Much has happened since my column and radio show started back in 1989. At that time, few retail stores had any organic products and no stores carried complete lines of natural organic products. Now many garden centers and farm stores have all the products I talk about and many of the garden centers are totally organic (I’m still looking for that first totally organic farm store). If anything, the marketplace is now starting to get crowded with products. Many companies, even several of the chemical companies, have made recent attempts to get on the organic bandwagon. It’s great that the industry is coming our way, but it is time to be careful about products you can purchase.

With all the products to choose from, people are beginning to get a little confused over which products to buy. My advice is to stay with those companies who have supported us in the marketplace and be careful about the newcomers that are just trying to take advantage of the investment and hard work others have done. Be particularly suspicious of those products with mysterious or unknown ingredients. If you are like me, you want to know what you are buying, and you want the cleanest and most effective products available. Manufacturers of quality products aren’t ashamed of their ingredients; in fact, they want to brag about them and do so on the labels.

We hope that you will purchase the products from the companies that advertise on the Natural Way radio show, in the DIRT and on our web site. Your support of these companies will help us all toward our goal of converting the world to organics.

Speaking of the DIRT publication, we have some news. I have talked about this on the radio several times, but if you missed it, here it is. The DIRT has returned to a newsletter format and will be printed and sent out to those members without computer capabilities. The simplified format and reduction in large photos will make the publication download much faster and leave more room for the wonderful information and articles. One of the reasons for this change is that our web site has an expanding inventory of photographs, videos and resources.

The DIRT will be sent out to those requesting the service. Members with computers will be able to read, download and print the publication as soon as it arrives electronically. The reason for this added service is that a small percentage of members could not access the electronic version. Printing and mailing copies to members who truly need the help will be done immediately. We ask that most members continue to access and print their own copies. This will save paper, printing and mailing costs allowing us to keep the quality as high as possible at the lowest cost. Plus, we won’t be turning anyone away.

Thanks as always for your great support and Happy New Year!