Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

The cost of the other necessary equipment keeps going up, and rising demand
will make sure photovoltaic is more and  more expensive. I agree man has
always adapted. Unfortunately large dieoffs have occurred throughout
history through war, plague, natural disasters, soil destruction, famine
and disease, and modern science can't stop any of these today. The bank of
fossilized ancient sunlight is running low and scarcity runs the price up.
We think gas is cheaper now but oil still stands at $60 a barrel where it
was $19 in 1999. Personally I'm more concerned about the worsening severity
of economic collapse than roving hordes after my garden. We stock up on the
basic foodstuffs. Most of those roving hordes won't know what to do with
the basics. They'll want McDooDoos or frozen pizzas! 

Sad but true about the land. Fertility and soil structure ruined yes, but
half the topsoil itself is washed away or blown away. Which is why they
need a constant fix of chemicals, the land's drug addiction. Best I can do
is restore a small bit of it and make it healthy and productive. It'll be
growing when the chemical alfalfa and bean fields around us are nothing but
blowing dust. 

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 11/27/2006 at 11:02 PM Gloria Baikauskas wrote:

>They have now found they can make the solar cells much more cheaply out
>of other materials.  I don't know if it is being mass produced as yet, but
>it soon will be.  
>   
>  The biggest thing so many miss when this discussion comes up of folks
>starting to garden/farm after this possibly happening is that the soil for
>the most part in the US, and elsewhere, is dead.....death by chemical
>farming.  So.....for a while it will be really, really tough.  Some things
>will grow on some of this land, but it will take years to get it to grow
>things with enough nutrition for us, and health for the plants.  
>   
>  You have to remember that amendments will also not be readily available.
> How many folks have access to even manure?  And....more
>importantly...will folks in their panice slaughter way too many animals
>thinking it is the only way they can eat?  
>   
>  I worry less about all of the above than I do trying to protect what I
>have from those desperate for foodstuffs.  I don't need them to come along
>and kill my chickens so that I have no eggs to use.....or their
>manure....or dig up my plants to feed themselves....or worse trying to
>throw me out and do it for themselves here.  
>   
>  Many of them will not know they can grow root crops in winter, or start
>spinach early in the fall/winter for early spring eating.  Most of them
>will not have the information available at all on how to do it.....and the
>time it takes them to figure it out may be too long.  
>   
>  Still I don't like the worst case scenarios like this.  Man has always
>survived because we are good at adapting.  
>   
>  Gloria
>