4 Good Reasons for Growing Organic Strawberries

Thinking of growing organic strawberries at home? A breakdown of all the poisons your strawberries are laced with before you get them to your plate. Planting strawberries is wise, and growing strawberries is dead easy! So why eat poisoned berries when you can eat garden fresh?

By the time your red, luscious and inviting strawberries get to your plate from your supermarket they have been dosed with so many poisonous chemicals that they are now heavily laced with toxic chemicals. So how safe is our food in general?

When you consider how easy it is to grow strawberries, even in containers, there really isn't a need to support these strawberry farms who do not grow their fruit organically. Here are 4 reasons for planting and growing organic strawberries.

So What Poisons are Sprayed on Non-Organically Grown Strawberries?

1) The first reason for growing organic strawberries is  that a lot of chemicals go into growing strawberries in mainstream farming. The first lot of chemicals are those that will be pumped into the soil to fumigate the soil against soil borne diseases that can sometimes attack strawberries.

Note I said, "sometimes". It really depends on where you are growing your strawberries and the variety being planted. Some strawberry varieties are more resistant to soil borne diseases than others.

So the soil is fumigated with1,3-dichloropropene (DCP) - still widely used in the USA despite its link to cancer, although being phased out in the European Union, plus chloropicrin (PS) - so toxic that it has been used in chemical warfare, metam sodium or metam potassium to just make sure that the strawberries don't get attacked sometime in the future. When you are growing organic strawberries you make sure that your soil is wholesome with well-rotten farmyard manure, blood and bone and slightly acidic. No organic strawberry farmer would dream about fumigating the soil.

So how bad are these poisons that are used to fumigate the soil in preparation of the strawberry beds? Well, so bad that farmers have to wait 3 months before they can replant a crop in this treated soil.

Not only that, but in some parts of the USA, particularly California they are spraying the soil with methyl idodide that is so highly toxic and carcinogenic that it is specifically used on lab rats to induce cancer cells.

By placing these dangerous chemicals in the soil, when the plants are watered the toxics then are drawn up through the root system and dispersed throughout the cells of the plant, including the fruit. Thus the poisons are now systemic rather than something that you could wash off before you eat it.

People often complain about being allergic to strawberries. However, one has to stop and think, is it a strawberry allergy or is it a reaction to the chemically laced strawberries that are being eaten. Should you feed these to your babies and kids?

2) The second reason for growing organic strawberries is that a few days after planting out the strawberry plants, they are then sprayed with more chemicals. This time they are sprayed to control cutworm or to control nematodes.

3) The third reason for growing organic strawberries is that every week after that the strawberry plants are routinely sprayed for any diseases that may affect the leaves or the fruit. They are also sprayed with chemical insecticides for insects that may attack the plants.

4) The fourth and last reason for growing organic strawberries is that once your chemically-treated berries have finally been picked they are further treated to a dipping in a fungicide to prevent the fruit from future spoiling before you get to put your dollop of cream on them.

When you see strawberry fields being sprayed by workers in hazmat suits you do have to wonder how it is that the FDA or other food bodies around the world allow this treatment of our food and deem it safe!

Still need to think about why you shouldn't be growing organic strawberries in your own backyards?

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