up that research by surveying the 70-plus certified-organic farmers in Illinois. She got responses from half of them and did in-depth interviews with 20 growers around the state. It's time to retire the stereotype of organic farmers as radical environmentalists tending small vegetable plots, she says. The folks she got to know had motivations as diverse as their farms--and economic reasons predominated.

Certified-organic farms in Illinois are profitable across a spectrum of farm sizes and types, she found. About 40 percent produce vegetables and herbs; nearly all of these farms are 10 acres or less. Almost 50 percent produce grains and legumes, and another 10 percent produce both grains and vegetables. Farms in these two categories ranged from 30 to 1,800 acres, with an average of 260. The remaining farms focus on livestock.

Nearly 4 of every 10 certified-organic producers in Illinois entered farming from other occupations. Many of these growers have a business background, and they generally have gone into small-scale vegetable farming, often in the suburban Chicago area. With savvy marketing, says Duram, "You can make quite a lot of money on a couple of acres of organic vegetable production."

Ironically, most of the other producers saw organic farming as the last, best means of hanging onto their family farms in an era of mega-operations.

"A lot of these folks feel strongly that government policy has caused a decline in family farms," says Duram. "They feel that if a farmer isn't doing well economically with conventional methods, organic is an option. They see it as really viable."

Aside from economic motivations, health concerns were cited by the organic farmers in Illinois, almost all of whom worry about exposure to pesticides and herbicides in farm work. Environmental concerns also motivate this group, but are less frequently cited.

Duram's research in Colorado and Illinois shows that successful organic farmers are proactive risk-takers. "Organic farmers tend to be self-guided," Duram notes. "These farmers ask questions wherever they can get answers."

Because they have few ready sources of technical assistance, they must be good at gathering information on their own--from books to word of mouth. Because their yield will not match that of conventional farms, they must compensate by finding markets that will pay a premium for organic crops.

"Organic farmers are thinking of specific niches so they can make it, perhaps on fewer acres," says Duram.

Diversification is key to success. Organic farmers in Illinois raise everything from bok choy, buckwheat, beets, and basil to the more usual corn, soybeans, hogs, and cattle.

Small-scale growers sell directly to restaurants (mainly in the Chicago area); to farmers markets and natural food stores; and to community-supported agriculture groups, in which people "subscribe" to a farm and are supplied a certain amount of produce each week.

Large-scale growers raising grains, vegetables, and livestock initially had to seek out their own markets as well. Increasingly, however, wholesalers and organic grain elevators are seeking them out. Consumer demand has been growing: U.S. supermarket sales of organic products jumped from $98 million in 1993 to $210 million in 1995. The total value of organic products sold in the United States in 1996 was estimated at $3.5 billion. Europe is importing more organic grain, and organic farmers in Illinois, a top soybean-producing state, are benefiting from a booming demand for organic soybeans in Japan.

"Soybeans are the big money crop for the larger organic producers," says Duram. "They're very aware of international markets."

Independence and individualism are highly valued by organic farmers. The Colorado farmers in particular, whom Duram dubbed "rebels," seemed to seek the challenge of succeeding where other farmers had predicted they'd fail. "If somebody tells me that it can't be done, I will prove that it can be done," one told her. "I'll try all avenues before giving up."

Most of the Illinois organic producers Duram has interviewed were conducting on-farm experiments, testing various combinations of processes and technologies to improve their results. They've learned to shrug off gossip or criticism about their unusual methods and their weedier fields.

That can be a rough transition; conventional farmers making their first forays into organic territory often worry about appearances. Duram asked one farmer trying out five acres of certified-organic soybeans why he'd sited them where he had: did that field have richer soil? Better drainage? No, he replied: "It's farthest from the highway."

Organic farming is a complicated proposition. Most certification agencies stipulate that fields cannot have had any synthetic chemicals, including synthetic fertilizer, applied to them for at least three years prior to certification. Farmers must provide buffer zones between organic acreage and nonorganic acreage, including neighboring farms.

But organic farming goes far beyond simply not using chemicals on land or crops. The use of many substances in farming operations--such as chlorine, used to clean equipment--is prohibited or restricted. Farmers who have only some certified acreage must keep their organic and nonorganic operations separate, from planting to transportation of the harvested crop. Livestock cannot be given growth hormones or antibiotics.

Among other requirements, farmers also must to able to show evidence of soil-building on their land each year. For grain producers, a standard corn/soybean rotation isn't sufficient; certification requires at least one additional crop, such as wheat, rye, oats, or hay, in the rotation schedule. This diversity helps soil fertility and cuts down on insect pests. Livestock pasturing often is part of the rotation too: the manure enriches the soil.

When the USDA finalizes and implements uniform certification standards, consumers will benefit by knowing exactly what is meant by "organic." But organic farming is such a grassroots endeavor that many of its practitioners in Illinois worry about the intrusion of government bureaucracy, says Duram.

Virtually all of the certified-organic farmers in Illinois have their certification through the Organic Crop Improvement Association, whose requirements are among the strictest. If the new standards are more lenient, Duram explains, these farmers may not be allowed to advertise that they meet more-stringent requirements, depending on the final USDA rules. In addition, she says, "If we make the standards too loose, our exports are not going to be accepted internationally, and that would really hurt farmers." She hopes to study the effect of the forthcoming USDA rules on organic farming operations here.

Over and over, the Illinois farmers stressed to Duram that consumers must be willing to pay a fair price for food. As one pointed out, the price farmers get for a bushel of corn is lower now than it was over most of the past three decades, but the price of a tractor--like virtually everything else--has gone up several-fold. "That's why farmers have to be worried about yields--they have to get so many more bushels to break even," says Duram.

It's certainly a gamble for someone with no agricultural background to start a small organic operation. But Duram thinks it's a more radical move for a long-term farmer to switch from conventional methods.

"Their whole background is telling them 'high yield,' and you need chemical use to do that," she says. "Those first three years are scary--plus you have to learn all this new information."

She adds, "These are some really gutsy farmers."

Leslie Duram's study of organic farmers in Illinois was funded by SIUC's Special Research Program and conducted with the help of Kelli Larson, a master's student in geography.