Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

(I like Goodchild so I'm passing this on, but I'll take exception to his 
reliance on Steve Solomon's pronouncements. For example he doesn't seem to 
realize we've had windmills pumping water wells all over the West for at 
least a century - without electricity.)

   "Unlike so much of what constitutes urban life, subsistence farming 
fulfills a primal need. We are at last making the connection between “what we 
do” and “what we need.” Subsistence farming is fascinating in terms of the 
acquisition of knowledge. When we grow our own food, we can learn a great 
deal, and our curiosity about Nature will always be aroused. So much of that 
ancient art has been lost, or nearly lost, and whenever we are out in the 
fields we are reclaiming those skills. Whenever we plant seeds and watch them 
growing, we are preserving or rediscovering a valuable item of human 
knowledge. The world will need that wisdom soon enough, because that is the 
way people used to live, and that is how they will live."


Subsistence Farming
By Peter Goodchild 09 January, 2011
http://www.countercurrents.org/goodchild090111.htm

Most people in modern industrial society get their food mainly from 
supermarkets. As a result of declining hydrocarbon resources, such food will 
not always be available. Partly as a further consequence of declining 
hydrocarbons, electricity and metals will also be in short supply. The 
present world population is nearly 7 billion, but food supplies per capita 
have been shrinking for years. In terms of daily life, the most important 
effect of oil depletion will be that shortage of food. Agriculture will have 
to become more localized, and it will be necessary to reconsider 
less-advanced forms of technology that might be called “subsistence farming.” 
The following notes are based on a North American perspective, in particular 
my own experience in farming, but they can be applied more generally to 
conditions in other parts of the world.

Subsistence farming might be defined as having three characteristics. In the 
first place, as much as possible it involves less-advanced technology; 
reliance on machinery and chemicals will not be possible without a global 
economic network to support them, whereas a shovel, a hoe, and a wheelbarrow 
(with a non-pneumatic tire!) are probably a once-only purchase -- and the day 
will come when even some of these things will not be available. Eventually 
horses and other draft animals will be a common sight, although it will take 
a good many years to breed and train sufficient numbers.

Secondly, subsistence farming needs to be water-efficient. Without a 
municipal water supply or a motorized pump, water for agriculture will no 
longer be abundant.

Thirdly, subsistence farming entails a largely vegetarian way of life: the 
growing of crops takes less land than raising animals (although some animals 
can make good use of less-fertile land), and it is less complicated. With a 
largely vegetarian diet, of course, there can be a danger of deficiencies in 
vitamins A and B12, iron, calcium, and fat, all of which can be found in 
animal food. Fishing, trapping, and hunting would be useful skills. Anyone 
determined to raise keep animals for meat may find that chickens are the 
least troublesome, but they should be raised in a simpler manner than that 
described by most of the modern books, which are based on maximized 
(commercialized) production rather than “survivability.”

New land should be broken with a plow, a device that generally requires 
either a tractor or a draft animal, but a fair amount can be done with hand 
tools. Much depends on the time of year and the weather. In the spring after 
a good rain, it is possible to dig up 50 m2 in a day, even if one is not 
especially muscular. In August after a long drought, digging even 5 m2 in a 
day might be hard. But there are ways to the task easier: if the grass is 
long, it can be cut with a scythe before the digging begins, and hot weather 
can be avoided by starting work at dawn. When the sod has been dug up, it can 
be shaken thoroughly to release the soil. It should then be piled up and 
burned if it consists of perennial grasses, which are more like to take root 
again than to turn into compost.

Actually many of the native North Americans preferred forest, rather than 
grassland, as sites for agriculture. The forest land was more fertile, and 
digging up heavy sod would have been arduous with the available tools. The 
native people girdled the trees (i.e., cut a ring of bark from around each 
tree) to kill them, and then felled them much later, with fire and axes.

Besides grains and fruits, the most useful food plants in temperate climates 
belong to about nine families, including the Amaryllidaceae (garlic, leeks, 
onions), Chenopodiaceae (beets, chard), Brassicaceae (broccoli, Brussels 
sprouts, cabbage, collards, kale, kohlrabi, rutabagas, turnips), Leguminosae 
(beans, peanuts, peas), Umbelliferae (carrots, parsnips), Convolvulaceae 
(sweet potatoes), Solanaceae (peppers, potatoes, tomatoes), and Cucurbitaceae 
(squash).

