We are not entirely organic, as we do use herbicide very very occasionally to beat some 'inherited' weeds that cause huge problems in pockets of the gardens. If we were not both working full time as well as caring for our property and animals, we would opt for manual control rather than herbicide, but reality requires us to go this way so far.
I do not use chemical insecticides ever, and find that with a large collection of geckos to feed, I cannot usually find enough live food for them ,let alone need to kill any off.
With the gardens being quite large, I have found that creating piles of prunings, weeds etc at the back of beds has been a good way to deal with them. I find that the piles seem to disappear quite quickly.
However, this habit of mine will probably change after today :D We bought a chipper/shredder machine today, after me wanting one for many years, and I had a wonderful time this afternoon chipping and shredding and reducing branches and normally slow composting goodies into tiny chips that will recycle into garden gold in much less time.
I have heaps more to deal to tomorrow, so cant wait for daylight to get back to it. My poor worms will not have such a hard job ahead of them now.
I would love to hear from others who use them and hear your preferences on composting the chippings v. returning them to the garden as a coarse mulch.
Thanks for having me in your garden group
Cheers
Jan
8)