Many times more nutrition and many times the taste, for far less than you pay at the grocery store. Such motivations are bringing hundreds of visitors per day to Lee O’Hara’s Organic Home Gardener website and causing thousands of his DVDs to be snapped up even in these troubled economic times—or, more likely, it is partially because of them: “more for your money” is part of the magic formula, after all.
“Organic gardening is fast, it’s easy, and it’s cheap,” O’Hara said. “You’re actually getting the vitamins and nutrients from produce—not to mention the taste—that you’re supposed to, and you’re not poisoning yourself, the plants, the ground or the water.”
There are larger ramifications as well. “Somewhere between 20 and 50 percent of our oil consumption is used for food production,” explained O’Hara. “If just five million people grew their own lettuce, for example, how many trucks would that take off the road? Can you imagine how much we’d save as a country? In the U.S. today, food grown at home comprises 1 percent of consumed produce. In Havana, Cuba, they grow 80 percent of their food right within the city limits. If they can do that, why can’t we?”
O’Hara’s career as a “gardening guru” began when visitors to his home—who always left loaded down with his produce, as he and his wife could not possibly consume it all—began insisting that he write up his methods for others to use. “People were going crazy when they came over,” O’Hara told us, laughing. “They were asking me, ‘Where did you get these? The taste is incredible!’ So nine years ago, I got the idea to put the very simplest basics of what I do on video. My motivation was to show people how easy it is to do this. It really isn’t rocket science. There seem to be thousands of organic gardening books out there that nobody appears to be reading, so I decided to provide straightforward, practical advice.” It certainly seems to be working. Originally on VHS, his videos, Organic Gardening Made Easy and The Organic Tomato, are now available on DVD—and they continue to sell, year after year.
Part of the reason for the superior nutrition and taste of produce grown with O’Hara’s methods is the treatment of the soil.“Minerals have been depleted from the soil, and so modern farming uses chemicals to ward off pests and make it possible for crops to grow,” he said. “When you buy average produce from the grocery store, not only is it sorely lacking in nutrition, you have no idea what chemicals have been used in the soil and for pesticides.” O’Hara’s methods include treating the soil with minerals from kelp meal, which carries over 70 trace minerals, and fish meal. He also recommends ground rock dust.
The other reason to “grow your own” is that fruits and vegetables begin losing nutritional value the moment they’re picked. Produce bought in a grocery store has been off the vine minimally for three or four days and in many cases is two weeks old. Food from your own garden can literally go straight from the stalk to your table. “There’s a huge difference in flavor between food from the market, or even a restaurant, and food that is just picked,” O’Hara remarked.
Growing produce in this fashion also makes it far more resistant to pests and nearly eliminates the need for any pesticide. O’Hara uses very little—and what he does use is completely natural and totally harmless to humans.
If you’ve ever been curious about creating your own organic garden, O’Hara has some advice for you: “Just do it! I’d love to show you how.” For everything you’ll need, visit his website at www.organichomegardener.com.
