Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>]

Please go to the newfarm.org site to see this amazing piece and pictures. 
Living here in New Mexico, Barb and I were privileged to visit in a friend's 
home in the Taos pueblo once but missed meeting these folks.  Those who claim 
farm-scale composting is impractical without fossil fuels never saw how it's 
done. Ben and Debbie do it.

paul, tradingpost@riseup.net See  you at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Soilmakers/
---------------

http://www.newfarm.org/features/2005/1205/taoscorn/homeyer.shtml

Taos pueblo couple farms and cooks in the old ways that work
Their restaurant gives diners tastes of the New Mexican high desert that have 
been savored for centuries.

     "We do what was passed down from our grandfathers. We don't alter our 
soils too much. We try to help it here and there."

--Ben White Buffalo

The Tiwa Kitchen Restaurant is a perfect outlet for Ben and Debbie's harvest.

Posted December 8, 2005: Ben White Buffalo and his wife, Debbie Moonlight 
Flowers, both of the Taos pueblo, are among the few Native American farmers 
on the New Mexico pueblos who are still farming the way their grandfather's 
grandfathers farmed.

The people of the 19 New Mexico pueblos are thought by some to be descended 
from the Anasazi, whose agrarian culture flourished in here from 900-1000 
A.D.--well before the arrival of the Apaches and Navajos. Each pueblo has its 
own language and culture and its own creation stories, though there are many 
similarities among them.

Taos Pueblo sits at the foot of the Sangre de Christos Mountains, at an 
elevation of 7,200 feet, some 70 miles north of Santa Fe and about five miles 
outside the town of Taos. The pueblo has been continuously occupied for more 
than a thousand years. It consists of flat-roofed adobe buildings, portions 
of which are thought to be among the oldest structures in North America.

Ben and Debbie are the only Native American farmers I met during a visit to 
four New Mexico pueblos last year who are farming commercially. They raise 3 
to 5 acres of Indian blue corn, white corn, sweet corn, squashes, dry beans, 
pumpkins and tomatoes. They also harvest spices, wild onions and garlic in 
their garden and elsewhere. These crops help them supply most of the food and 
flavor for Tiwa Kitchen Restaurant, which they own nearby. They also package 
and sell a variety of dried foods and prepared mixes at the restaurant.

Even though Ben and Debbie are growing for a commercial market, they farm in 
the traditional ways, in harmony with the ways of their ancestors. "We do 
what was passed down from our grandfathers," Ben said. "Anything that comes 
from the earth without any chemicals is organic to me. We don't alter our 
soils too much. We try to help it here and there."

Communal water works

The people of Taos Pueblo have been managing water for irrigation communally 
for centuries. Their high desert land receives only about 7 inches of rain a 
year, making the melting winter snows the lifeblood of their agriculture.

Each spring, the pueblo's governor--elected annually by tribal leaders--calls 
on the men of the pueblo to clean out the irrigation ditches. Even as more 
and more men work off the reservation, most show up for the annual task 
whether they are going to use the water or not.

Boys join the training phase of the work ritual at age eight. A special day 
and special ditches are assigned for the boys to learn the proper ways of 
doing the work and of working together.

The ditches distribute water from mountain-fed Red Willow Creek to Ben and 
Debbie’s fields without any use of modern irrigation equipment. The flow is 
diverted down the rows to irrigate their crops.

During the winter months, farmers open their field gates so horses and other 
livestock can graze the fields and glean any leftovers. Manure from this 
grazing period is a traditional part of the soil enrichment for crops. Like 
his ancestors, Ben does not follow a set crop rotation, often planting crops 
in the same fields year after year.

Ben and Debbie make compost using organic matter from the restaurant and 
agricultural waste. They dig pits, 4 feet wide and 3 to 4 feet deep, and fill 
them with whatever they can get. Sometimes they can get chicken or turkey 
manure or even buy a truckload of suckers -- a junk fish -- from Eagle Nest 
Lake. They spread the compost before plowing in the spring.

Ben and Debbie farm a number of small, irregularly shaped plots in and around 
the confines of the pueblo. They work together at almost everything they do, 
in the fields and in the restaurant. Their three children, now ages 15 to 21, 
have helped in the fields since they were young--planting, weeding and 
harvesting.

