Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Lynn Montgomery" <sunfarm@toast.net>]

Dear Paul,

    The soil here is the direct result of 15 million years of erosion from Sandia Mt., which started out way over the elevation of Everest. The geology of this mountain is unique. The soil out in the Estancia Basin where you live is different, being much more "adobe" or more clay content. Our mud is bad, but your mud is ridiculous. Anyway, you are doing very labor intensive raised beds, etc., and I am doing 4 acres utilizing ancient fields. I have been farming here, when not gripped by hopeless drought, for 35 years, making terrible, but educational, mistakes. This is how we learn to build productive farms and gardens. I used to subscribe to the Rodale book club over 3 decades ago, and my first choice was Ruth Stout. If no-till aficionados use only one source to convince others, this is all they need. One might tell me I need to mulch more. This is the desert, and mulch materials are very limited. Taking mulch from the wild is cheating the ecological systems that keep the wilds healthy. Mulching here doesn't work so well. The mulch often breaks down too fast and creates heat, which kills plants very dead. Anaerobic decomposition is OK for compost piles, but doesn't work too well in situ. Sow bugs and slugs love the environment underneath and decimate crops. Most mulches mat here, not allowing good absorption of moisture, preventing the absorption of oxygen, and making irrigation difficult. I do use mulch on specific crops. Wild grasses, which are grown and baled commercially in Utah, are the best, but I can't find any for sale lately, and it's over $9/bale if I can find it. So, I have had to leave Ruth on the shelf, as much as I admire her and her methods. The most important thing about tilling is to control erosion. Although soil does move down the rows and terraces, it can be brought back up by way of garden cart and sweat, as they do still in China, as long as there is catchment for it.

 

RELOCALIZING VERMONT: Farmer and Rural Vermont work to legalize on-farm
slaughter
Submitted by Carl Etnier on Thu, 01/03/2008 - 7:58pm.
http://www.vtcommons.org/node/1042
My wife and I have raised beef and pigs for our own consumption and direct
sale to friends and neighbors. I just recently learned that the Vermont
Agency of Agriculture considers our activities illegal.

 

    Being from Vermont and having a farming brother in NY State, the state of affairs as to home slaughter doesn't surprise me. My brother was told he needed a spotless rest room for the inspector in his old chicken coop-pigpen, so he just went home and slaughtered his pig and kept his mouth shut. Up in Taos NM, they are way ahead on this issue. I went up and filmed their wonderful food center a couple months ago, which has a tiny meat packing plant that goes with their mobile matanza, or mobile slaughterhouse. This is a semi decked out with everything needed to bring the matanza to the animal and not vice-versa. The cow I witnessed being slaughtered was standing on the spot where she was born and was contentedly chewing her cud and didn't have a clue. The carcasses are transported to the packing plant where the meat is packaged for local market. Since the only way to make money raising cattle is to sell calves to the only huge conglomerate left, this is a great alternative to make ranching possible. The food center also has a large commercial kitchen open 24/7 where local folks can come in and process their products for local sale. Eventually, I believe this type of thing will become universal, as we localize our food production to meet the challenges of the future. Public canning centers used to be common, and we still have a few around. Anybody have any stories of these where they reside?

Regards, Lynn