The Lowdown on Topsoil: It’s Disappearing

The planet is getting skinned.

While many worry about the potential consequences of atmospheric warming, a few experts are trying to call attention to another global crisis quietly taking place under our feet.

Call it the thin brown line. Dirt. On average, the planet is covered with little more than 3 feet of topsoil — the shallow skin of nutrient-rich matter that sustains most of our food and appears to play a critical role in supporting life on Earth.

“We’re losing more and more of it every day,” said David Montgomery, a geologist at the University of Washington. “The estimate is that we are now losing about 1 percent of our topsoil every year to erosion, most of this caused by agriculture.”

“It’s just crazy,” fumed John Aeschliman, a fifth-generation farmer who grows wheat and other grains on the Palouse near the tiny town of Almota, just west of Pullman.

“We’re tearing up the soil and watching tons of it wash away every year,” Aeschliman said. He’s one of a growing number of farmers trying to persuade others to adopt “no-till” methods, which involve not tilling the land between plantings, leaving crop stubble to reduce erosion and planting new seeds between the stubble rows.

Montgomery has written a popular book, “Dirt,” to call public attention to what he believes is a neglected environmental catastrophe. A geomorphologist who studies how landscapes form, Montgomery describes modern agricultural practices as “soil mining” to emphasize that we are rapidly outstripping the Earth’s natural rate of restoring topsoil.

“Globally, it’s clear we are eroding soils at a rate much faster than they can form,” said John Reganold, a soils scientist at Washington State University. “It’s hard to get people to pay much attention to this because, frankly, most of us take soil for granted.”

The National Academy of Sciences has determined that cropland in the U.S. is being eroded at least 10 times faster than the time it takes for lost soil to be replaced.

The United Nations has warned of worldwide soil degradation — especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where soil loss has contributed to the rapidly increasing number of malnourished people.

Healthy topsoil is a biological matrix, a housing complex for an incredibly diverse community of organisms — billions of beneficial microbes per handful, nitrogen-fixing fungi, nutrients and earthworms whose digestive tracts transform the fine grains of sterile rock and plant detritus into the fertile excrement that gave rise to the word itself (”drit,” in Old Norse).

As such, true living topsoil cannot be made overnight, Montgomery emphasized. Topsoil grows back at a rate of an inch or two over hundreds of years. Very slowly.

“Globally, it’s pretty clear we’re running out of dirt,” Montgomery said.

Ron Myhrum, state soil scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s office in Spokane, agreed that global soil loss is a huge problem. But Myhrum said erosion rates in the Northwest region have improved recently because of better conservation farming practices, including federal payments to farmers to leave some natural ground cover in highly erodible areas.

“We don’t have the kind of dust storms here we used to have,” Myhrum said. “What’s more alarming to me than erosion is conversion of farmland to urban use.”

That is indeed another way to lose soil — paving it over. Judy Herring, manager of King County’s farmland preservation program, said the county has lost 60 percent of its farmland since the 1960s. In 1979, Herring said, voters approved a bond program that buys back farmland to protect it from development (and has done this for 13,200 acres so far).

But while some land is lost to development, pollution or changing weather patterns, Montgomery, Reganold and others say global soil loss is a crisis mostly rooted in agriculture.

“Erosion rates have improved here, but that doesn’t mean they’re good,” Reganold said. Topsoil clearly is still being stripped off faster than it can be regenerated, he said.

Aeschliman, the Palouse farmer, a stocky and energetic man who doesn’t seem to notice that he’s in his 60s, stood on a dirt road looking at the difference between his land and that of a neighbor. Because most neighbors are relatives, he did not provide any names here.

“Just look at that!” he bellowed, pointing to a series of water-carved cracks and gouges running down a recently tilled field of wheat. Every year, he said, these fields are tilled and the rains come, washing the soil down into the road so deep the county routinely has to dig it out. The rest of the soil runs off to the Snake River and, eventually, to the Pacific.

“Here, look at this stuff,” Aeschliman said as he held up a handful of the fine brown silt that had eroded off his neighbor’s (cousin’s) hillside. “Now, look over here.”

He walked across the road to his no-till wheat field. Unlike the rolling hills of loose dirt on the tilled field, Aeschliman’s field looks more like a shag rug, with its rows of dead wheat stubble. He reached down into the dirt and pulled out a coarsely textured, much darker clump of dirt, roots and debris.

