Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Dear Paul,

   I have to agree. I live in the semi-desert too. And in an old hippie commune where I'm the only one left. I do a lot of regional water planning, which means I'm aware of the changes climate brings to NM and Arizona. Over 2 thousand years. Five years is way too short to claim victory. Wait about 20 years and the normal, usual, decade long drought, at the very least, will arrive and all that wonderful permaculture will dry up and blow away. A lot of this is simple anthropocentric human arrogance-"we are so superior to everything else in the universe and our wonderful superior minds can overcome anything". Anything except our own folly. Those that study archaeology here can tell us of lots of tribes and civilizations that had the same attitude, and disappeared completely. The people in the old days here, when they were fortunate to have a good year, would grow 5 years worth of beans, at least. When it doesn't rain at all, and I mean not at all, then all that catchment etc. is nothing but ugly alteration of the natural state. I hope that reality and the long cycles of nature come into some of these theories and temper them with real reason. And humility.

    Being spiritual and bringing the rain and life is not easy. And one has to be very careful. Our local Native Americans are more careful than anyone I know of and sometimes their thousands of years old ways don't work. So don't expect something that you just made up to work very well. The individual can have all those relationships we are talking about, and that is a very good thing, but we aren't going to change the way people do things. It would be nice if all those millions suddenly went away. I always hope a good disease will come around and do the job and those left don't have to feel guilty.

Regards, Lynn Montgomery

 

To Grow a garden is to believe in tomorrow
- Eleanor Roosevelt

 

Message: 8
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 08:15:04 -0700
From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Permaculture - Farms for the Future
To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
Message-ID: <201001180815040397.0A781179@mail.lobo.net">201001180815040397.0A781179@mail.lobo.net>
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I didn't say it couldn't be done; I said it's pointless. At least in arid, treeless areas of NM. You don't happen to know how much money they blew on the permaculture designer and the whole setup, do you. And it took them five years? (I got a bad place, semi-arid, producing for market in one year.) How would that help regular folks trying to make ends meet? What are they supposed to live on in the meantime? Sure it got publicity but that doesn't change the fact it was an incredibly wasteful stunt. Hey, if we can't afford a real place we'll just set up permaculture in the desert!

I'm going to file that one in the Bad Ideas folder with communes, papercrete and strawbale. All the things that last just long enough to get an article written about how cool they are.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 1/17/2010 at 9:34 PM Tommy Tolson wrote:

>But people did it in the desert of NM.  Once enough organic matter was 
>in the sand, a lens of water formed, and supported an oasis, a 
>Permaculture design that supports the people living on/in it.  These 
>folks could only afford to buy desert land no one else would buy.  
>They got a Permaculture designer in, and, five years later, they had 
>the oasis, and food and water (rain harvest, as I recall).  It's been 
>featured in a book or two.  It would be beautiful anywhere, but in a 
>desert, it's stunning.
>
>Geoff Lawton's (Mollison's hand-picked successor) claim to fame is 
>turning a Jordan desert into date production.
>See http://permaculture.org.au/2009/12/11/greening-the-desert-ii-final/
>
>These two designs are testaments to Permaculture's restorative power.
>
>But I failed utterly at building a Permaculture market garden (if 
>that's not an oxymoron) on caliche in Austin.  My beds were not deep 
>enough to keep spinach taproots out of the caliche.  Spinach does not 
>like caliche.
>
>Smiles.
>Tommy
>
>On Jan 17, 2010, at 8:07 PM, Tradingpost wrote:
>
>> Just suggesting growing a forest garden on a dry, treeless plain is 
>> pointless.
>
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