Original Down East

There is no such thing as an organic weedkiller, and whatever may be claimed about the safety of chemical weedkillers, there is always danger in their use. If there wasn't, there would be no need for the elaborate testing and strict controls enforced by governments. Chemical manufacturers have, however, tried to persuade us that we must follow the commercial grower in soaking our plants and our soil with poisons when there are very few advantages and many dangers in doing so. The commercial grower's problem is just not the same as ours, and there is no doubt that prolonged use of chemicals has a very damaging effect on soil organisms. It may seem attractive to use a chemical to kill everything in a new garden so that you can start clean and stay on top of the weeds. It is certainly an easier way out, but it is done at the risk of killing the beneficial inhabitants of the soil and even harming yourself. At a horticultural research station in England a few years ago, during a quite unconnected experiment on soils, it was noticed that in the soil on land that had been regularly treated with a paraquat/diquat mixture