NWPR Series Part 2: Addressing Listener Questions re. Gardening and Sustainability

This is the transcript of an interview that aired on NWPR the week of June 4th, 2008.

Intro (Gillian Coldsnow):

This is Gillian Coldsnow with "Our Organic Northwest" a series of conversations on-air and online about organic farming and organic home gardening. Today: a conversation about the importance of soil and soil amendments to organic gardening.

Today, correspondent Glenn Mosely and Project Manager of WSU's Organic Farm, Brad Jaeckel (JAY-k'l) address questions we recieved from listeners after last week's interview:

Story (2:47):

Mosley:
Brad, this is the second in our series and in response to our first discussion a week ago we had a question from a listener who called in and asked about growing vegetables in pots for a small, 2 person family and how best she could do that inside a house, in a green house...interested in lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, things like that.

Jaeckel:
That’s definitely doable on a small scale for folks that don’t have garden space outside and, I actually have a lot of my students that do container gardening and that’s something that you can do even on your porch, which is really handy.  Once the out-time temperatures are above freezing you can move plants in those containers outside. Tomatoes are real a common vegetable that’s grown in containers and they just need to be given enough space to grow throughout the season.  So up to a 5 gallon bucket would be a good size for the tomato.  But you can also grow lettuces, peppers... carrots I haven’t grown in containers, we've had a few people experiment with that this year but... really you could experiment with many different vegetables in containers and doing those indoors, and outdoors.

Mosley:
We also had another listener with a question concerned about the sustainability of organic agriculture.  What do you say to that?

Jaeckel:
Well it’s a big question.  When you talk about sustainability in any area you really want to address three main issues and that includes:
Is whatever your doing sustainable for the environment? 
Is it sustainable economically? 
And is it sustainable socially? 
So when we try to address the sustainability in organic Ag, those are really the three big areas that we're trying to look at, and largely organic Ag has been addressing environmental sustainability concerns.  But also, were concerned about farmers receiving fair wages for there work, and farmers do receive a premium for organic fruits and vegetables so, that’s good.  But also we need to be concerned about wages that laborers are receiving. And is that food staying in the community or is it being transported long distances?  Its really a complex issue, and I think its something you have to take case by case, but really try to address those three key topics when your looking at a certain issue is going to be important.  I think largely organic Ag is working toward being sustainable, but it is a big issue.

outro:

For more information on organic gardening, go to N-W-P-R dot org and click on "Our Northwest". Ask questions about gardening or any agriculture issue that interests you and we'll connect you with an expert. There are also links to resources such as the Master Gardening Program, a comprehensive resource founded here at WSU.