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Pasta and the Organic Garden

© Deborah Turton

Organic gardening is like making a pasta dish. You could go buy pasta in a box and sauce out of a bottle, but it wouldn't be as delicious as homemade pasta topped with your own perfect sauce. Likewise, you could start your garden with fertilizer from a bag and top it off with synthetic pesticides from a bottle. However, your garden wouldn't be as healthy or safe as an organic garden, and your vegetables wouldn't be as delicious as organic vegetables. For an organic garden, you should avoid buying your ingredients from boxes and bags. You should start off with healthy organic soil and top it off with plants protected from pest and disease by organic methods.

The Pasta A great pasta dish starts with great pasta, and a great organic garden starts with great, organic soil. Fresh homemade pasta cooked al dente is much better than dried, bagged pasta cooked to mush. Organic soil and fertilizers are much better than overprocessed soil and fertilizers from a bag. Your garden will be healthier and happier if you start with good compost and organic amendments, such as cover crops, to make a healthy, living soil for your garden. Your fresh pasta is moist and rich tasting. To your plants, your organic soil filled with earthworms, bugs, bacteria, and nutrients is moist and rich tasting. Plants grown in organic soil are healthier, and, I would say, produce better fruit, vegetables, and flowers.

The Sauce Now, to top off that pasta, you'll need a sauce filled with a variety of flavors - several types of tomatoes, green peppers, a variety of herbs, some onion and garlic, a few pork neck bones, and a touch of Parmesan cheese. Your garden should be the same way. On top of your soil you should have a variety of plants amid a variety of habitats and food sources for beneficial creatures.

One type of variety in your pasta sauce might be the different types of tomatoes you use. By experimenting with different tomatoes and flavors in the sauce, you'll create a sauce that just suits your tastes. In your garden you should grow different varieties of the same vegetable, so you can find one that just suits your location. When you garden organically, it's better to find a variety that suits your location than to try and grow an ill-suited variety. Well-suited varieties are generally more disease and pest resistant and grow well in your climate. This means you'll use less effort and need fewer disease and pest controls.

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