A good general rule is to choose old-fashioned (including “heirloom” or 
“heritage”) varieties rather than modern, big plants rather than small (but 
small fruit rather than big), pole or vine rather than bush. Popular 
varieties over the last several decades, unfortunately, have been heading in 
the opposite direction. Commercial growers want faster varieties, urban 
gardeners want small ones. Choosing varieties that are hardy and 
drought-resistant means going in the opposite direction. The rule does not 
always work — bush beans are not necessarily worse than pole beans, for 
example — but it serves as a guide. A somewhat similar guide is to look for 
something that closely resembles a wild plant, or is roughly the same thing 
as a wild plant — dandelions, mustard, or purslane, for example.

Modern-day city-dwellers who live sedentary lives are likely to focus on 
low-calorie food. Those concerned about subsistence farming will want to do 
the opposite: country living requires substantial meals. Subsistence farming 
means the production of a large number of calories with a small amount of 
labor and a small amount of risk, and perhaps with not much land. With these 
factors in mind, one could say that there are not so many crops worthy of 
attention. There is no such thing as a perfect type of food to grow, because 
there are advantages and disadvantages to every type. Reliance on a single 
crop would be dangerous, and variety is essential. We never know exactly what 
will happen, and no rules are absolute.

Many of what might seem obvious choices may be questionable. Potatoes are 
highly susceptible to Colorado potato beetles, blight, and several other 
pests and diseases. The brassicas are excellent for vitamins and minerals, 
but some of them are bothered by pests and diseases; kale is perhaps the 
least trouble-prone.

A good starting point would be to focus on corn (maize), beans, and squash, 
the main crops grown by the native peoples of North America. These three 
crops are easy to grow, and they require little or no watering if the plants 
are well spaced. Corn and beans, eaten together, provide excellent protein.

In areas where there is sufficient summer heat and sunshine, corn is by far 
the most important crop to grow. Other grains can be substituted, but these 
require more tools as well as complicated methods of threshing and winnowing. 
They also have lower yields per hectare, and the greater amount of land makes 
a horse and plow almost a necessity if one is expecting to feed an entire 
family on a largely vegetarian diet. Without mechanization or fertilizer, a 
hectare of rye, for example, yields about 1,000 kg per year, resulting in 
only 3 or 4 million kilocalories (“calories”), barely enough for 3 or 4 
hardworking people.

Corn has the scientific name of Zea mays and several confusing common names. 
There are basically two types of corn, sweet corn and field (grain) corn, 
although these are not botanical distinctions. The former is the type that is 
usually eaten as “corn on the cob.” Sweet corn, unfortunately, is unsuitable 
for drying, and it has more problems with diseases and insects. Field corn, 
on the other hand, is definitely worth growing.

It is essential to grow only open-pollinated varieties of corn; hybrid types 
do not reproduce properly. In modern times one is unlikely to find varieties 
of corn that qualify as both “field corn” and “open-pollinated,” with the 
exception of those colorful varieties that are generally known as “Indian” or 
“ornamental” corn. Of those, the hard (“flint”) types do better in areas 
where spring or fall frosts may be a danger.

Beans (e.g., Phaseolus vulgaris) and other legumes are another important part 
of the diet, especially for people on a vegetarian or largely vegetarian 
diet. Beans are high in protein, they are not demanding in terms of soil or 
climate, and they need little or no irrigation, at least after they have 
produced a few leaves. Unlike most other plants, legumes actually add 
nitrogen to the soil; traditional agriculture has always relied on their 
vital service.

Squash can be divided informally into the soft-skinned “summer” types and the 
hard-skinned “winter” types. Summer squash provide only 167 kcal/kg, as 
opposed to 475 kcal for winter squash, so it is the latter that are more 
important. All squash are members of the genus Cucurbita, and of these the 
three main species are C. maxima, C. pepo, and C. moschata. C. maxima 
includes Buttercup, Hubbard, and Delicious, all of which are 
drought-resistant. C. pepo winter squash worth growing are Acorn, Spaghetti, 
and the “true” pumpkin (a lot of so-called pumpkins are a type of C. maxima); 
these are also drought-resistant, but Acorn squash is not especially good for 
storing. Of the C. moschata types, the most familiar is Butternut; while it 
is not noteworthy for being drought-resistant, it is one of the best squash 
for storing. In general, vining squashes are more drought-resistant than bush 
types.

