As if growing your own food wasn’t green enough, an increasing number of community garden clubs are adopting pesticide-free and organic growing methods.

Farmers and homeowners alike use pesticides to deter disease-causing pests like cockroaches, mosquitoes, microbes, and rodents. However, by their nature, pesticides pose risk to humans, animals, and the environment.

Recently, the garden club at Seabrook, a retirement community in Tinton Falls, N.J., reestablished its bi-laws to discourage gardeners from using pesticides. As an alternative, gardeners may use organic methods, such as insecticidal soap, garlic, mint, and other homemade remedies, among some store-bought ones.

“We ask members to maintain their garden and keep it weed-free using organic methods,” says Bea Gardella, garden club president at Seabrook.

A Master Gardener, Gardella also helped start the community gardens at the historic Crawford House in Tinton Falls. She volunteers at the Brookdale Community College greenhouse and uses Gardens Alive!, a line of environmentally responsible products with ingredients like bacteria and fungi that enrich soil naturally.

Growing trend

Nearby in Belmar, 22 family units manage the Magical Garden, a 750-square-foot space located on the corner of 15th and E Streets that began in 2000.

“We are completely organic,” says chair of the community garden Carol Davies, whose mother lives at Seabrook. “We start with organic seeds, use organic starting mix, and add organic fertilizer like fish meal. We mend our soil with manure, leaves, and compost to keep it in good shape.”

If bugs happen to infest plants, gardeners spray them with water, remove them by hand, or pull up and dispose of the infested plants.

Why organic or pesticide-free?

In many community gardens, space is connected—Seabrook has seventy 10-foot by 10-foot squares—which means chemicals used in one garden quickly travel to others and into the surrounding environment.

Like Seabrook gardeners, Belmar Magical Garden members chose to go organic because “we’re trying to be good stewards. All those chemicals go into our waterways. Belmar is close to the ocean and Lake Como, and we can see the effects,” Davies says, citing a recent fish kill due to a local resident dumping swimming pool water into Lake Como. “We are committed to doing things that have the least effect on our environment.”

In addition to protecting the environment, people who choose to minimize or eliminate pesticides may be protecting themselves.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, pesticides and herbicides can cause health problems, including nerve damage and cancer, over a long period of time.

Because these effects depend on how toxic the pesticide is and how much of it is consumed, federal and state governments assess and regulate pesticide toxicity and use to ensure they don’t pose “unreasonable risk” to humans, animals, and the environment. However, officials warn that pesticides should be your last defense against pests and to always use products as directed.

The National Pesticide Information Center (npic.orst.edu) provides “objective, science-based information about pesticides and pesticide-related topics to enable people to make informed decisions about pesticides and their use.”