North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Thomas Olenio" <tolenio@sentex.net>]

Hello,

Hosptials are supposed to be "sterile", healthy enviroments, but nobody is  
asking to admitted to them.  Ha, ha, ha.

Plants, like people, thrive better in the wild, than in sterile  
environments.

Later,
Tom


On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 12:35:07 -0400, road's end farm  
<organic101@linkny.com> wrote:

> On Apr 18, 2005, at 10:38 AM, David W Hausmann wrote:
>
> >   I felt it
> > would be better to have chemically equivalent material and therefore the
> > proper nutrients, similar to adding lime, rather than using compost with
> > all of the biological contaminants possible due to animal  
> > "contributions"
> > of one form or another.  With [an extreme, I know, but...] mad cow
> > disease, bird flu, etc., etc., I felt give me good old chemically pure
> > and relatively or completely biologically inactive fertilizer any time.
>
> Healthy soil isn't sterile -- one could say that sterile soil is the  
> opposite of fertile soil. Properly made compost is full of beneficial  
> organisms, that should encourage and add to the beneficial organisms  
> naturally in your soils. Many synthetic fertilizers are caustic, and may  
> damage the beneficials.
>
> Soil full of healthy beneficials is less likely to have pathogenic  
> (harmful) microorganisms, as the beneficials usually crowd them out. If  
> you kill off the beneficials, you may well leave an excellent breeding  
> ground for the pathogens.
>
> The beneficials will also improve your soil tilth. If you kill off all  
> the organisms (micro and macro) in your soil, leaving a "biologically  
> inactive" situation, your soil will turn into a compacted rock-like mass  
> or into sterile sand. It's the healthy biological activity in your soil  
> that keeps it able to hold nutrients, and the right mix of water and  
> air. Soils with less organic matter dry out faster, flood more easily,  
> and are harder to work; as well as harder for roots to penetrate.
>
> You shouldn't, of course, dump raw manure straight on the lettuce; and  
> organic standards prohibit this.
>
> --Rivka
> Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostly
>
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