Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Mitch, I tend to agree. Jeavons made his point, but isn't there an enormous
-more than enormous - amount of organic waste generated all over the
country that needs to be recycled into growing soil? Obviously, if we
obsess with repeating Jeavons' experiment then a lot will keep going to
landfills. That's my thinking. 

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 5/29/2007 at 8:34 PM E. E. Mitchamore Jr wrote:

>I'm inclined to agree about soil tests, but I'm a bit uneasy with the
>idea of all of the organic input for the soil, and all of our food, coming
>from the same piece of land.  It was just coincidence, but I read about
>this in one of Jeavons' booklets just yesterday.  That's why it was on my
>mind.  If there is a deficiency in a particular site, it would be
>exaggerated over the years.  If it's not in the soil, it's not in the
>food.  Mel Bertholomew (Square Foot Gardening) made a good point, I think,
>in advocating compost input from multiple sources.  In our diets and
>everything else, diversity is good.  If the diet for both the plants and
>the people consuming them is lacking in something, it can't be good.
>
>Personally, I'm starting with purchased compost.   It's on a small scale,
>so cost is not a problem, but I expect I'll need to "grow my own" as the
>scale increases.  I guess I'll attempt to bring in some Greensand and
>compost as long as I can, just to cover the unknown.
>
>E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
>www.hillcountrynatives.biz