“This soil is full of worms, bacteria and all sorts of life,” Aeschliman said. “And it stays put. That stuff over there (waving his thick hand back behind him) is just powder, brown dust. It’s dead. There’s no worms, no life in it.”

Thirty years ago, Aeschliman was one of the first in the Palouse to grow his grains using no-till farming methods. He’s an ardent no-till proselytizer today, but he didn’t abandon tilling the fields based on some organic epiphany or desire to save the world.

“I just got tired of all the mud,” Aeschliman said. The family home, built in the 1880s, sits at the base of a long drainage off the rolling wheat fields. Every spring, with the tilling and the rain, his home would be a foot deep in muddy runoff.

No-till farming could do a lot to reduce topsoil erosion, Reganold said, but it’s not without its downsides. Switching to no-till farming requires heavy upfront investment and learning new techniques, he said, and also tends to depend more on herbicides because the weeds are no longer controllable by plowing them into the soil.

Organic farming methods also can reduce soil loss, Reganold said. He cited his own research, which has shown a marked increase in soil health, water retention and regrowth when organic methods are used rather than the traditional methods.

A regional association of farmers and other proponents of no-till agriculture, also known as direct-seed farming, is holding its annual meeting in Kennewick next week. Aeschliman is one of the founders of the organization, the Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Association, and is happy to see that no-till farming is growing in popularity.

“It’s both good for the soil and good for your pocketbook,” he said.

P-I reporter Tom Paulson can be reached at 206-448-8318 or tompaulson@seattlepi.com.

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36 Comments so far

scottdw January 22nd, 2008 12:47 pm

We are screwing ourselves. I really fear for my childrens’ futures.

lexington January 22nd, 2008 1:49 pm

Is now the time to start growing your own food??????
High oil prices, contaminated food, diabetes, heart disease, fast food and now disappearing soil.
Where is the philiosophy of self-reliance where we need it most?

Stop abdicating responsibility
Please check out wegrowfood.com and join a movement.

greenerthanthou January 22nd, 2008 2:54 pm

I had that book. I liked it so much I lent it to a friend and never got it back.

No-till is how they sell Roundup, by the way.

The idea is to poison the weeds and then plant the soybeans in the stubble. The soybeans do grow well. The farmer next to me used to farm his soybean field like that.

But now, get this. He spreads sewage sludge on the field, and tills it, and THEN uses Roundup.

The field is covered with tampon inserters that women flushed and that didn’t decompose in the sewage plant. Duh.
And gross.

rtdrury January 22nd, 2008 3:07 pm

Intensive grain farming in the US will create a 300 million acre dust bowl in the US midwest by 2040. The Pentagon will declare an emergency, and seize Central America, and shift hamburger production there. Americans will nod approvingly to the new taste sensation.

US intensive farming serves to consume US finance, petro-chemical, heavy machinery and military enterprise outputs. The value of the farming output is terrible considering the costs, including soil depletion, and the opportunity cost of the wasted inputs.

No-till farming has been around for many millenia. Australia is getting a clue: The use of trees and shrubs for livestock production

Though trees/shrubs for animal fodder deliver five to twenty times the value of intensively farmed grain, shifting to trees/shrubs should not be a license to continue devoting 80% of arable land to livestock production. Instead, we should cut out 80% of the livestock production, and still shift to trees/shrubs.

We only need to farm 20% of arable land instead of the current 90%. The remainder can grow up as forest, and we can put the towns in the forest with a few meadows dispersed around for beauty. Why not make the landscape idyllic and thriving too?

Better than capitalist death/destruction, don’t you think?

KEM PATRICK January 22nd, 2008 3:18 pm

We can always kick rocks. That’s what they do in Aroostook County Maine in August. Nothin much else goin on there. It snows every other month. An inch in July and three feet in September, by March 20 feet has fallen.

baruch January 22nd, 2008 3:23 pm

We can build topsoil through using tried and true organic and permaculture practices. Building topsoil sequesters carbon from the atmosphere in the soil. Permaculture ethics: Care for Earth, Care for People, Share the surplus. The more people learn and take up these practices, the more we can rebuild topsoil.

http://earthactivisttraining.org is a good resource!

kelmer January 22nd, 2008 3:39 pm

There is a way of grinding rocks into a nutrient rich soil. They do it in parts of England I believe.

