Green Blog

More than ever before, people are paying attention to what they eat. Years ago, few people knew the words organic, natural, free range or hormone free in respect to food. They just did not give it a second thought. Now, however, people are taking these words to the store and coming home with different products. In addition, people now want to find these words when they dine out. For reasons of both budget and availability, it is important for the consumer to note that all organic foods are not equal in overall benefit.

According to the U.S.D.A, in order for any food to be labeled as “USDA organic” certain standards must be met. These standards are usually related to the growing, production or manufacturing process involved. A true organic food may have no ingredients that are synthetic such as pesticides or residue of fertilizers. At least 95% of what goes into an organic food must also be organic. Animals from which products are derived must never have been given growth hormones or antibiotics. If a food is labeled “Made with Organic Ingredients”, only 70% of the ingredients must be organic.

The quality of food grown at local farms is likely to be higher than that of food that has been grown thousands of miles away and thus handled more before it reaches the local markets. Shipping from long distances raises the chances of the food losing some of its best organic benefits in transit. Nutritionists are big proponents of buying organic in order to avoid the high pesticide levels in products that are grown or produced commercially.

Fruits grown commercially that have been shown to contain the higher amounts of pesticides are cherries, imported grapes, pears, strawberries and raspberries, apples, and peaches. Celery, potatoes, spinach, bell peppers, and hot peppers are vegetables that, when not grown organically, contain high pesticide levels. With this in mind, the smart decision would be to buy the organically grown versions of these products, despite the higher price.

The fruits found to contain the lowest levels of pesticides are pineapples, plantains, mangoes, bananas, watermelon, plums and kiwis. The vegetables found to contain the lowest levels of pesticides are cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, radishes, broccoli and onions. If on a tight budget, these foods provide a safer alternative when purchasing commercially produced products. Consumers should note that this is not the final word on the above products, but more a matter of the degrees of risk with these products versus those with higher pesticide levels.

It is easy to find tips online or elsewhere when looking for the best products in cookware or kitchen gadgets. Shopping for organic food usually requires a little more thought. The decision as to what organic foods to buy is a personal one based on individual tastes and budget. But the smart shopper should make a point of finding out what things have an effect on the quality of an organic product and what organic foods provide the best benefits. A choice to switch to organic should always be based on the facts.

Stan Dyer is a freelance writer and photographer based in Colorado. To have organic food and products delivered to your doorstep, visit http://www.OrganicFoodeStore.com.

Back in the time before the invention of tractors, growing a crop was seriously hard work. Tremendous amounts of laborers and farm animals were needed to maintain a field or garden. Fast forward to today! Farm implements combined with a tractors 3 point hitch will allow you to produce the same results while cutting the cost of manpower. In the age of the Internet, you can research, watch demos, and even order these attachments directly online and have them delivered without getting out of your chair.

Today, most tractors provide a 3 point hitch system coupled with a PTO hook up to make short work of even the most difficult farming and gardening tasks. This allows you to connect plows, post hole diggers cultivators, disc harrows, tillers, fertilizer spreaders, and planters just to name a few, but let’s not jump ahead. Some farming implements are going to be powered by the PTO of the tractor, while other are just connected and pulled behind the tractor. If you have a tractor with a front end loader then you will also be able to connect a multitude of other attachments to the front of your tractor.

The other way to get more from your tractor is to have a front end loader. Utilizing your tractors hydraulics to power a universal quick attach grapple bucket attachment that connects to the loader arms is beneficial. Although these are not normally used for gardening, it is worth mentioning because if you purchase a tractor most people want to get as much use out of them as possible.

As a rule of thumb, there are certain tractor implements that should be considered as standard equipment when using your tractor for producing a garden. Farm Plows are one on these must have attachments. A plow will make is easy to flip over the topsoil to create a good environment for your crops to grow in abundance. Plowing your garden is one step that cannot be skipped, and there are many different garden plows to fit any size tractor.

After you have plowed your garden, you will need to break up the soil until it is suitable for planting. You can accomplish this by using either a disc harrow, or a pto tractor tiller. The disc harrow is simply connected to the 3 point hitch and ran over the plowed area until the larger pieces of dirt are broken up and the soil is workable with your hands. Some gardeners who use a disc harrow prefer to leave some small clods to help keep the ground from washing away in heavy rains.

Using a rototiller instead of a disc harrow is sure to save you time when getting your fields ready to plant. You can adjust the rear gate open or closed to fine tune to coarseness of your gardens soil. If you set it open, then you will have larger pieces of dirt that will not be broken up. If you close the rear gate, the tiller literally chops up the ground, then busts the remaining clods against the gate producing very loose soil for planting. One pass with a tractor tiller over your garden and you are ready for the next step in creating a beautiful garden your plants will love.

Using a garden bedder to create a raised mound of soil for you to plant in is very important to this process. Taking the time to adjust your bedder properly will help your seed to have the right environment to flourish in, and will also make planting your seed a whole lot easier. If you get it just right, you can almost eliminate the need for a furrowing attachment depending on what you are planting. It is great to use a bedder with “tire sweeps” on the outside to pull up the compacted ground from you running over it with your tractor.

Using a 3 point hitch cultivator is key to keeping unwanted weeds from destroying an otherwise healthy crop. Morning glories and a host of other weeds will literally ruin a garden in the early stages if you cannot keep them in check. Everything Attachments offers a cultivator that with the right options can be used as a bedder, a furrowing attachement to put a furrow in your rows, and then be used as a cultivator. Having three gardening tools in one in this instance is not a bad thing as it does all three exceptionally well.

Before you drive down to your local Tractor Implements store, if you are looking for American Made Attachments for your tractor . . . try the Everything Attachments website