For your own use? See the organic land care standards (a big pdf file) from the Society of Organic Urban Land Care Professionals (SOUL) (www.organiclandcare.org) based in Victoria, British Columbia. In the back is a long long list of acceptable, restricted, and unacceptable items for specified uses. This list says animal urine is acceptable but must be composted.

For a product you want to sell? I've lost track of who the certifying organization is, but you can goodle "certified organic" to find resources.

Horse and cow urine are great, especially in the form of urine-soaked straw bedding. But, as said above, it should be composted, because it is very "hot" when raw. Personally, I would insist on organically raised horses and cows for fear of adding hormones and anti-biotics to the soil where I grow food -- but many are not so fastidious. Regards, Peter.

The only "standards" are those for commercial growers because too many people used sly tricks to attempt to confuse the average consumer as to what the term "organic" really meant.What you grow in your own yard for your own consumption is not covered by any "standards", just common sense.

I guess what I am asking is this:

"If I want to have a truly 'organic' garden, then where can I find guidlines/rules within which to stay?"

I have a pretty good idea of what the "rules" are but wanted to read more info and get deeper background.

The link that was provided in an earlier post is for Canadian standards. I am sure that US standards are different.

I use common sense already but would like to read and learn more in an effort to educate myself.

I think the consumers of 'Organically Certified' food are suffering from misconcepts. In the U.S. every crop has it's own growers association, which regulates the use of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicide. Often however these guidelines make no sense.

For example on a large scale fruit crops are susceptible to fungi problems. There are biotek style control methods, but these are just control methods. Large growers use copper hydroxide products. Therefore the soil in an orchard will have higher concentration of copper. If there is anything that isn't healthy for soil micro-organisms, and should be a concern of the organic movement, it would be spraying copper for 25 years. It's something that growers would probably not be able to stay in business without, so the line is stretched.

In addition, at sometime of the year a grower can ammend the soil with sulfur, but can not apply the sulfur as a remody for mites. Sometimes it just doesn't make any sense.

I think these association have gone from ensuring good sources of food to controlling production.

I would refrain from consuming vegetables grown in sludge or animal waste which hasn't been properly digested or composted. It's just not safe, to use fesh, green manure. Letting it sit for a year would be a better rule.

And that is how you will learn what the "rules" are. I have been gardening organically for over 50 years and how I learned was trial and error and study. Listening to those that went before me, trying what they talked about, and adopting those thuings that worked well for me. In the last 10 years there has been an abundance of research done about organic gardening, not just what was usual in the past "that won't work, which half of the world do you want to starve" philosphy I saw back when I started. Search, read, study, think about does what this person say sound logical or is it something off the deep end, from nowhere, and use that which you find works for you.

In the big bad world of organic standards, the typical pattern of corporate colonization is happening. The organizations that set the standards (about what pest controls and soil additives are allowed) were run by people who were also growers-- small scale, conscionable, concerned for the health of the soil and the food. Now the big organic players are buying up the smaller producers, and they are starting to throw their weight around in the standards area. The big guys, of course, want to dilute the standards, and they have deep pockets to buy the congressmen who make the USDA laws.

It's a fascinating story that you can read about here:

Organic Farmers Fight National Organic Standards

For the non-commercial grower and home gardener, the question is, as Kimmsr so nicely describes, what do I accept in my garden based on my own values and knowledge about soil and ecosystem health? There is no single authority out there to tell us what is right and wrong. All inputs and cultural practices exist on a continuum from downright horrible to accepted without question.

For example, should we use mineral soil amendments (such as rock phosphate, greensand, carbonatite, etc.) if the minerals have to be trucked thousands of miles across the country? What role do petro-miles play in determining whether a product is environmentally friendly?

Another example: coir. Coir is used as an alternative to peat, to aid with moisture retention and aeration in soil and growing media. It is a renewable resource (unlike peat moss) but coconut does not grow in North America. It has to be transported from Southern Asia. How environmentally sound it this practice?

And corn gluten for weed control. It is pretty much impossible to buy non-GMO corn gluten on this continent. So, if I advocate the use of gluten as an alternative to 2-4D, am I promoting GM?

And bone/blood meal. I'm pretty sure that no certifying body accepts bone meal or blood meal. Yet these products can be obtained locally and, sometimes you can get ground bones from organic meat processors. They do no harm to the soil, and they recycle resources that would otherwise go to the landfill.

You see what I'm getting at. We need to learn about what is generally accepted by most certifying organizations, and then we need to make our own decisions based on our own research and values.

Thankfully, in the future, we will not be having this debate. All agriculture will be non-chemical. Most conventional fertilizers and pesticides are either made from oil products, or made in factories powered by oil products, and they rely on massive oil-powered transportation networks to get them from the third-world to us. As oil and gas become more scarce and more expensive, and the carbon age comes to an end, there will be very little chemical fertilizers available.