But people need to stop treating Nature with disrespect.
They never seem to learn though.

Notice all the panic about stocks and so little about pollution.

greenskier January 22nd, 2008 3:59 pm

Well stated baruch.

I have an organic garden where I use the leaves collected from my landscape business as a source of organic matter. The leaves are a good mulch (less weeds and watering) and help replenish (less fertilizer) the soil. At the end of the growing season I till the remaining leaves under and spread new ones, preventing soil erosion over the winter. The food grown is better than any store bought stuff and saves a lot of money.

A simple organic garden is one of the best ways to help the environment !

KEM PATRICK January 22nd, 2008 5:35 pm

We plant our garden with soybeans and purple vetch, then cover the area well with alfalfa cubes and composted steer manure. We turn it all in just before the soybeans flower. We also have added earthworms and plant peas in the spring and turn those in. You have to coat the bean seeds with an bactia activator, which is available at seed outlets. We have converted an acre field of mostly rocks, into a very healthy organic garden.

ezeflyer January 22nd, 2008 6:13 pm

When my family lived near the beach, on a piece of land filled with rocky rubble, we had no topsoil. It took us a few years of spreading rain-washed seaweed on it over a little compost to make plants grow. Crabs helped by loosening and aerating the rubble. I would yank weed clumps, turn them over and leave them to rot where they grew. Their decomposition somehow inhibited the growth of more weeds. I would pee around plants, urine being sterile, to provide nitrogen. I did not water the plants and grew only native plants and fruit trees from that part of the Caribbean that thrived on the average rainfall. It was a lush flowering jungle when we left, with singing insects, birds, frogs and lizards. It took us about ten years to restore the land.

Greg R January 22nd, 2008 6:52 pm

I no-til farm to save the soil and hold down on energy use. This is more important than a little judicious chemical usage or gm concern. Do remember all you ‘organic only’ shoppers, some organic farmers substitute extensive tillage for chemicals, leaving the soil ‘open’ to exessive erosion. Just because it says ‘organic’ does not mean it is wonderful.

ruthru January 22nd, 2008 7:04 pm

ezeflyer,

EEEEEeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwhhhhhhhh!

johnwyclif January 22nd, 2008 7:37 pm

Once in a while I hear of someone or other suggesting that when the climate change warms the tundra, it will be a terrific bread basket.
I just can’t figure out where the topsoil is going to come from.

Compost and enrichment of soil is okay for all those who have some land.
But, we have a lot of people to feed, adn most of them don’t have land.

When I would listen to the real old timers tell their stories about the Great Depression, especially on the Canadian Prairies, what struck me was that a lot got through each day, not by retreating into an isolated world of just looking after ones’self, but by working and cooperating with others around,-neighbours, and strangers passing through.
(The Black Plague wasn’t dealt with by the rich who ran away to their mountain chalets; it was dealt with by people who stayed and worked together for the common good.)

wrenwren January 22nd, 2008 7:55 pm

Actually Greg, the law used to state that produce could not be labeled organic unless it had been grown on soil which hadn’t used synthetic chemicals for any purpose for at LEAST seven years. Maybe the laws have changed?

wdmax3 January 22nd, 2008 7:57 pm

This is sooooo old, and yet it seems to be new news. No-till has been an viable answer to the problems caused by our agricultural practices, but we still go about it in the age old “that’s how my father did it” yankee stupidity.

The article I read about 15 years ago stated that herbicides and insecticides (as well as fertilizer) can be reduced and even eliminated if the farmer planted amongst the weeds and natural plants giving the insects something else to feed on. During harvesting the stalks and weeds were mulched to form a layer of organic debris where insects and bacteria consumed it to make a fertile bed for the following years crop or dormancy.

The problem Americans (westerners) have is that we believe that we can dominate our natural environment ( I wonder were that came from ). We are about to find out that our natural environment is going to show us just how much control we have. So,get ready folks it aint gonna be pretty…

ezeflyer - urine is sterile to “your body” only, and that’s only right after it comes out. After a few minutes bacteria will invade the urine and start to convert it to ammonia NH3 and other substances good for plants.

Human Fecal matter and urine was used in farming long before we had fertilizers or at least was the first fertilizer. Poor rural areas in India have begun (again) to use human feces and urine for creating fertile soil for crops just recently. Modern composting uses cow manure as a key component of fertile soils in neighborhood gardens (composting crates heat, enough to kill e-coli).

