I want to have an organic Garden?
Friday, February 19th, 2010 at
4:50 am
I garden and sell my products at a local farmers market. I wanted to know what I can put in it and sell the veggies as organic and if its worth it,
thanks
Filed under: Organic Gardening
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In order to sell your produce as organic you have to be certified organic unless you sell under $5000 per year. But even with the $5000 rule you must follow the regulations as if you were certified organic.
You need to have a crop rotation plan, use only certified organic seeds (or document that you could not find certified organic seed), you can not have used any unapproved inputs for the last three years and you must sign a notorized affidavad stating such (which means if you lie about this you can get sued for purgery or fined $5000 by the USDA and your State dept of Ag). you must keep records of where everything is planted, what inputs you used on every bed and harvest records.
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org has free on-line classes on how to grow organic and get certified.
http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop is the website for the 1500+ page regulation you have to follow in order to market your produce as organic
If there are any certified organic growers at your market talk to them and ask who their organic certifier is than contact that certifier to find out exactly what is required of you to call your produce you sell organic.
Is it worth growing organically? Absolutely. Is it worth getting certified organic, perhaps. By doing so you will learn how to manage your market garden organically. I thought I was growing organically until I went through certification and found out that I knew nothing that organic is about a lot more than simply avoiding synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. I found the education to be invaluable. It also did help me grow a customer base. I will say it is a lot of paper work, expect to do about 1/2 hour a day in record keeping. it also takes 3 years to transition to organic so even if you start today you will not be able to call your stuff organic until 2012.
My friends and I will be starting a garden very soon, we too want an organic garden. We found this website and found it informative on composting. Since our compost will be natural and not chemical, the garden will be growing organic vegetables. I believe it is worth growing organic vegetables, let’s face it with all the chemicals that are sprayed on the vegetables and not too mention that some chemicals cannot be washed out. It cannot be good for our health. Children are even developing sickness and allergies from foods.
Organic gardening is totally worth it. http://www.organicgardeningguru.com/