Organic gardener turns blogger

By Laura Ybarra : Organic Gardening News tries to spread the word about organic agriculture on a home scale, according to the blog’s creator, Scott Supak.

The blog, started by Supak in 2002, features the latest organic gardening news and views about organic gardens, farming and sustainable agriculture.

The blog appeals to "organic gardeners and hippies," Supak said.

Supak posts "anything that has to do with organic gardening or agriculture, especially if it’s something that makes me want to draw attention to it," he said in an e-mail. He added that he'll also post news items if they're "really cool, like someone doing something that's very helpful to the environment through organic farming or ranching."

Supak uses various news wires and Pesticide Action Network North America to find news items.

The posts on Organic Gardening News range from a Maine restaurant that serves mostly organic food to a site that sells pesticide-free flowers.

Supak, who has had an organic garden for over 20 years, first became interested in organic gardening as a child. He remembered an incident in which his step-father used pesticides to kill aphids and tomato horn worms that were pestering his tomato plants.

The young Supak noticed a "bunch of dead ladybugs" and began doing research and learned that ladybugs eat aphids. He also learned that the pesticide his step-father used killed parasitic wasps that lay eggs on horn worms and eventually eat the worm.

"I found a book in the library about beneficial insects, and it mentioned organic agriculture. I’ve been into it ever since," he wrote.

Today, he has an organic flower garden with roses and "thousands of bulb flowers" in the Los Angeles suburbs.

In the future, Supak wrote, he hopes to add flavor to Organic Gardening News by convincing organic gardener Mort Mather to begin posting his articles on the site.

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