Just remember where the modern fertilizers and herbicides come from, when the oil runs out, so will 90% of our chemicals. It seems the phrase “back to basics” will become a modern paradigm in our not so “future” times.

shortattentionspan January 22nd, 2008 8:39 pm

Top soil is easy if you compost and encourage earthworms. It is rather incredible stuff. I have large trees where you can actually see the benefits of composting one side and not other.

SikWilly January 22nd, 2008 9:25 pm

Funny this article just came up. I was thinking the other day about food distribution and its impact on greenhouse gases. That made me think again about the local farmer’s market and trying to buy the families produce from the local guys. That got me thinking even more…

Here in Florida, it is amazing the percentage of home owners who pay landscapers to keep their property looking good. Why don’t these landscapers design landscapes with vegetables and fruit interspersed throughout. It doesn’t take much at all to keep a family knee deep in produce. My one lemon tree provides me with enough lemons to supply half my street block, my fellow employees at the fire station, and my wife’s fellow workers as well! I could imagine, if veggies, fruit, and roots were cultivated in your yards landscaping, it should be sufficient. And concerning the bugs and pests, let them have their share! Christ, if anything that will bring more birds to the area. We need to stop thinking that any life form that doesn’t directly serve our needs or appears to be a nusance should be killed.

www.oneplanetonelife.com

miftin January 22nd, 2008 9:50 pm

The Cuban government has been studying this problem for many years; and in fact has the most top-soil friendly farming techniques in the world, and certain in the Western Hemisphere.

shakker January 22nd, 2008 11:31 pm

Soylent green is the answer. I suggest starting with the rich. They have health care and would be less likely to spread disease.

peaceman January 22nd, 2008 11:59 pm

greenerthanthou

That’s it for me. No more tofu or soymilk.

shortattentionspan

Correct! Earthworms do work wonders with the soil and mulch. Nature’s free aeration of the topsoil. With little effort and no toxic chemicals, we can grow some nourishing foods in a small limited area. One of these days, I might get one of those compast drums for my food waste. Those folks using them tell me the discards decompose a lot quicker as more heat is generated in the barrel.

SikWilly

Well said. When I pick fruit off of a tree or buy it in a farmer’s market or health food store, I just cut the part which may have been pecked on by birds or bugs and eat the rest of it. It’s all okay. They have to eat too.

I think most homes used to have vegetable gardens where the front lawns are now. Supposedly, wealthy Englishman flaunting their wealth, had landscapers install grassy lawns in order to show people they had enough money to buy food from others. True or false, who knows. Your lemon tree is a perfect example of what can be grown with limited space.

Does anybody remember a book from the 70’s called, ‘One Straw Revolution’, writen by a Japanese farmer?

With the government/corporate collaboration, try saving as much seed as possible, for future plantings. Most of you are aware of the ’seed infringement’ policies of the big seed conglomerates.

jungleboy January 23rd, 2008 1:31 am

We till a little area for the compost and we pick all our own weeds. That is the fun part of gardening. Gives me something to do out there ‘every day’ even in winter, few minutes here and there. We have almost leveled out the entire yard with composting. We have raised the whole thing (our plantable area) about an average of two inches in three years. If we didn’t rent, I’d bring the coming pit of a lawn up to level too. I’m kinda new to urban farming but I’m totally surprised how much you can raise the ground with a little work. I started with a small depression in the back to work in, and now its a small hill. Every season it gets tilled, with a shovel, mixing in the leaves and stalks, all my clean wood dust from work and a little lime and yarrow (carpenters herb). (I’m a fine wood butcher.) The first winter we did the landscaping hard part, blackberry removal and digging out the rocks from a full third of our yard (the big depression). The rocks made the path next and we had our first planting in which nothing did good with or with out organic fertilizer. The water would just run to the low spot in the middle of the old deceased patch of soil sucking blackberries, across the dead dry sandy soil. Now, two years later after the first planting, the trees and plants have given enough back to ‘us’ for ‘me’ to have to raise the stone path three more inches from last year when I raised it two! The water sinks right in and stays moist longer, saving water and we are now pulling three and a half foot collard leaves and the chard is unstoppable! Our sickly looking sunflowers have now reached over ten feet, the stalks are a little thin yet but we are on our way! Organics aren’t perfect yet, they take some knowing, but its worth the effort to ease my conscience. Sluggo is the only chemical we have used and should/could probably be organic anyway. In the winter, here in the northwest, we have a totally dead yard (but slugs) the weather is still nice enough to work in. All the plants are under and the compost is warm under the surface. By next year I’m hoping to have the whole thing leveled. I might be pushing that, but its a hope I’ll work for. There, I’ll tell stories and make dirt.

Have you chemical users heard of the flamer? A torch used for killing weeds during the rainy season, it works great I hear, haven’t tried one.

Seeds are the hard part of urban gardening as they become contaminated so fast there is nothing you can do on this small a level. I’m really worried about collard seeds and the lack of local strains of seeds for each area and ‘hand pollinating’ in the future, along with the new(ish) ‘BT’ like spray that kills bees used across the midwest threw coloradio to california used on potato bugs(?)and others sold at the farmers supply shops everywhere used by the big farms. No one is watching them kill the planet as they watch a single non native strain grow and kill off the rest. Plant genocide.

I never thought that chemicals made from petrol could do our plants any good.

Happy Planting!

Treefrog January 23rd, 2008 1:40 am

Peaceman

If you have a couple of earthworm bins, your food waste will be gone in a day or two. You can use anything like a redwood planter or larger plywood box (untreated if you can find it) and use a screen in the bottom. Just don’t compost meat as earthworms do not tolerate fats and citrus. They appreciate coffee grounds as it aids digestion and sweet fruits disappear over night. The soil they produce is nutrient rich and whatever you grow will be noticably stronger. Also you don’t need to add fertilizer to get things to grow. It is actually better if you don’t use chemicals that disrupt the natural process that happens between plants and soil.

minitru January 23rd, 2008 8:15 am

Many people still believe that conventional farming is “normal” while organic farming is kind of weird and uneconomic. The agrochemical industry wants to maintain this false perception for obvious reasons. Biological production methods are ridiculed because they are allegedly not the result of rational thinking but based on “green” ideology, portrayed as a sentimental view of nature which ignores economic realities.

The truth is, that organic farming (OF) is very efficient but “conventional” industrial farming (CIF)is nothing of the sort. The success of CIF seems obvious since the “green revolution” (massive use of agrochemicals)crop yields have increased, doubled or trebled. What these statistics ignore is

1)Energy efficiency: total energy input in CIF is 1o times greater than its output so the apparent “progress” is an illusion. Meat production is especially energy inefficient since 1 calorie of meat requires an input of 7 to 12 plant calories (dependent on the type of animal)

2)Environmental degradation/pollution and Health Risks
Environmental damage is simply not factored in, like most industrial costs it is “externalized” to society. Monoculture and heavy use of unnatural fertilizers and toxic pesticides / herbicides and GMO´s lead to soil degradation, loss of fertility and undermine biodiversity, the foundation of a healthy environment. The cruelty and madness of factory farming requires the increasing use of antibiotics and other chemicals which encourage the rise of new diseases as microbes thrive and mutate under such conditions.

3) Wider, global ecological impact
“Modern” agriculture has contributed a lot to “climate change” since it ignores ecological laws and produces globally
75% of methane (> cattle breeding)
63% of global nitrous oxide (> use of nitrogen fertilizer)
Nitrous oxide absorbs 270 times more heat per molecule than carbon dioxide, and methane absorbs 21 times more heat per molecule than carbon dioxide.
7% of carbondioxide (production and transport of agrochemcials and animal feed)

More information see:
http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/b0062cf005bc02c180256a6b003d987f/d2b3a314a06b799780256fc70039d5ac?OpenDocument

Another huge problem is, that in the current economic market system food is treated like any other commodity. Under the auspices of the WTO, control of food and agricultural policy has more and more shifted from sovereign states to global corporations whose aim is not food security based on sustenance of ecosystems /soil fertility but huge profits and market dominance. Large industrial farms and food multinationals like Nestlé get billions of subsidies while small farms around the world are disappearing. In India, more than 100.000 (no mistake) farmers have committed suicide because of heavy debts. A trade system that favours agrobusiness (> rising production costs, patented GMO´s (which often lead to crop losses) and falling prices for “cash crops”, heavy subsidies in Europe and the US) has killed these farmers and increased the slum population in India.

