Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Thanks, Mitch, I did study it a few years back and had Mollison's first book 
on it in the 80s I believe. And learned from it. I agree it's not 
contradictory. It's just that there are elements that take too much time, 
space, and/or investment to develop. From all I've seen, the elements that do 
work in the near term, that are doable for millions of us on limited budgets, 
are also the elements that work in Biointensive, Square Foot, Biodynamic, and 
other methods.  But I don't have time to develop a climax ecosystem, 
understory, and all that. I don't double dig - for good reason. I don't lay 
out beds in squares, or make exotic preps in a powderhorn.

So I don't go whole hog on any one system, I just use what works within those 
constraints. What's affordable to me is affordable to millions of others. I 
had to know first hand how much I could produce for market on less than a 
quarter acre, no more space than millions of others, under poor climate and 
soil conditions, using mostly free local amendments and no fossil 
fuel-derived inputs. It's taken some time to prove it's productive enough, 
but I'm still barely pushing the envelope. This is the madnesss behind my 
method ;-) Many other growers do some variations on all of those. The lesson 
is you research the best methods and work with what you've got. It's what 
millions are going to be forced to do sooner or later.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 1/17/2010 at 6:14 PM Emery Mitchamore wrote:

>I'm sorry, but you missed the point.  It appears that a limited
>introduction to Permaculture (perhaps from those selling courses), has
>given you the wrong impression.  If you have the time during some of your
>housebound weather, and are curious, study it some more and you will find
>some useful tools for implementing exactly the methods and techniques you
>advocate.  I've studied it enough to know that there is no contradiction
>between your methods and what Permaculture advocates. In addition, there
>is much to offer for environments and circumstances different from yours.
>In fact, Permaculture offers precisely the tools needed for the scenarios
>you describe.
>
>On Jan 17, 2010, at 5:25 PM, Tradingpost wrote:
>
>>
>> My response to permaculture is this:  In the near term the urgent need
>is for millions to learn to produce all they can in as little space as
>possible. Why? The perfect storm - too many people, not enough good land,
>abrupt climate changes, rising fossil fuel-derived fertilizer & pesticide
>costs and falling income, and an economy running on fumes.  And Peak Oil,
>but also rising prices in *anticipation* of Peak Oil. That's right.
>Nations hoarding and speculators driving up prices will be in the news.
>Full oil tankers are waiting to sell, lying off the coasts right now in
>anticipation of higher prices later. Even in recession now, global demand
>is predicted to outstrip supply by at least 10% this decade (except the
>IEA feels sure the Saudis can take up the slack. They can't). In theory a
>mere 15% shortfall can drive oil to $500 a barrel. The powers that be know
>this. They plan for it; the people don't. They know we are in the
>post-Peak "plateau" currently and long wars are being
>>  fought to control oil & gas producing countries. For obvious reasons
>they don't want to panic the markets.
>>
>> The effects? Big cities where population is dense will soon need all the
>space they can get for growing cheaply, with as little high priced food
>transported from outside as possible. Towns and rural areas will need the
>same since big farms hog most agricultural land and their fossil fuel
>input costs and prices keep rising. In town and country many people need
>to learn efficient growing in adverse soil & climate conditions, simply
>because there are too many people to feed and so much land has been ruined
>by industrial agribusiness. Topsoil depletion and water scarcity are
>widespread problems in agricultural areas. Most of us simply can't pick
>and choose where we'd love to have our "permaculture" design.
>>
>> I'm not foolish enough to draw up a timeline on this, but the direction
>is unavoidable. As in what we need to salvage some community food
>security. One of the sources for my comments was Heinberg's essay "Fifty
>Million Farmers". As for the "shift" you mentioned, my view is people will
>do what they need to do when forced to by economic conditions. One sign of
>this now is increased savings and less spending.
>>
>> paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>>
>>
>> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
>>
>> On 1/17/2010 at 2:56 PM Tommy Tolson wrote:
>>
>>> I lived in a Permaculture design in Santa Rosa, CA when I was married
>>> to my first wife.  From the second year, its food forest produced
>>> food.  We planted annuals on berms of adobe clay that we amended with
>>> shell flour, kept mulched with straw, and watered with drip
>>> irrigation.  Everything we planted grew like crazy.  The marriage
>>> didn't.
>>>
>>> I've seen the change that happens when people realize that part of
>>> Transition is inner transformation.  When I got to Austin, local
>>> Permaculture was all about gardening, and I objected to that.  It's
>>> part of Permaculture but not nearly all of it.  Permaculture is about
>>> building functioning ecosystems which happen to produce food for all
>>> the creatures who make their living from that land.  It's still a lot
>>> more esoteric than it should be by now.  Stewart Brand, I think, said
>>> long ago, "We're as gods, so we may as well get good at it."
>>>
>>> I, too, think we've run out of time.  The national government wages
>>> wars for the oil to keep up our unsustainable consumer society.  We
>>> sacrificed four thousand dead and no telling how many injured so
>>> ExxonMobil and Chevron could bid on producing Iraq's oil.  When US
>>> fossil fuel interests got the inside track at Copenhagen, it was all
>>> over.  We can't afford mitigation, but we can far less afford climate
>>> change.
>>>
>>> Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorganChase, wondered this week when the
>>> recovery would start.  Real recoveries are not jobless.  The economic
>>> paradigm can't see ecological constraints.
>>>
>>> My hope is that people proactively engage the process now to create
>>> the future they want to live after the economic paradigm falls and the
>>> ecological paradigm replaces it.  Growing one's own food is, I think,
>>> a necessary element of getting through the crisis part of that
>>> paradigm shift.  But it's only an element.  The shift itself is the
>>> system, and I hope it can be consciously negotiated.  We need to re-
>>> learn how to build community, and learn how to create cultures that
>>> support us in "being all we can be."
>>>
>>> But the big deal is the crash that the failure at Copenhagen and
>>> corporate control of Congress almost surely guarantee.  I believe
>>> community will determine who lives and who doesn't, when the time comes.
>>>
>>> Smiles.
>>> Tommy
>>>
>>
>>
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>
>E. E. "Mitch"  Mitchamore
>www.hillcountrynatives.biz
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