Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

This is just a reminder from our old Soilmakers list which was merged into
our Living On The Land list a year ago. 

List description, Soilmakers

We want  to deal with the widespread problems of loss of soil minerals,
humus, nutritional content of produce, and loss of topsoil itself, as well
as the cost-price squeeze faced by real organic growers, the shrinking
supply of affordable land for growing and irrigation water, and the need to
increase the supply of nutritious food while making healthy food more
affordable in general. Our generation cannot continue to plunder the soil
capital of future generations. 

Intensive, organic soil building can realistically be the basis of growing
more in less space with better nutrition, more profitable growing through
less bought inputs, less need for water, fewer losses from pests and
disease,  and less vulnerability to fossil fuel problems now or in the
future. What ways this can best be pursued in different soils and climates
leaves a lot of room for discussion. There are many ways of getting the
right biology back into the soil. Welcome to the cutting edge!

Soilmakers discussion is about the "how to", but must include soil types
for crops, soil for intensive beds, composting & compost tea,
remineralization, home & farm-scale soil building, no-till, microorganisms,
earthworms, and the critical role of healthy soil in the local food
movement and family farm survival. The point is to stress how healthy soil
plays the central role in each of these areas - to connect the dots and get
the big picture. 


paul tradingpost@lobo.net