permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

ontignano wrote:

> Fukuoka makes it abundantly clear in
> 'One-Straw Revolution' that soil, left to itself, becomes more and not less
> fertile.

This is probably true as long as erosion doesn't happen.
When I bought my land in 1978 it had been fallow for many years. After a rain 
I could walk out
into the fields and as I stepped on the wet soil I could hear popping and 
snapping sounds as
air was forced out of the soil porespace by water that had soaked into it. I 
could see countless
places where air emerged at the soil surface, bubbling through shallow pools 
of water.

> Very simply Emilia believed that given the appropriate use of rotation and
> succession in market gardens (truck farms) and broadscale field crops,
> returning all unused parts of the crops back to the field, then annual crops
> can be grown in a soil that becomes progressively more fertile: This she
> called Synergistic Agriculture.

In pictures in this page: http://www.seedballs.com/hazelip.html there are 
many raised beds
shown laid out in parallel with paths. What sort of tillage methods did she 
use and did she do
this work herself?
Have you seen the book: "Intensive Culture of Vegetables - French System" by 
A, Aquatias?

I guess you are living in Italy now?

LL
--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech