Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

We are lucky that way. We almost always have at least ten different greens growing outside al winter. The only problem is to get the crops in in time which is for most before mid August. This probably due to fast daylight hours shortening after this time. When we get a bad summer, which is quite often, then summer crop harvest is delayed and winter seedlings can not be planted in time. These then stand without too much growth until Spring when they all boom together.

John

I'm using a mulch mix that does double duty, shade the bed soil in summer heat, & break down & feed the soil thru fall & winter. More of the same in spring when I transplant into the same beds. This is a big departure from Jeavons' & makes less work with the "more food production in less space". I'm thinking when people go out & buy bagged compost the best thing they can do with it is use it for mulch.

Haven't seen our first frost yet, can't recall harvesting tomatoes this late in Sept. Not complaining! We're trying to have greens to harvest straight thru winter this time. With UNheated homemade greenhouse, we can cover inside beds with plastic and/or old sheets, with a light bulb hanging under each cover. It worked last winter, so long as we have a couple winter markets each month, we'll go for it. Spinach, arugula, & kales - true Siberian & Western Front.

On 9/27/2014 2:25 PM, John D'hondt wrote:

Could not agree more Paul. Except that I would be careful of calling what we need "technology". I would rather call it ecological cleverness. There is a teaming mass of living organisms, an ecosystem, under our feet and they will do a lot of the work for no cost at all and they will do it a lot better than any "technology" we can come up with. Be smart and there is absolutely no need to till or even to work the compost into the top few inches of the soil. The organisms in the dirt will do all that for free and more, they will keep your crops healthy without any need for human action.

Just feed your micro-herd, usually called soil because the co-workers are usually so small as to be invisible for us, from time to time and do not compact the beasties/soil as happens when big machines are used.

John

You spotted it; that was my #1 gag. Of course lots of no-till is chemical free. Let me add I don't see reaching 10 billion at all. Mother Nature has her ways & we're starting to see that already.

The writer says "Even small-scale farming leads to the clear-cutting of land, the reduction of biodiversity, widespread soil erosion, and the kill-off of otherwise beneficial insects". Well, it does with industrial farming Methods but it's not at all because it's small scale. And we don't need "the latest technology", we need the oldest technology. We've long known small farms are far more productive than corporate gigafarms.

"Even if the world's farmers were willing to shift to organic, it's not clear that it could produce enough to feed the planet without cultivating what little land remains in the wild (goodbye, Amazon rainforest!" But he already brought up the livestock impact; yet can't see that producing food just for people would free up plenty of land for future populations.

And GMOs do nothing but sell herbicides.

paul

On 9/26/2014 2:22 PM, John D'hondt wrote:

Well, it is a repetition of all the old myths and very few of these stand up to a critical look.
Hunter gatherers having an easy time is only true when there is big game (big enough to feed a family for a week) in big numbers and humans have good long distance weapons.
And  human numbers reaching 10 billion some time in the near future... Humans only managed to reach over the 1 billion because of oil and we have reached peak oil and the carrying capacity (sustainable number) of the planet for humans is now not much bigger than 200 million.
And so on. You don't need any pesticides for no-till but of course you are limited as to acreage because it means more work.
John

anyone want to punch holes in this? before I do

Menu for a Hot Planet (wrong in so many ways)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-feffer/menu-for-a-hot-planet_b_5881068.html

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