I don’t mean literally Certified Organic. To do that you have to have your soil tested for years and jump through a bunch of hoops. But for years now I’ve prided myself on having a garden that is pesticide and treatment free. I deal with the bugs, use salt on snails, soap and water on aphids and pull weeds out by their roots. I use a hoe and mulch and compost but I don’t spray.
It’s not that I’m over-the-top about being organic. I buy regular fruits and veggies at the grocery store most of the time, not the more expensive organics. But it seems to me that in a garden the size of mine (a few hundred square feet at my house and a few hundred more at the ministry house), I should be able to handle things naturally.
Until now. I’ve spent the last few days in the garden after having missed for too long. The Morning Glory vines have taken over. They’ve killed several of my tomato plants and strangled 2 cucumber vines. Sadly, they don’t seem to strangle the crabgrass or the honeysuckle that are also taking over. But they are aggressively killing my vegetables, and for that I’ll declare war.
So I confess this to you: I sprayed. Not the vegetables (I carefully unwound the stupid wretched vines from each tomato cage and plant that wasn’t already dead), but I did spray a weed killer on the Morning Glory vines. I sprayed a killer that does not go into the dirt, it just goes onto the leaves of the evil plants to kill them. I was VERY careful near my other plants. But I did it. I went to the dark side. I’m sorry… sort of. I’m wondering whether I’ll have mixed feelings about it when I bite into a nice fresh Brandywine tomato… if any of those plants survived at all I think I’ll just be grateful.
What would you do?