Growing Vegetables the old fashioned way

We can learn so much from our ancestors about growing food.  A century ago, people didn’t have to worry about GMO food. They didn’t have harmful pesticides in the produce they ate.  Homeowners used chicken manure and cow manure to fertilize their crops. They probably had chickens, horses and cows on their homestead. Therefore, manure was readily available to them. Adding manure to the soil was their way of recycling nutrients.

 People dealt with weeds by frequently hoeing the garden. Since the garden size usually supported only one family, weeding was manageable.   Frequent weeding saved them many hours of hard work when they destroyed weeds before they reproduced.

Pioneers had many ideas about how to deal with pests.  Some ideas worked well. For example, they got rid of aphids by coating  leaves with watery soap. Although other ideas were only partially successful, at least they  didn’t endanger the food people ate.

They grew different plants next to each other. Insects were lest likely to attack a plant if it was next to one they didn’t like.  The same idea worked with animals.  Rabbits wouldn’t enjoy eating carrots that were surrounded by onions, which they don’t like at all.  The same thing goes for putting marigolds around carrots.  Deer and rabbits avoid carrots when they encounter the strong smell of marigolds.

Perhaps we should go back to using some of these simple ways. No Roundup, no harsh chemicals. These ideas worked quite well for our ancestors. Why wouldn’t they work for us today?  We may want to go back to some of these tried and true ways that don’t harm the environment.  Can you pass on any successful methods to your family?