Beyond Organics

Beyond Organics: Gardening for the future
By Helen Cushing
Published by ABC Books
ISBN 0 73333 1575 5

This book is something every gardener should read.

It’s disturbing, inspirational, instructive, persuasive. It’s a clarion call for all who love the earth and love to garden.

It is not a how-to book — you can look for the appropriate how-to publications later.

Peter Cundall, one of the founders in Tasmania of the organics movement, wrote the foreword and also spoke at the launch in Hobart of Helen Cushing’s remarkable book. As he said at the time, echoing one of main themes of Helen’s text:

‘We know the organic garden is without poisons, without chemicals, but we think of our own organic gardens in isolation. We may be sensitive gardeners, but we have been kidding ourselves.’

To precis Helen: All the things we do in our gardens — digging the topsoil, adding fertiliser, organic or otherwise, every drop of water, every time we kill an insect, everything we plant — affects more than our little patch on earth.

The results of our actions take no notice of fences, are blown by the wind, percolate through the soil and into the waterways. Beyond Organics takes us to the next step, so that by ‘understanding and noticing the interactions that occur between your garden and the world outside the fence you can create a garden that welcomes nature and sustains the biosphere’.

Helen’s writing is a mix of the literary plus intimacy, plus the occasional everyday idiomatic expression that keeps the book’s feet firmly on the ground. In other words, a great read.

Or, as Peter Cundall says, ‘bloody extraordinary’.

Patsy Hollis

1. Your site is realy very interesting.

   Posted by Sofia  on  17/09/2005  at  03:22 AM

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