permaculture

["Kathleen O'Brien Blair" <hanaueroak@comcast.net>]

Paul said:
"I feel compelled to make a plug for working carefully with your
existing 
mineral base.  Although we can manipulate the pools of various elements 
in the soil, I'd be willing to bet that the continuous availability of 
those elements is dependant on biological activity that increases the 
cycling of elements, and their incorporation into soil food webs.  And 
that stable humus so strongly mediates cation exchange and phosphorus 
cycling that increasing the insoluble pool is less critical than good 
cycling and biological development in many soils. " 


I think that's true to large extent in many places. However, I would
like to plead the case that our Cascadia Bioregion, specifically, the
Willamette Valley Bioregion, and more specifically the Kalapuya area
where I live, has some unique challenges in that regard. (I see
Bioregions much as Russian nesting dolls - one nested inside another
from the spring, rill, burn, & creek level up - and so forth.)

Since I am not Native here - i.e. I'm not *from* here  I have to rely on
sources of information about this area that are outside of my own
Ancestral Heritage Memory Tradition & Experience, (hereinafter called
AHMTE). (If you wanted to know about the Bioregion of the Missouri River
valley, specifically the bend at Parkville, MO, south of the confluence
of the Platte River at Farley, MO, at the confluence of Brush and White
Aloe Creeks, fast below the limestone cliffs and the falls of Falling
Springs, - I could give you 5 generations of AHMTE right off the top of
my head.)

Specifically for the purposes of this post, I am relying on the NW Earth
Institute's book "Discovering a Sense of Place" Session 3, "Knowing Your
Bioregion" for  the following information. I have not been able to
verify any of this info with the Grande Ronde Confederation and the
Kalapuya representative thereto, so I choose to assume the research for
this book was well and properly done by going to primary sources of
AHMTE such as the local First Peoples.

In the Kalapuya sub-Bioregion, due to Cascadia's strong Maritime
influence, our winters are *very* wet - lots of rain, onto a largely
clay base (we used to be an inland sea). Our summers are warm and dry.
Roughly 3 months of dry and 9 months of wet.

The large amounts of rain wash huge amounts of minerals out of the
soils. Native plants have adapted to that scenario, but they carry much
less calcium, selenium, boron and other solubles.

In many parts of Cascadia, the Salmon - the Holy Salmon - are the
Transfer People  - the Tradition Bearers if you will - for Marine carbon
and other Marine minerals. But not in this particular local.
Traditionally, mostly, the salmon didn't come this far up the
Willamette, because there were not fish ladders at the time of pre-white
settlement, and the basalt cliffs at the northern end of the river
blocked them. The exception was the small spring Chinook Salmon run but
even that was sparse, and in any event, the more powerful Chinook people
at those falls controlled access to the salmon and didn't let other
tribes, such as the Kalapuya, come to harvest salmon - only river eels. 

So the long and short is that these soils are traditionally short in the
very  minerals needed to grow the food crops we European and African
descendants want to  have in our permayardens. Which is part of what
makes them so good for grapes. Ironic, ain't it?

So, even if we increase bioavailability with more humus content (and
mycorrhizal cultures as well - the Mothers of all Guilds) , we still
need to supplement minerals. If it's not in the soil in the first place,
all the bioavailability in the world won't help, and thus, it won't get
into the food supply and into us.

Paul said:
Rock powders obtained from far flung surface mining conglomerates, are
energy intensive commodities -- and there are local sources of waste
phosphorus.

Yes, absolutely - I agree. 


Best Regards,

Kathleen O'Brien Blair
Master Gardener Coordinator, McMinnville Community Garden @ Salvation
Army