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[Bill Jones <billj AT harborside.com>]

Certainly I've seen some great BD gardens.  But the two families I know 
locally have free sources of animal manure, which they incorporate into 
their compost, which they use as copiously as you or I.  Curiously 
neither grows much corn, but they all love winter brassicas, so they use 
a lot of compost on those.

I suggesting that the otherwise sound organic practices they follow 
would still work even if they left out the magical powdered crystals and 
the homeopathic quantities of fermented valerian juice and other queer 
concoctions,

Melody, I think I remember that you're in Utah?  In dry places a whole 
different dynamic holds.  You probably won't ever need lime, except 
maybe as a nutrient, and salt buildup is usually the biggest problem in 
a garden.  I have the same thing in my greenhouse, where it never 
rains.  My nephew grows lettuce in SW AZ, where he has to apply sulfur 
to lower the pH instead of lime.  Unfortunately gardening organically 
can only help this problem to a point, because inevitably if you keep 
evaporating the solids out of water that's applied to the garden, a 
residue will build up.  The best recommendation that one could follow 
may be to garden very intensively in raised beds, so that you can 
thoroughly rinse the salts out yearly (maybe pile snow in and let it 
thaw), and even then you may have a ring of salt buildup around the base 
of the bed.

Today my 3 new calves are out for a walk.

Bill

Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:

> In a message dated 3/4/2005 6:36:41 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
> billj AT harborside.com writes:
>
>
>  
>
> > I've been involved with BD people for many years.  It's really more a 
> > religion than a science.  The first hint is that you have to believe in 
> > the preparations for them to work for you.  When you suggest a 
> > scientific explanation, you're treated with amusement and distrust, and 
> > reminded that it's really the astrological forces and the 
> > transdimensional beings who create the phosphorus for your garden.
> >
> >    
>
> Bill, I think what you have to day about dedicated (lunatic fringe) BD'ers is 
> quite so.  But there is one thing I would point out, wherever their 
> phosphorus comes from and whatever the actual forces at work in their gardens, have you 
> ever seen such magnificiet results?  
>
> James
>
>