permaculture

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

Rain Tenaqiya wrote:
> It seems to me the only way to make farms sustainable is to compost municipal sewage and 
> send it back to the farms that support the cities.  Whether this could be achieved without fossil fuels is the question.  

It is unclean and unfit for farm use on food/forage/feed crops. Because 
(some) people dump nasties into the sewage system,
deliberately or in ignorance. Enter industrial ecology: reclamation of 
polluted waste products using biological reclamation methods,
bioremediation, either reclaim and recycle or safely dispose of or neutralize 
risks from.

> My understanding of biodynamic farming is that there are no external inputs.  Is this sustainable over the long-term?  
> Is it possible to use deep-rooted plants and nutrient accumulators to create a nutrient steady-state in the agroecosystem?  
> Or is this just an unsustainable mining of the soil?  Whatever the answers, we need to move food around a lot less than we 
> are right now and adding to the local economy by growing food for others is better than shopping at Walmart.

Grow what can be grown in any particular season locally for local 
distribution and consumption. Only import essentials like citrus
and apples.

Untold tons of farm wastes are * going * to * waste *. Manure, hay, silage, other ag waste products: get it from local sources and apply it 
in maximum allowable quantities on land to be put in production; same with rock dusts from quarries: put it on by the hundreds of tons,
as much as soil will allow. Jump start land this way then add no more than occasional top dressing and cover crops tilled under or sheet 
mulched from then on or as needed by market operations growing heavy feeders.

Till, extensively, once, after adding amendments, then no more or with rarely 
with minimally invasive equipment.

1) Apply amendments
2) bottom plow, Yeomans plow, cultivate with tillage tool, rotovate 
(tractor-mounted rototiller), hill and/or bed - make raised beds (46")
   with hiller/bedder implement [Roll-A-Cone makes the best one available].

Do this once then plant and tilth/cultivate minimally, with hand tools, or 
notill, for the next hundreds of years.
Walking paths, drainage channels and water impoundment is achieved along with 
bed preparation.
3 acres of land can be turned into productive raised growing beds within one 
year this way, permanent tilth, compaction never again.

I have achieved this on my land and have some of the finest garden dirt in North Carolina. I spent longer than 12 months in preparation but 
could have done it in that amount of time.

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