permaculture

[YankeePerm@aol.com]

In a message dated 11/1/97 2:01:25 PM, you wrote:

>This makes a good argument for constant-mulched, no-till gardening, as does
>
>the erosion cited by Dan, as does simple ergonomic sanity. Rodale Inst., by
>
>the way, has found a great decline in the germination of weed seed
>
>resulting from soil disturbance, if weeding and/or digging is done at
>
>night, and soil thus disturbed is re-mulched before daylight returns. 
>
>
>
>Jack
>

Tillage has its place.  Back around 1981 my second permaculture teaching job
was as adjunct faculty to the "Health Ministers" program at Anne Wigmore's
Hippocrates Institute in Boston.  (Anne subsequently lost her institute to
devious politics and then tragically died in a fire.)  On the basis of some
discussions at a booth I set up in the Boston Common on World Food Day, the
eduction director, Pam Hoy if I recall  correctly, decided that they had to
have permaculture because they couldn't separate human health from the health
of the planet that supports them.  I was too new to teaching PC to be
suitably impressed, though in retrospect, with 16 years teaching this stuff,
I realize that is uncommon perspecacity.  (I mention all this for the benefit
of people sarting out.)

Anyway, there was a suburban house lot in a bedroom town near Boston that
Hippocrates people called "the farm" because it supplied fresh grown greens.
 For one group of students, it worked out that it was appropriate for us to
visit "the farm."  This was a very ecologically unsound operation where all
the compostables from Hippocrates were trucked (well probably carred) to "the
farm" and composted and used to grow greens, etc., that were trucked back to
the city.  (Anne had also set up a composting operation in the basement, a
vermicomposting operation, for the wheat grass and other seedling mats to be
composted to develop new material in which to grow sprouts.)  Well we got
 there and got the grand tour, which took about 5 minutes as it was really
just a yard put to productive use.  The gardener complained to me that his
crops (I recall lettuce) were over-run with weeds.  Well the weeds were
amaranth and chenopodium, both among the most nutritious greens in the world.
 My suggestion was to pull out the lettuce and compost it and grow the weeds.
 As they get stringy, I suggested that he run his rototiller down the bed and
turn them under. New weeds would come up, due to the exposure to light.  If
he staggared this operation, he would have a continuous supply of greens of
superior value for which the main labor, the beds being already in place, was
harvesting.  He could apply the compost just before tilling.  He understood
perfectly but "it didn't seem right."  It didn't fit established and
entrenched ideas of what one eats and how much work one must do to grow it.  

There is no worry about running out of seed.  Weed seeds, some kinds, live
thousands of years in the soil.  I have a picture of lambs quarters (C. alba)
that shows the dead stalk against snow and the snow is just heavily peppered
with seeds that the wind has dislodged from the seed heads.  Thousands and
thousands and thousands of seeds are visibile from this one plant.  There is
no such thing as getting rid of weeds.

Good thing, I'd say.  They are the soil's equivalant to   the clotting
mechanism in our blood--they plug wounds.  Yea, weeds!  Different weeds, by
their presence, absence and condition, tell us the condition of the soil, its
pH, calcium levels, NPK, etc.  In my view, I would rather know the local
weeds than be bothered with soil tests, even if free, because the weeds tell
me EXACTLY what is adapted--what kinds of plants to grow.  Trying to grow
anyhing else on a continued basis can be a type 1 error.  For example, though
we have limestone bedrock here, the sand is completely leached of calcium and
dandilions will not grow.  To raise calcium-loving plants, inasmuch as the
limestone is below the water table, means I have to pay someone to strip-mine
another part of the state and crush the stone.  Perpetually, as the calcium
leaches away.  So I am better to grow my calcium-loving annuals in a zone 1
garden where I can apply wood ash and other concentrator materials and grow
what suits the soil in its present state.  The weeds instruct me in this.
 I'm a little lost as some of the weeds here are still unfamiliar to me, but
observation is how I learned about weeds to begin with.  Meanwhile, we have
our own strain of Chenopodium that we will broadcast on the better soil (it
is a rich-soil weed) to provide a vegetable and serve as a concentrator of
minerals, including Ca.

By the way, Larry, to my knowledge, neither the Chenopodia nor the Amaranthi
are alleopathic to my knowledge.  They are heavy feeders, drink deeply, and
get large enough to shade competition but in rich soil with, say, maize, they
stand right along side.  I always let them get a few feet high in the corn
patch before I pulled them for the animals.  For ourselves, I like the
younger growth.  

By the way, both genera contain oxalyc acid in the leaves, with amaranthus
being the larger source.  (They are members of the beet family--I think the
entire family has this trait.)  Oxalyc acid is useful for mobilizing uptake
of some minerals, such as iron, but blocks uptake of Calcium to some extent.
 Therefore it is wise to alternate greens.  The trendy habit of mixing all
kinds of greens in one dish may taste good to some people (I'm game for
greens in any cooked form), but alternating types between those that have
oxalyc acid and those that do not is a good idea, particularly for women and
children, where uptake of calcium can be critical to future health, beast
feeding, embryo development and or bone growth. Likewise, the iron and other
mineral hit from the beet-family vegetables and weeds is very useful.
 Chenopodium probably is the most mineral rich of any green vegetable,
assuming that we want high quantities of many minerals, not just unusually
quantities of a few.  It is also very high in protein.  

Lets think things through before we mulch out all the weeds.  Of course we
can save seed, as I do with chenopodium, and broadcast it on top of the mulch
to get the weeds we most want and eliminate some others.  

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since
1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses,
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and now correspondence
courses via email.  Next live training:  Paraguay, Sept. 1998. Internships
available. Copyright, 1997, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O. Box 52, Sparr FL
32192 USA  YankeePerm@aol.com  

We don't have time to rush.