Falling producer prices lead to a vicious circle of production / productivity increases which in turn leads to even lower producer prices. This is good for food (processing)-multinationals, but bad for people, animals and the environment. If the real damage is factored in, we realize that CI farming is organized madness.We can no longer afford to buy food without asking how it was produced and that “cheap” production is in the long run the most expensive.

Although food production and trade have grown considerably since the foundation of the WTO in 1995 poverty, malnutrition and starvation have also increased and consumer prices are rising everywhere.

Treating living beings like production machines or commodities may lead to short term profits but in the long run it will destroy ecological stability (climate change is only one symptom..), and thus our future.

Books: Earth Democracy, Justice and Sustainability by Dr. Vandana Shive

We Want Real Food by Graham Harvey

Greg R January 23rd, 2008 8:54 am

jungleboy (and other wood butchers who compost)-remember to keep the treated wood and walnut sawdust away from the garden. Walnut is toxic to tomato, apples and several other plants. They say dishes of beer in the garden will cut down on the slugs, but I hate to share. So, I use a little chemical around the hostas, but let the slugs enjoy life elsewhere.

Recycle1 January 23rd, 2008 9:22 am

My father was a Soil Conservationist for the USDA and so I’d heard a lot about this topic at the dinner table growing up. It wasn’t until I was in junior/high school that I realized most kids didn’t have a clue about soil health.

My husband grew up on a dairy farm (small by today’s standards-just 60 head) and they did use chemicals on their feed crops, but not very often (for small farmers, chemicals are too pricey to spray like a daily vitamin). My father in law and his kids would walk/drive the acres and see what weeds were present and only spray that area. Seems like a decent compromise.

We garden organically in our yard. The neighbors who treat their lawns have been great about staying 6-10 feet away from our garden and one has even stopped using chemicals. Slowly we have changed our neighbor’s thinking of lawns and chemicals through amicable conversations and backyard cookouts. Because we don’t use chems, we have a large population of visiting birds, butterflies, bees and other bugs that help keep pests away or under control.

I’ve found a hoe works just fine in the garden at knocking down weeds and hand weeding is a great “chore” for my girls when they are bickering too much!

We have 3 outside compost bins and a couple of rain barrels. Wisconsin usually gets plenty of rain in the summer, though this past July was super dry followed by an incredible amount of rain in August. I blame global warming. Worm bins have been discussed, but I am a bit squeamish about touching the red wigglers (an odd aversion for a gardener).

greatbear215 January 23rd, 2008 9:29 am

Just keep drinking the Kool-aide. You’ll be fine!

peaceman January 23rd, 2008 11:52 am

Treefrog,
Thanks! I wasn’t aware about the citrus intolerance by the earthworms. I never put meat or fats into the heap, but never really knew why everything else was pulverized by the earthworms BUT the organicly grown orange peels. Any suggestion on citrus discards? You’re so right about the sweet fruits. I guess those litle marvels have a taste for sweets, as well.

We use fair trade organically grown coffee, and several times a year I mix some of the grounds into the topsoil. I spread them out thinly. I also spread seaweed powder into the soil, and several years ago, I used a liquid fish/sea vegetation emulsion around the fruit trees. So far, so good.

minitru,
Too bad we don’t have a person like Dr. Vandana Shive in charge of our Dept. of Agriculture.

KEM PATRICK January 23rd, 2008 1:01 pm

Get a bag of alfalfa blocks, not he ones that have other ingredients, just PURE alfalfa and put some in your compost bin, the worms love it also. Alfalfa is one of natures very best fertilizers, lots of minerals and a “green manure”. You can use a little dry dog food in the compost bin also.

Fish of course are perhaps the best fertilizer, a couple of small fish in the bottom of a plant hole, mix in a cut up half a banana, add a crushed one a day vitimain and the tomatoes and squash will thrive. We put a square of cardboard around the tomato plants, with a hole in the center for the plant’s stalk, it keeps the soil moist, the worms congregate under it and it prevents weeds near the plant. You can also plant the French radishes near plants, they grow very fast and give good ground cover and when pulled, help to aireate the soil. The unused leaves also are good green manure.

greenerthanthou January 23rd, 2008 1:11 pm

I would suggest the book “Edible Landscaping”, I believe by Rosalie Creasy (or something like that)

If you buy the red wrigglers from the back of Organic Gardening they cost a fortune. It turns out that they sell them in gas stations in the summer for fishermen for very cheap. I found that out after I spent the big bucks to have them mailed.

