[lakelady]

I can see how hard it would be on a large scale to be composting, and growing organically for market. My little gardens are a few raised beds and it is a a lot of work. Just making compost is a full time job for me practically. I have access to tons of big oak leaves and still have a few piles in the yard that I never got around to shredding before winter. And it sure does take a lot of compost for those few raised beds. It is lovely however, to dig in those beds and see that beautiful black dirt which results from all the hard work.

Last summer I did take one bed of tomatoes and use an inorganic fertilizer and compared to the other plants. The inorganic was almost wiped out by those ugly army worms, but for some reason, they left the other two beds alone . While not an official study of any kind , it did have me wondering why the regular fertilized plants were so attractive to them.

I do like the fact that composting allows me to have such a great medium to plant in that I really don't have to worry about fertilizing much at all. A little seaweed and fish emulsion and I'm done.