Beginning the corn year

Ben uses a horse and a two-handled, V-shaped, walk-behind plow for turning 
the soil. He is not opposed to using a tractor, but he figures he saves money 
without one. The plow belongs to his uncle and is shared with other members 
of the family. The fields are always irrigated before plowing to soften the 
loamy soil. After plowing, Ben uses his horse to drag an eight-foot pole, 
about 12 inches in diameter, over the flat fields to smooth them out.


Indian blue corn is a staple food on the pueblo and at Tiwa Kitchen. The 
variety grown here is well adapted to the climate, requiring less water and 
fertilization than modern hybrids. Ben and Debbie told me that no mechanical 
planter they’ve tried works as well as planting their corn by hand. Usually 
Ben uses a shovel to make a divot, and Debbie -- often with the help of their 
children -- plants the seeds. Debbie says the seeds go in fairly deep, 3 to 6 
inches, about 18 inches apart in rows about 12 inches apart, just wide enough 
to allow for irrigation.

Weeds are controlled by hoeing. According to Ben, nobody hoes until the first 
part of June, when the corn is about 8 inches tall. They wait until the word 
is given by the tribe's spiritual leader, and then everyone begins at the 
same time. Hoeing is sometimes done communally: a group of men may show up in 
Ben's field unannounced and just get to work, going down the rows and hoeing 
out the weeds. Another day, he will help them in someone else's fields.

A second weeding is done when the corn is about 18 inches tall. Then the corn 
is well established and they can weed right up close to it, Ben said. At that 
time they also hill the corn, mounding soil over the stalks to help keep it 
from blowing over. They grow pumpkins and squashes in between and around the 
corn, just as their ancestors did. Their most troublesome weed is bindweed.

Insects are not usually a serious problem, according to Ben and Debbie. "We 
do have some trouble with grasshoppers, but they don't come in swarms," Ben 
told me. "But they do make a living in our garden." It may be that without 
chemical fertilizers that push fast growth, the crops are less inviting to 
insect pests. If necessary, these farmers hand-pick insect pests.

At harvest time the entire family, including Ben's mother, helps to pick the 
ears by hand into wheelbarrows for transport to their truck.

Whole ears of fresh blue corn are baked in their traditional outdoor beehive 
ovens for 15 minutes or so and then eaten warm. For storage, the dry ears are 
hung in bundles tied together by their turned-back husks. The couple takes 
batches of corn to be ground as needed to a commercial mill, reserving the 
best ears for planting next season.

Field to Taos table

Fifteen years ago, Ben and Debbie prepared and sold some food for a powwow, 
then began preparing food at home and selling it at other events, including 
concerts. In developing a business plan for their restaurant, they concluded 
that growing their own food would be a big plus: it would all be local, 
organic, and essentially cost only their labor.

They supplement what they grow with food from other local farmers and wild 
harvesting. Each year they buy two free-range, grass-fed bison from the 
tribal herd, with each animal providing 700-800 pounds of meat. Ben 
respectfully kills and butchers them himself, honoring their spirits. The 
meat is remarkably tender and has a noticeably different flavor than beef.

The couple built the restaurant themselves, harvesting the logs for the vigas 
(ceiling beams) in the tribal forest in the mountains, plastering the 
interior walls with adobe and covering the outside with a thin layer of 
concrete. The restaurant has one big room, about 30 by 50 feet, with large 
windows looking out on the Sangre de Christos range.

Ben built two traditional beehive-shaped, wood-fired outdoor ovens outside 
the restaurant's back door. They also use them for baking corn and roasting 
peppers -- up to 300 pounds at a time!

Debbie loads bread into one of the two traditional beehive wood-fired ovens 
Ben built outside the restaurant.

Ben and Debbie close the restaurant for four to six weeks every year (in 
March and April in 2006) when the pueblo holds traditional spiritual 
ceremonies and is closed to visitors. It’s an economic hardship for the 
couple, but it reflects their respect for the community's traditions.

On the Tiwa Kitchen printed menu, Ben White Buffalo and Debbie Moonlight 
Flowers express the philosophy of their business and their farming: "We hope 
that the love, energy and care we have put into our restaurant and the food 
we prepare for you will make you feel comfortable and welcome."

The Taos pueblo has been continuously occupied for more than a thousand 
years. Some of the buildings are thought to be among the oldest structures in 
North America.