So whether we like it or not, organic localism is coming to agriculture. We won't have the luxury of choice among inputs to our farms and gardens. We'll use rotations, green manures, animal and plant compost, cultural practices, trap crops, and lots of manual labour.

there are alot of us out her who are very stringent about what we grow and how we grow it, some are tighter and some are looser,, If I choose veg compost, thats my decision,,, but the whole term of organics has become sooo vaporas and free floating that it has introduced a plethora of unacceptible yet approved practices and applications where one is left to follow they're own heart, because we know they are really wrong... I feel that gardening should be done by region and you should not expect your soil to do things it isn't capable of doing under the circumstances.. I got a real eye-opener several years ago when I decided to research organic gardening, (of course I went to California's organic guildlines) and found that they have applications for pest, fungal, viral, and bacterial issues that I wouldn't let on the property let alone put it on my plants or soil... don't be confused,, "organic" doesn't mean pesticide, or herbicide free, it just means that the junk they used is approved by the usda,,gulp! darlene

Google "IDALS" . This is the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. This is the organization that regulates Iowa's National Organic Program. Why do I say "Iowa" National Organic Program. Its because the federal National Organic Program standards are a baseline for organic food production. Individual states can have organic regulations that are more strict than federal.
Iowa's organic standards seem fairly reasonable, however some of the "special exemptions" seem questionable.
As a side note, there is a legitimate concern that federal organic standards will become watered down when very large corporations start (it has been happening for a while now) buying up smaller, more local organic food producers/proccessors. These companies may wish to save costs by making organic production easier/cheaper and may wish to influence change upon the standards to acheive this goal. It's speculation though. On the other hand, maybe its a good sign that very large companies wish to invest in organic...could lead to more sustainable ag practices in general. The national organic standards haven't changed YET.

Windfarm, I think you're right when you say that the big players are simply trying to lower costs by influencing the standards. For corporate agriculture, whether organic or not, its all about money.

I'm pretty cynical about the outcome on this. I think the standards will be diluted, and the good organic growers who started it all will have to start from scratch.

For man of us there is no need for a set of "rules" for growing out own produce, we learn what organic is over time and build up our soil so we can grow strong and healthy plants and food. Where the problme comes in and where we need standards is when "organic" food is shipped from California to Maine, how would the consumer in Maine know whether that food was really grown according to some standards. That is the only need for National Organic Standards and we need to beat up our congressmen constantly to keep those standards because they do not represent your best interests, they represent the interests that will get them reelected.

good gardening,
If you want to know the rules with specifics, ask any certifying agency (I'm near NY, so use NOFA-NY Certifying Agency as my resource) for their package ($30 in NY) to get the list of approved generic products, plus brand name products. You'll also get other information from most of them that more clearly describe what is expected. I recently went to an orientation given by the NOFA-NY Certifying agency (separate from the educational NOFA-NY) and learned a lot about various aspects of becoming certified. They offer the orientation so that those who seek certification will be better informed about the paperwork and the steps to certification. In fact, they find that those who want to become certified have much less trouble if they've attended the orientation to the point where they give a $25 discount coupon toward the certification fee because the application is more apt to be complete and not require so much work and delays than from someone who has not gone to the orientation. Also, in many states, the Dept. of Ag or Dept. of Markets will give a reimbursement for certification fees. In NY and PA, for example I'd be in the lowest organic income category and the fee is $525, and after re-imbursement, my fee would be something like $135 which isn't nearly as hard to swallow. Yet, I decided not to certify this year. Ann

I thought this site might be helpful to you. Here it is...http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/indexIE.htm
Have a great day:)

windfarm said: "Its because the federal National Organic Program standards are a baseline for organic food production. Individual states can have organic regulations that are more strict than federal." Actually, there is only one organic standard for the US and for importers of organic products into the US and that is the National Organic Program (NOP) standard, which has its oversight from the USDA. The Iowa State organization you name is a accredited NOP organic certification agency (one of three in Iowa) and must follow the NOP guidelines as it certifies organic processors and growers. There is some latitude for decisions, and some agencies lean a little more heavily on some aspects of organic processes and others lean on other things they think are important, but there is really very little latitude in decision-making.

good gardening1: in addition to the education of experience, you can use the OMRI site to check if any products you would like to use in your garden would likely be acceptable in the NOP. Its not an official NOP site, but it is generally assumed within the organic growing and processing world, that if OMRI has tested a product and finds it acceptable for use in organics, it is OK under the USDA's NOP program.

You can also check out the NOP The National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances at http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/NOP/standards/ListReg.html
It may be more than you want, but it should serve as a reference.

I find that ATTRA at http://www.attra.org/ is an excellent site for organic information. It is geared toward farming practice, but can still serve the home gardener.

Here is a link that might be useful: OMRI