In May this year Mark Bennett came to the (former) Post Office in Seaforth to talk about Orgonite, a ‘wonder-resin’ that, it is claimed, when placed in the ground with plants and vegetables can radically increase growth. Liverpool Biennial quizzed Mark about his experimental gardening campaign which forms a part of our Urbanism 09 project.

 

Can you tell us what Orgonite actually is?

Its made up of three basic off the shelf elements - resin, metal shavings and pieces of crystal. There isn't much too it actually and anyone can make Orgonite.

How does it work?

A tricky question as no one knows for sure. There's several theories out there - one of which is that it effects the surrounding 'noisy' electromagnetic spectrum and evens its out so that its beneficial to plants. Sort of like trying to study when your neigbour is playing thrash metal vs a calming Mozart.

How did you get involved with this gardening experiment?

A crate of Orgonite arrived unannounced on my doorstep from a friend. After I Googled it and read up on the various bizarre claims I decided to test the claims that it could improve plant growth and start with basic seed germination tests. I put the orgonite in with one lot of seeds and left the rest without, the ones with Orgonite grew to three times the size of the others!

 

I distributed them to several local friends last year and incredible results came in with lots finding a significant increase in plant growth. This year I wanted real proof and so started the Orgonite trial across England to see if the good results we’ve had using Orgonite were by chance.

You recruited gardeners from Seaforth in May, what do you expect to see happening there?

I don’t ‘expect’ anything,  I am as curious as anyone else to see what happens. It is an experiment. I do hope that the gardeners who are actually putting them in the gound will have a bumper crop and have so many vegetables that they have to share with neighbours or start a roadside vegetable stand. As I said, it’s a hope

Who else is taking part in this experiment?

We are probably up to about 100 or so people in the Brighton area from priests to BBC morning DJs. Others are scattered around the whole of the UK and we also have people taking part in the experiment in New York and San Fransisco.

Are you coming back to see what happens?

Yes on Saturday September 4th, 6pm at St Winny’s. We are inviting anyone who has found any results after using Orgonite to come and share their results. I hope we’ll have some great stories.