Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Gloria Baikauskas <gcb49@flash.net>]

****I don't usually cross post like this, but this post I wrote to my gardening list seemed to move at least a few of them.  I thought I should share it with you here because of the topic. 

 

Gloria

 

In case you think that much of what we speak of doesn't really make a
difference when you garden/farm....I want to try to change your
mind. 

 

I have talked about the fact that when I moved onto this once
farmland the soil was basically dead.  It was odd to see the odd weed
here and there...but large expanses of mud and dirt in which nothing
grew.  We had a lot of rain that first spring, but still nothing
really was growing.  All those years of chemical farming took their
toll.  The only thing that made the plants grow was the
fertilizer....and without those chemicals nothing was growing...not
even weeds really.   Just a few here and there. 

 

That began my journey to learn organics.  I did quite a bit of
reading, but I realized that I had to experiment to see if this way,
or that way worked at all...or which was the best one to use. 

 

I am not going to go into that right now.....which ones worked the
best.  This is about mowing and tilling, or even digging.  No, please
don't groan.  Wait a minute. 

 

I had read even on the US Dept. of Agriculture website that it was
best not to mow..and not to till.  Well, how do you remove all those
weeds that do grow, if you don't dig?  I knew better than to try to
till what did grow here.  All it does is multiply the weeds, or the
grasses because of their root systems.  Sometimes I have to dig where
I want dedicated beds to remove roots that resemble
carrots...tenacious roots to be certain.  But not to mow????

 

I have to mow up around the front in order not to get ticketed.  So I
do.  But the rest of my 3 acres doesn't get mowed anymore.  When we
did mow up there we came back so full of dirt in our hair, clothes,
and such that it was nearly impossible to be clean for a day or two. 
All the mower did was blow the dirt, swirl it up into our faces and
hair.  We weren't mowing much anyway...cuz nothing much was growing. 

 

Today I took a walkabout on the back half of my property....and onto
my neighbor's property behind mine.  See she mows hers all of the
time.  I wanted to see the differences.  Didn't take a magnifying
glass. 

 

I had walked up there through weeds happily growing...and weeds
turned brown from the drought.  I walked on thatch from weeds and
wildflowers that grew last year.  I didn't see my dirt beneath them. 
I did see sprouts of green winter weeds peeking their heads through
the thatch.  What I saw was life......growth.....the way it should
be, even if it is not perfect. 

 

When I got to my neighbor's property I gasped.  It has been 10 years,
folks.  Ten years!  Her land was dirt....bare dirt with a very few
brave tiny weeds now and then.  I cringed thinking that it was desert
here...on her property.  The winds I knew were picking up her
dirt/soil and blowing it to eternity.  It was dry, too.  The
differences were astounding as I walked about. 

 

Which of us has done the right thing?  You decide.  Which one would
you choose after reading of my experience? 

 

Gloria, Texas
US zone 8a