Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Pego Rice <firekeeper38@yahoo.com>]

Ok yes, my humor pops out in quips but the point really stands that few 
people have either the knowledge, energy or talent to walk out into nowhere 
and turn it into a self-sustaining steading.   What works, by repeated 
example, is people working together, preferably within familiar working 
relationships.  This is why the Victory Garden movement worked and the Back 
To the Landers had so much difficulty.  Victory Gardens had publicity, 
educational materials, government leadership and even some support and, more 
importantly they didn't leave their homes or jobs.  By the last 2 years of 
WWII, they produced 40 percent of the nations total veggie needs and that is 
nothing to shake a stick at.; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden  
But the moment the need seemed over, and in fact well before need actually 
WAS over, most people stopped these gardens.  This left, as it had from the 
first World War a small body of knowledgeable gardeners and community
 gardens in urban areas which we still have today.
 
"Canned foods were rationed regularly in the United States, but the poster 
campaign ("Plant more in '44!") to plant a Victory Garden was answered by 
nearly 20 million Americans. These gardens produced up to 40 percent of all 
the vegetable produce that was consumed in the nation....Basic information 
about gardening appeared in public services booklets distributed by the 
Department of Agriculture, as well as by agribusiness corporations such as 
International Harvester and Beech-Nut.
Victory gardens were planted in backyards and on apartment-building rooftops, 
with the occasional vacant lot "commandeered for the war effort!" and put to 
use as a cornfield or a squash patch. During World War II, sections of lawn 
were publicly plowed for plots "
 
There's a guy up north that decided to produce everything he ate except salt, 
pepper and coffee, during summer break and dumped 11k into his back yard, in 
the form of rabbits, chickens, geese, new garden soil to cover his clay and 
in crops.  Out of this he ate only his own for 3-4 months, (wife and kids 
still went to the grocery) lost 27lbs and had  to handle a militant child 
uprising. (don't kill the Bunnies!)  He simply found that trying to do 
everything, all at once, was unmanageable.   He made a film about it and that 
may recoup his expenses but for now he and his family have a very good garden 
and hens for eggs, plus a few pet rabbits and his kids have taken on giving 
the roosters their walks in doll strollers dressed up in pink pinafores.  If 
I had caught the guys name while I was driving around listening to NPR I 
would link you to is but this is what I recall and I have had enough 
similarity in my personal experiences that, well <spreads hands>
 
On the other hand; the Back-To-The-Landers and the homesteaders and the 
communes that followed did not succeed on anything like this kind of scale in 
their immediate food production but I have to say that the stubborn, lucky, 
talented 3% have something to do with with our current change in favor of 
organic local produce.  Small ICs that were successful, like Peaceful Valley 
helped to conserve heirloom plants and create markets for organic produce.  
The Impact of people like this has been incremental but today the same people 
who started Peaceful Valley now have organized national, or rather the now 
international Bioneers conferences.  
 
Now, the fact is that people were doing their darnedest to maintain 
traditional farming and gardening world over, families have been trying to 
maintain farms everywhere.   Native Americans attempting to maintain 
traditional waffle gardens were being rooted up as fast as possible.  Indians 
were being paid to dump old seed stock and take up Monsanto commercial crop.  
The change is not in them, my guess is that it is a layer of idealists that 
are also educated and effective communicators (who were VERY familiar with 
urban thinking and biases, while identifying with traditional people) taking 
up, not the over all food production, but the voice and activist movement. 
 
The lesson, from both directions, is that small changes make big differences. 
 20 million yards and roofs carried our nation, 3% sticking it out over the 
last 70 years eventually made enough noise to make people think that organic 
is better and OF COURSE home grown tomatoes taste better.

Yours, Pego

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