I use organic methods for several reasons, one is for health reasons but the top reason is because I believe that is the way God would want me too. We are called to be stewards of his creation and take care of it and what better way than to use organic methods. I don't think God wants use to use methods that care for his creation. Why does everyone else use organic methods

I became organic bit by bit.

As a new homeowner back in the early 80s I read the entire label on a bottle of Malathion in preparation to spraying. Decided not to use it. Went to the store to find another product and read the entire label on a bottle of Diazinon. Decided the bugs weren't that bad.

When I made my beds in hard clay, I dug down about two feet and mixed tons of steer manure with the dirt and filled my trenches with the mixture. Had never heard of double digging at the time, just seemed like a reasonable thing to do since it took a pick and a lot of sweat to dig.

Still used Miracle Grow as I had also not yet heard of organic gardening.

I found Organic Gardening magazine and at about the same timeframe a Ruth Stout book at a used book store.

I still would not consider myself 100% organic since I do keep Round-Up on hand to deal with stray poison oak in my "yards" (no grass - clover).

Hi Meshelle! Welcome to another Oregonian. Hope you enjoy our little place here. I grow organically because the alternatives are really bad. We love great fruit and veggies and you can only get them one way, organically. Easy decision really.

Hi David, and thanks for the welcome. I've actually been here (OG) a few years but still consider myself a newcomer to Oregon even though I have been here since Sept. 1999.

I keep thinking I have a handle on the new climate and getting a feel for gardening here and then I get thrown something new. I expected the deer to be my problem, but although they are all over the property they do not come near the house. Or the slugs and snails I heard about - not an issue - so far.

Didn't expect some of the diseases I have encountered - black spot, mildew, etc. - that were nonexistent in my SoCal garden. I'm not into babying plants so I have ruthlessly ripped out plants and tried/trying new things to see what wants to flourish and stay healthy on its own. At least it's introducing me to new plants that I am enjoying that I may never have discovered without the problems.

I am just now trying to gain my bearings again after I was invaded by voles which did a lot of damage. I didn't realize what was going on at first allowing populations to explode as mulch was hiding a lot of the evidence and I did not have voles in SoCal to realize early what was happening. I didn't even try to plant anything new last year, including tomatoes, etc. I just felt so deflated losing so much after so much hard work. They even decimated my asparagus bed. After trying traps unsuccessfully I have learned to tolerate cats. Hopefully I can eventually learn to like the cats as much as I have learned to like snakes, but it's a struggle.

I also have a few beds that weren't touched by the voles and the plants in those beds are not in the rest that were attacked. I plan to try to incorporate some of the plants in the untouched beds into the others to see if maybe those plants are repelling the voles even though through research I have not seen anything indicating they do. But, it's worth a shot.

With this cold spring we've had I just got the tomatoes and peppers in a week ago. This year the cats and I are going to figure out how to keep them from doing their business in the food sections and stay to the ornamental beds. They hadn't gotten into the strawberry beds until I cleaned them up and put in fresh mulch. The cats seem to love bark fines.

I use organic methods (or try to to the best of my abilities) for a couple of reasons. I care about what is going into my body and my surroundings - what ever is harmful to either thing, I don't use. This, however, is a hard task to do because I still live with my parents, and my mom is especially attached to her ways.

As for gardening, I don't use chemicals in my container gardening. Use any compost that I can get my hands on, and what not.

I just like to keep strange chemicals in my body to a minimum. Plus I'm a cheapskate; I'd rather use my own compost than buy fertilizer.

A lot of interesting comments.

Meshelle.. welcome to the cat world. I had to convince my Granny that cats would kill far more mice and moles than they would birds. She hated the cats because they would catch a songbird from her feeder once in a blue moon.

BUt after our mole experience one year, she broke over. This place and my neighbors was riddled with moles the first year or 2 I lived here. My neighbor hated cats, but after about the 3rd year I was here and the mole population was gone.. He hasn't said a word about the cats since and that was in about 1990-91!

I got in to organics when as a pre-teen.. I had experienced enough of the chemicals that filled our lives back in the 70's. My Dad worked in Chemical plants and his clothes and skin were hard to tolerate when he ate breakfast(he worked MN a lot) before showering after he came home.

We gardened and almost everyone else in my family farmed and the chemicals smelled awful, made skin and eyes burn. At this point I decided that we shouldn't go against Nature.
I have always been a nature lover. So that when I started learning from Granny.

I resolved around age 12 to not do anything against nature. Mother Nature rewarded me with some wonderful insight and a nice biological clock! So I have been sticking to nature as much as I can ever since. I really got into herbs in 1977 and have been that way ever since.

My insight about birth control pills and hormone replacement therapy have mostly been realized. I have lost a lot of relatives to cancer. They were the ones that used so many chemicals on Tobacco, corn, fruit trees, grapes.
All those Fungicides, pesticides, herbacides..
So in my experience.. Organic is the only way. Mother Nature had a plan, and we should stick with that plan.