Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

If I may let me try to see through this disagreement.  These methods ALL
work, but people can fail through bad judgment, lack of experience, or
plain bad luck with weather or other factors.  Being overly defensive
doesn't help us figure out how to make it work. 

It's obvious that every sustainable growing method isn't suited to all
climates and topographies. Yet it's also obvious that each method brought
up here does work, whether its square foot gardening, raised beds, wide
rows, double digging, no-till, and so forth. Maybe what we're leaving out
is the vagaries of climate and weather. Who knows?

Now when someone tries something unsuited to their location and it doesn't
deliver, then it's clearly that person who's failed by doing things
unsuited to their location, not the method itself. Example: no-till on
caliche ground that no moisture will penetrate, or ground level wide rows
where it stays soaked with runoff half the year. There are extremes that
shouldn't be attempted in some places. To me this is a bit of
hair-splitting, and has nothing to do with "disrespecting" those who make
mistakes and blame the methods. Poor judgment has plagued farmers as long
as there have been farmers. How many have been wiped out by too much rain
or drought, or poor timing for planting or harvesting, only to claim
farming itself is a bust.  The final arbiter of good or bad judgement is
results. As they say, Nature bats last. 

 Interestingly enough, many herbs seems to prefer poor soil and it seems to
intensify their flavors. But that doesn't mean everything else should be
grown the same way, does it.

paul, tradingpost@riseup.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 7/9/2006 at 2:09 AM firekeeper@netscape.net wrote:

>The intersection of personal "style" (for lack of a better word), with a
>given block of time, a patch of ground and a gardening system.  With that
>many variables it is a miracle any particular horticultural "school of
>thought" has shown great advantage but they have.  The point is to know
>enough about what works and works for the planet, to be able to find the
>right growing system for each of us.  
> 
>No matter how disrespectful the "not the method, it's you" statement may
>be, it would still resemble me.  I would be a much better gardener if my
>garden was between my work van and my door instead of the only patch of
>ground I have control of, not MUCH obstructed by the neighborhood
>association (because hardly anyone has any use for suburban backyards once
>the kids are grown and don't need further containment), if I were growing
>in soil not completely eradicated by the builders, leaving clay topped by
>construction sand barely hidden by Bermuda grass.  I frequently wish I
>could devote a lot of time to gardening, but I have a new business to run
>and am doing this (hammering my head against topics I find rather
>counter-intuitive) to begin an entire life change.  
> 
>I loved the idea of Permaculture but have simply started off with square
>foot because I have limited time, space and attention to devote to my
>gardening.  From this point I can keep learning and grow into the garden I
>hope to have.   My ordinary avocations are in activism, but the saying is
>true about the personal being political.  The way we live our lives and
>the decisions we follow will be the 1st, often the only and always the
>most profound acts of our lives. So trying to be a decent person and
>follow the principals I most regard as necessary to the health of the
>planet involves plugging away at this until I can manage something more
>than my perennial herb garden.  Let it be clearly said that my perennial
>herbs have done just fine on no-till, heh, and nuttin much else either. 
> 
><<Second.    Not everyone will have the same success with the same method,
>and 
>saying that someone failed and the system didn't, is disrespectful.   
>Some 
>methods work for some people, other methods work better for other people. 
>  So 
>just because No-Till didn't work for someone, is by no means any reason to
>say 
>someone failed.>Greg H.  >>
>
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