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  • From: Tripp Tibbetts <slowfoodguy@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Double-dug?
  • Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2009 15:56:34 -0800 (PST)

I'm not sure I am talking about market gardening and permaculture on the same
site, so this discussion may be moot.
 
BUT:
Around 1700 an English lawyer named Jethro Tull observed (ostensibly without
the assistance of an Aqualung) that vegetables grew better in soil that had
been broken up.  He deduced from this observation that plant roots must have
little mouths with which to eat particles of soil.  How else would they
acquire nutrients?  Believing that cultivated soil consisted of smaller
particles that would fit more easily into the little root mouths, he invented
a horse-drawn plow to put his hypothesis to the test.  His work attracted the
attention of gentleman farmers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson,
who encouraged American farmers to do likewise.
 
For reasons completely unrelated to cultivation, this method DID improve
vegetable production in colonial America.  The more perennial the biomass of
an ecosystem, the more its soil biota is dominated by fungi.  Annual
vegetables, on the other hand, prefer a soil biota dominated by bacteria.  So
by removing the forests from future agricultural plots and tilling, not only
were there no trees in the way of New England's row crops, but the
fungally-dominated soils of the forest were undone, and the manure that was
tilled in swung the soil biota rapidly in favor of the bacteria.  Perfect
recipe for turnips and cabbage!
 
The practice of cultivation is so deeply ingrained in the American psyche
that it has become dogma, and self-evident in its beneficence, despite the
fact that we know good and well that plant roots don't have mouths. 
 
So if you're preparing a vegetable plot from a former forest, then by all
means, chop up the fungal network and add manure or green compost.  But if
you have established garden beds, then utilize and guide the soil food web to
maximize production and spare your back.
 
To read more about gardening with the soil food web, check out Teaming With
Microbes, by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis.
 
I might add as a more observational footnote, that, with the exception of
legumes, Nature doesn't fertilize anywhere but on the surface.  Occasionally
organic material is ground into the top few inches of soil by ungulates, but
other than that, it's pretty much mulch and rain.  And the Piedmont clays of
the southeast are probably the MOST likely to benefit from
biologically-derived soil structure.  Humble earthworm indeed.
 
Tripp out.



The best fertilizer is the gardener's shadow.
-Chinese proverb
 

--- On Mon, 12/7/09, Lawrence F. London, Jr. <lflj@bellsouth.net> wrote:


From: Lawrence F. London, Jr. <lflj@bellsouth.net>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Double-dug?
To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Monday, December 7, 2009, 10:00 PM


Tripp Tibbetts wrote:
> No, I didn't mean to say that.  But your garden is your garden.  Double-dig
> if you like.
> 
> I'd wager that if you knew the true origins of cultivation, you'd be a bit
> embarrassed that you ever subscribed to such an idea...

I do this for a living and have selected the best methods to use to build
productive soil.
Why would I waste my money on an unsustainable method or one that doesn't
work?

> I'd wager that if you knew the true origins of cultivation, you'd be a bit
> embarrassed that you ever subscribed to
such an idea...

Why don't you give us more information about this with references. If  you
are using Fukuoka as an example I can
understand when notill might be useful, in fact I am using that method right
now over a large area of fallow garden.

If you're talking about doing permaculture and market farming at the same
time at the same site, and you're not on 10'
deep praier black loam soil, then notill won't lead to acceptable
productivity.
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> But then I live in a climate where raised beds are a good choice. They
> also are not a one-size-fits-all tactic.
>
>

I remembered to trim my post!
I'm writing to ask which climate you are in.
Someone suggested that it would be a good idea to include some geographical
notes with our submissions.

Thanks!
Frances





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