Gardening Methods

Can a garden be organic if lawn chemicals were previously used?

I’d like to have a vegetable/flower garden in our yard but currently don’t think I want square foot gardening. (I may raise the soil below the plants, however, and will probably not use a traditional layout plan, as I’d like to be a bit more artistic.) We had crabgrass preventer and a weed/fertilizer treatment put on once or twice last year and have generally not used it more than once or twice yearly in previous years. Can our garden ever really be organic if those substances are in the soil?
Including a link to your source of information and/or explaining your expertise/background when answering will be very helpful. Thanks!

If you were to try and get your garden certified organic you would have to quit using the lawn chemicals for 3 years (as well as any other banned substances along with a soil building plan, a 4+ year crop rotation plan and many other requirements-see it all at http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop) and than your garden would be eligible for organic certification.

But since you are a home gardener not going for organic certification organic can be what ever you want it to be. If you really want to be organic I suggest you read up on what organic gardening is really about and what it does for your soils, plants and local environment. http://www.rodaleinstitute.org http://www.localharvest.org http://www.organicconsumers.org all have a lot of information about what makes a garden or farm organic

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