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  • From: Bill Jones <billj AT harborside.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] AHIPA: Exploring the Potential of a SustainableCrop as a Food Source
  • Date: Fri, 08 Sep 2006 14:38:26 -0700

Lynda wrote:

Star thistles on the other hand are a major problem as they are deadly for horses. We are currently removing star thistle from our place. We've cleared 6 acres so far. Patience and pray the back doesn't give out and we'll get rid of the rest of it!


There's more than enough reason to conclude that pasture weed problems are due in major part to the way people do things nowadays. In the past, before all farms became either animal or vegetable, pasture was rotated with grains and row crops, and tilled and replanted. If this is not done, it's hard to see what force keeps the weeds from taking over altogether, since livestock are constantly selecting for weeds, the surviving plants that aren't grazed! Fortunately in this case I just have to give up star thistle for cut flowers.

You may have heard of the hated citrus spraying programs in S. California for the Mediterranean fruit fly. I was lucky not to live right near any of the citrus monoculture happening there. I'm not sure why any non-millionaires are still allowed to grow citrus there, when the solution is so simple; why it's not just like the pine blister rust or filberts, where they just ban it all. Maybe the retail nurseries got together and came up with some persuasion too. At this point you're not allowed to move fruit out of your backyard, and that's the only restriction I've heard of.

I've been told that it's illegal for me to grow tobacco. Apparently the reason given is that it's hard to grow tobacco, and what with all the pests and diseases, you could really spoil it for the people who really matter, just as with filberts. The first year I was here I grew great tobacco (a nice plant, that is), although it does require a head start; mine never set seed and I never grew it again. I'm sorry that THEIR tobacco is so hard to grow. We found out that the first crop ever planted in this area by one group of newly arrived farmers was Connecticut wrapper. It was a smashing success, with record yields, after which it was never grown again. I wonder why.

Inevitably the surprise I alluded to in the previous post always involves the same thing: our need to sacrifice, to cover their errors. The day could come when the coastal cranberry kings might discover some new disease in their giant bathtubs, proving once again that employee-free commercial monoculture won't work. Should one of the white coats down at Potion Spray finger potatoes, say, as the "alternative host for the disease," then our little Incan-style potato farm in the hills is through. After all, this is not a "commercial potato-growing area," so no one THAT MATTERS will be affected.

Bill
S. Oregon coast




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