Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

This may be of use to some indeed.
I think there are many reasons why immigrants failed and usually it is a 
combination of many.

One big general problem is the underground hostility of the natives who see 
foreign nationals come in and buy land that has been in their "clan" for 
untold generations. Until not so long ago even immigrants from another 
county less than 50 miles away suffered this same hostility. Just two 
examples : you go to the farmers coop to buy chicken food and you are told 
that they are completely out of it while you can see a pile of bags lying 
there. If you push further that pile has all been sold to someone else.
Another case where a new immigrant wanted a new roof put on the house they 
bought and the local contractor took the old roof down and then was too busy 
to start the rest of the job for over a year.

Another thing is that there is a mutual inability to understand one another. 
When a native says "yes" this does not necessarily mean yes. Or if you are 
told : "you can count on it, I'll be there on Monday." This could mean next 
Monday or Monday in six months time or never. I am still amazed that my 
children who arrived here as babies and grew up here can actually usually 
understand what "yes" or "next Monday" actually mean. To me it is obvious 
that you need an enormous amount of background knowledge to do that and that 
is what my kids spend 12 years in school at.

Then there are the bad soil in much of West Cork where agricultural produce 
has been exported from for 800 years with never anything being put back in 
the ground. And of course an unpredictable climate. When we arrived here 
early summer 25 years ago I started planting a garden and we lost just about 
every crop we attempted. In those early days you could fill a ten liter 
bucket with slugs in an hour after dark. Then there were rodents that ate 
the potatoes that were forming before they were anywhere ripe. And there 
were and still are gazillions of midges that drive man and beast to 
distractions by sucking blood. Every single bite feels like a mini electric 
shock. They get in your nostrils and ears and climb up into your pants legs. 
They cover every bare spot of your body in their thousands.

Not difficult to see why most town folk have some problems with all that. 
When we started here we were broke after buying the property but we had 
burned our bridges and had to succeed. There was no way back. Our container 
with furniture took 8 months to arrive so we did without furniture of any 
sort for a long time. It is obvious that most relationships break up when 
times get tough. (I am extremely lucky that my better half is at least as 
tough as am I if not more so.)
We saw some couples borrow money from the banks to keep up a certain life 
style and then waste it on frivolous things. Others took fairly menial jobs 
and then spend to keep up with the Joneses and failed.


Most of the survivors obviously had plenty capital to fall back on and some 
even started thriving businesses but not one of them in farming or food 
production. Many started with food production or some form of farming. The 
ones that survived at all found another form of income, one even by starting 
a pyramid ponzi scheme. He got out to Portugal with a lot of loot just 
before everybody got wise. He would probably have been killed if he had not 
run away.

That should be a start to think about Paul,
John

> Instead of venturing my own guesses, what's your belief about the Cork 
> settlers failing? That's actually a serious point to explore.
>
> My feeling is people won't work at it hard enough or bend enough to make 
> it until they're forced to by the direst circumstances. If that's the norm 
> then they'll have zero time in preparation and hit the ground real hard.
>
> It'll be hard enough for those of us learning all the DIY and community.
>
> paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>
> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
>
> On 6/21/2011 at 8:29 PM John D'hondt wrote:
>
> > At least in the last five years I have put out feelers to people who
> > might
> > possibly fit in our almost self sufficient family community. No takers,
> > except a few who would sink our communal boat in short order if they were
> > encouraged or allowed to stay.
> > A great many enthusiast who had read John Seymour's books about self
> > sufficiency settled independently in West Cork, Ireland in the last 20
> > years
> > to live the "good life". I have seen most of them fail and that was in
> > times
> > when one could easily afford to make a few mistakes. We are now coming
> > into
> > times where one mistake can upset survival on the land.
> > I have become seriously pessimistic over the years that a transition back
> > to
> > the land is possible for most.
> > john
> >
> > >   "Finding a place in the country is central to surviving the next few
> > > decades, but the best land for gardening is both crowded and expensive.
> > To
> > > a very large extent, where we need to live is not where we can live. "
>
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