Local vs Organic

I've recently had a difficult decision to make regarding my dairy products: is local better than nationally certified organic? Royal Crest Dairy is a Colorado company that will deliver to my house weekly for a cheaper price than store bought organic. I was told that while not certified organic, they are rBGH- and antibiotic-free and raised to organic standards. They are also pasturized, versus ultra-pasturized, which helps with my mozarrella making! My big question was animal treatment, and I was told that they can't let the dairy cows graze all day because they will get stomach aches from weeds, but the woman in charge "takes them out and pets them three times a day". Haha! So i know from the Cornicopia study that Organic Valley milk I currently buy is pretty good in regards to animal treatment and is purchasing milk from local farmers, but there is no such study done on small, local farms (that I know of). Maybe I need to take a field trip up to the farms, but I think seeing milk production in action, organic or not, might be disturbing. For now, I will give Royal Crest a try and hope that they are as good as Organic Valley. If nothing else, they reuse their bottles and now I have a milk man!

Organic Part 2

Well mystery solved- Home Depot carries organic fertilizer (see previous post). Not that I bought it (too low of an NPK ratio - went for a 17-17-17er) . . .pass the fish.

Am I organic?

What is organic? I don't use any pesticides and I pull all my weeds by hand, but when I saw my pepper and basil leaves turning yellow, I reached for the Miracle Grow. Then it dawned on me - is this organic? It doesn't kill anything, but I would guess its petroleum-based. Perhaps organic gardening is a sliding scale like vegetarianism - am I the equivelant of a vegetarian that eats fish? Currently, I think the garden is lacking in nitrogen (and I will probably find it later lacking in phosphorus and potassium too!). My worm tea can't begin to fertilize that whole plot, so i'm going to investigate something like blood meal or fish emulsion. Then again, those are natural, but are they organic?? Chipotle may be doing better than me!