Most of the world’s land is not suitable for agriculture. Either the soil is 
not fertile or the climate is too severe. Anyone intending to buy a piece of 
land should take a sample of the soil and have it tested by a 
government-approved laboratory, while services of that kind are still 
available. If the soil is really poor to begin with, and especially if it is 
very low in potassium or phosphorus, there is not a great deal that can be 
done about it, at least with the resources available in a survival situation.

If most of the trees are evergreens, the land is too acidic. Acidic soil may 
also be indicated by chamomile, garden sorrel, mayweed, or sheep sorrel. Land 
that is excessively wet due to poor drainage may be growing buttercup, 
cattail, ferns, ironweed, Joe-Pye weed, or loosestrife. Other weeds might be 
indicators of reasonably good soil: amaranth, burdock, lamb’s quarters, 
purslane, ragweed, or thistles.

Soil used for the growing of crops must have adequate amounts of organic 
matter (humus), which can come directly from decomposed vegetation or from 
animal manure. Organic matter holds water and air in the soil, contains — 
often to a rather limited extent — some of the elements needed for plant 
growth, and provides an environment for small organisms that are essential to 
the fertility of the soil.

Farmland must also have adequate amounts of about 16 elements — naturally 
occurring or otherwise. These are boron, calcium, carbon, chlorine, copper, 
hydrogen, iron, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, nitrogen, oxygen, 
phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, and zinc. Of these 16, the most critical are 
phosphorus (P), potassium (K), and especially nitrogen (N). Calcium and 
magnesium are probably next in importance. Some of the elements may be found 
in organic matter, but the quantities are generally insufficient. These 
elements might be abundant in the soil before any cultivation is done, but 
whenever crops are harvested a certain amount of the three critical elements 
is removed.

The problem of inadequate amounts of the 16 elements is generally remedied 
nowadays by adding fertilizer, which can be artificial or can come from such 
sources as rock dust — the latter a fashionable “soil amendment” that will no 
longer be available without hydrocarbon-based mining and transportation. 
Acidity can be counteracted by adding crushed limestone (again, not likely to 
be available) or wood ashes, which contain calcium. Nitrogen, however, can be 
provided by planting any legume, such as beans or peas, since bacteria in the 
roots take nitrogen from the air; the plants must be dug back into the soil.

Primitive societies had a simple but imperfect solution to the problem of 
maintaining fertility: abandonment. No fertilizer was used, except for ashes; 
as a result, the soil became exhausted after a few years, so the fields were 
abandoned and new ones were dug.

A common response to the N-P-K problem, used in many countries for centuries, 
has been to turn crop waste into compost and put it back onto the land. The 
problem with that technique is that one cannot create a perpetual-motion 
machine: every time the compost is recycled, a certain amount of N-P-K is 
lost, mainly in the form of human or animal excrement after the crops are 
eaten, but also as direct leaching and evaporation. One can come closer to 
sustainability by recycling those human and animal wastes, but the recycling 
will always be less than perfect. After all, nitrogen, phosphorus, and 
potassium are elements, and by definition they cannot be created. Of the 
three main elements, nitrogen is by far the most subject to loss by leaching, 
but to some extent that can also happen with phosphorus and potassium.

There are partial solutions that are worth considering. Besides using 
vegetable compost and animal manure for increasing the sustainability of 
agricultural land, many societies have employed such related techniques as 
crop-rotation, fallowing (leaving land uncultivated for a year or so), 
cover-cropping, and green manuring. Such practices also replenish the humus 
content of the soil. Some of these practices can even partly replenish the 
important elements: weathering can break rock particles down to release those 
elements, and plants with deep roots can draw such elements to the surface. 
Some of these techniques are difficult with hand tools, however. In other 
countries, vegetation was brought in from the hills, or mud was taken from 
streams that ran down from the mountains (King, n.d.).

The term “irrigation” refers to any use of water other than the direct use of 
rainfall or other natural precipitation. In a post-oil economy it will not be 
possible to use a motorized water supply for irrigation. Yet if one were to 
try using an old-fashioned hand pump to get the water out of the well, a good 
deal of manual labor would be involved. A garden needs about 2 or 3 cm of 
water a week. On a garden of 1 hectare, that would amount to at least 200 m3 
of water. That would mean carrying a bucket to the pump about 6,700 times a 
week, except when it rained. Not very practical.

