Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[EJ <emj@uvic.ca>]

Dust mulch will only blow away it there is wind.

"If you want drought resistant pasture for your stock, rotationally graze and make sure you don’t put the animals back on the grass until it is fully rested and recovered.  This is important for us here in Western Oregon, even with all the rain we have in a normal year, we still have a summer that is primarily dry.  That is normal in my area of the Pacific Northwest."

http://matronofhusbandry.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/carrots-and-grass/

There is lots of practical info on grazing, animal husbandry etc on her blog - from someone who has is farming land her grandparents homesteaded. That seems at least as sustainable as most systems.

Its all about learning what works for you and your area.

Best regards!


Sometimes On 25/11/10 2:38 PM, Tradingpost wrote:

201011251538200956.2DFAD9E4@mail.lobo.net" type="cite">

She writes this about her system versus biointensive: 
   "One of my biggest worries is peak water, even here in our lush rain forest-like zone.  I water some crops, but most of our gardening utilizes the dust mulch method, which requires wide spacing between plants and rows.  This isn’t new, this is what people have done in our climate for years, and still are doing on the truck farms that have survived.  Anne and Eric Nordell have coined the phrase “bio-extensive” to fend off the “bio-intensive” hecklers.  It’s a sad commentary that sometimes they are chastised for not using irrigation.  Go figure.. 
   "I have a real problem with the methods outlined by John Jeavons and Mel Bartholomew using so many inputs.  In a frugal garden, and in low water times where do they actually expect people will get all the extra fertilizer and water to take care of these intensive gardens.  I know there is no easy answer, and it’s easy for me to say when I have ample space.  People tend to take soil and water for granted.   But it isn’t my fault that California is trying to get the water from the Pacific Northwest to continue irrigating a desert.  Or that people even live in a desert to begin with.  If you live in an arid area and your water comes from a tap, what shape is the aquifer beneath you in?  The ones here are shrinking, and we are in a high rainfall area.  Aack, I need to quit ranting and nagging, that never works.  Sorry.  I am not saying use no water, but maybe just think of the alternative, at least a little… ."

My reaction: we can all work it differently. But with the economy what it is and bound to get worse, the most urgent need is for millions to fall back on growing what they can with limited space. The unemployed or underemployed, the students flipping burgers with staggering college debt, the stay at home spouses with time to garden - millions of these can help themselves by growing some of the food they can't afford to keep buying. Few of them will have a big farm like that or money to invest in it. They'll need free or low cost soil amendments and mulch (to save water and weeding), and they'll need to get the most from whatever space they have to grow in without tractors or even tillers. They need biointensive, permanent beds. 

Her "dust mulch" method admittedly wastes a lot of garden space, and why she uses it is a mystery in a "lush rain forest-like zone". Even with an inefficient row system she could easily double production by irrigating a little more and giving up wide spaces between rows that were needed for dust mulching. Besides, dust blows away. Remember the Dust Bowl? Dust mulch farming is simply unsustainable. 

She questions the cost of intensive growing, "where do they actually expect people will get all the extra fertilizer and water to take care of these intensive gardens"?  Well, I don't buy the commercial amendments Mel promotes and neither does Jeavons. Forget fertilizer. People will need to locate organic waste, manure and trimmings and compost and such, as many of us do now. I used to collect lawn bags to compost. And I suspect many backyard gardens could be watered with greywater now going into the city sewer systems, along with rainwater catchment. We're semi-arid on a well on a closed fossil aquifer where the worst usage by far is some huge alfalfa fields with pivot sprinklers, and that mostly goes to livestock that take far more water to grow than using it to grow food directly.

Most of us won't have enough rainfall or space enough for dryland farming, much less unmulched, inefficient tractor rows. She may grow successfully, but not sustainably, and somebody needs a lot more food from the amount of land she uses inefficiently.

My two cents on it.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net


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

On 11/24/2010 at 10:28 AM EJ wrote:

Here is an example of someone who has successfully dry land, row 
gardened for years: 
http://matronofhusbandry.wordpress.com/2008/08/16/vegetable-tour-progess-and-notes/

http://matronofhusbandry.wordpress.com/2009/05/20/a-little-garden-time/

Which gardening method works depends on many conditions - soil, weather, 
climate, what you want to grow, water availability, livestock and what 
lastly what feels right for the gardener.


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