What the North American native people and pioneers did was to give the plants 
plenty of space, and then just rely on the rain. Almost any type of crop, 
given enough room, can be left to the mercy of the weather, although some 
crops need to be watered as seeds or seedlings. The essence of 
water-efficient farming is to space the plants out so that the distance 
between them is greater than most modern farming manuals recommend. That way 
the roots can spread out and explore in all directions to find the water that 
has been stored there over the previous months.

To keep that underground moisture from evaporating, a hoe must be used to 
remove all weeds, because most water vanishes through plant leaves. Hoeing 
also keeps the surface of the ground watertight by creating a “dust mulch”: 
water does not easily pass through a layer of well disturbed dust, since the 
lack of water and the separation of particles prevent capillary action. 
(“Organic” mulches, such as wood chips or hay, are not much use on an entire 
garden; even if one could find enough material for so much land, there would 
be further trouble with bugs, weeds, and cold soil.) If the garden has at 
least 1 meter of soil, and if there is also close to a meter of precipitation 
annually, with that moisture spread out fairly evenly over the 12 months, 
then it is possible to garden without irrigation (Solomon, 1993). On the 
other hand, if there is only about 30 cm of soil above the bedrock, or if 
there is less than about 50 cm of precipitation annually, farming without 
irrigation is still possible, but the plants need to be spaced out far more.

In other words, and contrary to popular belief, “intensive gardening” is not 
practical without a garden hose and an unlimited supply of water. More plants 
per unit of land simply means using more water per unit of land. With such a 
method, the lack of bare ground between rows also means that it is not easy 
to get a hoe to the weeds; as L. H. Bailey said long ago, intensive gardening 
is just “cultivating the backache” (1910, p. 451).

There are about seven principles that apply to the control of harmful 
insects, and roughly the same principles are relevant to the control of more 
primitive forms of life, such as fungi, viruses, and bacteria: (1) selection 
— choosing resistant species and varieties; (2) diversity — growing a fair 
number of species and varieties at the same time (avoiding monoculture); (3) 
rotation — not growing a crop in the same place in the following year; (4) 
health — keeping plants strong by providing good soil and enough water, 
light, and space; (5) sanitation — removing and burning any dead or dying 
plants, and avoiding contact with wet plants; (6) tillage — digging up the 
ground each year to destroy insects; (7) attack — fighting insects by 
handpicking; one might also want to experiment with sprinkling wood ashes or 
spraying solutions of garlic, hot pepper, or soap.

Vegetables can be stored for winter by keeping them in a root cellar or 
something similar. The basic idea is to keep the food just above freezing. In 
pioneer times a root cellar was often little more than a cave dug into a 
hillside and provided with a door. The earth provided the necessary coolness 
and humidity to keep the vegetables fresh all winter long. Nowadays a root 
cellar can be made by walling off a northern corner of a basement, including 
a window that can be opened to regulate temperature.

Rutabagas, carrots, beets, and parsnips require packing in damp hay, sand, or 
some other damp material to prevent shriveling. Turnips do not store as well 
as rutabagas. Potatoes and onions should be kept in loosely woven bags or at 
least open boxes, in a dark room. Winter squash need slightly warmer 
conditions than other stored crops.

Another simple method of storing is to build a clamp, which is an outdoor 
mound of vegetables placed on a 30-cm layer of dry vegetation (hay, leaves, 
or similar material), then covered with another 30-cm layer of dry 
vegetation, and finally covered with a layer of earth. Usually some sort of 
drainage is provided by digging a trench around the clamp, but that is easily 
done as the soil is dug to be put on top of the clamp. Clamping is simple and 
cheap, but it is not always successful: a winter might be extreme, freezing 
and ruining the food or solidifying the mound too much for it to be opened.

Drying is a good technique for preserving almost any crop. Grains and beans 
are very easy to dry. Squash can be peeled and cut into strips or spirals 1 
or 2 cm wide, then hung up to dry in the sun. Beets, turnips, rutabagas, and 
carrots can be dried the same way. Fruits can also be spread out in the sun. 
Leafy vegetables can be tied in bunches and hung in the shade to dry for a 
few days before being packed into jars; in winter, these dried leaves can be 
crumbled and added to soup.

Producing a supply of seeds means keeping an eye on the more-desirable 
plants, and earmarking those for the next year’s crop. The best plants should 
be chosen, not the earliest; contrary to popular belief, seeds that appear 
late in the season do not produce slower plants the next year. Hybrid 
vegetables should always be avoided, because they do not reproduce properly.

There are actually two methods for producing seed, although they overlap 
considerably. For the first method, crops are just left in the ground until 
they go to seed. Annuals are the simplest crops to deal with, since they go 
to seed in the first year, and often the seed is precisely what is eaten; 
grains and beans are obvious examples. Biennials (two-year plants) — most 
brassicas, for example — are also possible candidates for this method. The 
main question is whether the biennials can be left in the ground over the 
winter, and the answer to that depends on the species or variety, on the 
climate, and perhaps on whether the selected plants are covered in winter 
with something such as leaves, grass, straw, or even twigs.

The second method is to dig up the plants at the end of the first summer, 
store them carefully over the winter, and then replant them. This second 
method requires more work, but it is safer, and it also allows one to “rogue 
out” (remove) stunted or deformed plants.

In most cases it is best not to grow more than one variety of a vegetable for 
seed, because varieties will cross and produce offspring with uncertain 
qualities. Growing more than one variety is possible, however, if they are 
allowed to go to seed in alternate years, or if the varieties are planted 
several weeks apart so that they do not blossom at the same time.

Seeds need proper care if they are to stay viable. The longevity of seeds can 
be a single year or it can be many years, depending on the species, but that 
longevity can be increased by careful storage. Most seeds need to be kept 
very dry, and most also need to be kept away from light, so they should not 
be stored in glass jars, and it is important that they be sealed against 
insects or larger creatures.

Growing one’s own vegetables is sometimes neither easy (labor-free) nor 
simple (uncomplicated). It’s only easy and simple if the garden is just a 
suburban backyard, and if a family doesn’t have to get through the winter on 
what it has produced. Even after reading many books on the subject, to be 
good at growing crops takes years of practice.
For one thing, it may take a while to develop one’s body to the point where 
it can properly handle the necessary walking, digging, and carrying. It also 
requires understanding the principle that a period of rest can be as 
important as a period of work. A sense of timing is vital, both short-term 
and long-term: it’s possible to use hand tools to get a large boulder out of 
the ground, but not if the attempt is made in a mad rush. In order to be able 
to smile with satisfaction later at one’s labors, it is necessary to build up 
the muscles while maintaining that sense of balance.

But the mental ability has its own prerequisites. I have had a fair number of 
academic pursuits over the years, and I can honestly say that farming ranks 
quite high as an intellectual challenge. When a crop does well or poorly, 
there are many reasons why that is so, and anyone who expects to have a 
sufficient harvest must find those reasons. To be a farmer, one must at the 
same time be a geologist, a microbiologist, an entomologist, a mammalogist, a 
botanist, and a meteorologist — among other things. There are dozens of 
species of insects that can attack the crops, and there are dozens of mammals 
that can do the same. Every kind of weed has a name and a nature, and one 
type is not dealt with the same as another. It is necessary to develop an eye 
for the weather, so that one can look at the sky and see tints and shades 
that would be invisible to a city-dweller. And as with any other serious 
skill, there is a point at which a highly conscious and overly intellectual 
comprehension must be replaced or at least supplemented by a subconscious 
presentiment that might be labeled instinct or intuition.

Not that life has to be so grim. On the contrary, there is nothing like 
growing one’s own food to dispel the problem of what Marx called “alienated 
labor.” Unlike so much of what constitutes urban life, subsistence farming 
fulfills a primal need. We are at last making the connection between “what we 
do” and “what we need.”

Subsistence farming is fascinating in terms of the acquisition of knowledge. 
When we grow our own food, we can learn a great deal, and our curiosity about 
Nature will always be aroused. So much of that ancient art has been lost, or 
nearly lost, and whenever we are out in the fields we are reclaiming those 
skills. Whenever we plant seeds and watch them growing, we are preserving or 
rediscovering a valuable item of human knowledge. The world will need that 
wisdom soon enough, because that is the way people used to live, and that is 
how they will live.

REFERENCES:

Bailey, L.H. (1910). Manual of gardening. New York: Macmillan.

King, F. H. (n.d.). Farmers of forty centuries. Emmaus, Pennsylvania: Organic 
Gardening.

Solomon, S. (1993). Water-wise vegetables: For the maritime northwest 
gardener. Seattle: Sasquatch Books.