Peaceman, the tampons are nothing. I work at a hospital and the nuclear control guy told us at orientation that the city gave the hospital a special dispensation so that we could dump our nuclear waste into the sewage system. Thanks I live right by the sewage treatment plant, and now they’re dumping the toxic sludge on the soybean field. Oh well, I hear toxic sludge is good for you.

Douglas Barnes January 23rd, 2008 4:21 pm

It’s good to see this problem getting publicised despite its lack of sexiness. Soil degradation has literally caused the downfall of more than one civilisation.

KEM PATRICK January 23rd, 2008 6:26 pm

Haiti for just one example ~Douglas~. Haiti is a total barren wasteland. Have you seen what has also happened to Madascar?

Treefrog January 23rd, 2008 8:25 pm

Peaceman

On citrus there is more than one to approach it, depending on how much you have and the time of year. On some farms they just toss it into the orchard and let it decompose naturally. Once the moisture is gone it goes pretty fast. For leaves and trimming I let them dry on the ground and then put them in wire bins above the ground, after that I spread it around or mix it with other compost. I should say that my practice is unconventional and based on experience with what needs to be done. If you have small amounts you can let them dry on top on the ground and then dig them into the soil.

On how long it takes to be considered organic (without agri-chemicals) I think it is 3 years now. Depending on the soil condition it sometimes takes longer, you see a lot of improvement by seven years.

On snails and slugs, well I try to encourage natural predators but that is not always reliable. When I have to many I put them in a can and freeze them. (I know that sounds bad but most baits are a poison so I don’t use it)

Treefrog January 23rd, 2008 8:40 pm

Also you can tell if something likes where it is growing, I have holly hocks that have reseeded themselves for 20 years, they get along with everything including pumkins, mint, oregano, and all sorts of compatable plants. I try not to intervene unless I have to.

peaceman January 23rd, 2008 8:53 pm

Treefrog

I basically do the same with the leaves and the trimming, but I put them in a shallow box to dry, then mix with other compost. I haven’t seen hardly any slugs this past year and very few snails the past two years. I don’t know why.

I think it is 3 years to be considered organic, officially, anyway. One of the growers at a farmer’s market I buy fruit from are 3rd generation organic farmers. Their grapes and raisins are some of the best I’ve ever eaten, and you can “feel” the difference. (in taste and energy, afterwards). Thanks again.

Treefrog January 23rd, 2008 9:28 pm

Peaceman

You are welcome and thanks to you also. Good ideas from everyone here.
I’m posting this link to community support agriculture. I haven’t tried it though this site, I kind of have my own network but I think it is a good idea especially for people that do not or can not access good organic food. Here it is:

http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

commonscience1 January 24th, 2008 4:37 pm

I use a water run off hole to collect alot of watered soil run off it a matter of plaining the feild. Added manure to compost from the live stock market 15 dollars a pick up truck to mix with choped organic from my home and seasonal foliage makes good replinishment and rich soil for the next year. Deep buried fish heads as well as egg shells add more nurishments to the compost.
The pratice of scattering the compost onto my garden allows me to do my part and I taste the difference the money I save is mine.

scottdw January 22nd, 2008 12:47 pm

We are screwing ourselves. I really fear for my childrens’ futures.
lexington January 22nd, 2008 1:49 pm

Is now the time to start growing your own food??????
High oil prices, contaminated food, diabetes, heart disease, fast food and now disappearing soil.
Where is the philiosophy of self-reliance where we need it most?

Stop abdicating responsibility
Please check out wegrowfood.com and join a movement.
greenerthanthou January 22nd, 2008 2:54 pm

I had that book. I liked it so much I lent it to a friend and never got it back.

No-till is how they sell Roundup, by the way.

The idea is to poison the weeds and then plant the soybeans in the stubble. The soybeans do grow well. The farmer next to me used to farm his soybean field like that.

But now, get this. He spreads sewage sludge on the field, and tills it, and THEN uses Roundup.

The field is covered with tampon inserters that women flushed and that didn’t decompose in the sewage plant. Duh.
And gross.
rtdrury January 22nd, 2008 3:07 pm

Intensive grain farming in the US will create a 300 million acre dust bowl in the US midwest by 2040. The Pentagon will declare an emergency, and seize Central America, and shift hamburger production there. Americans will nod approvingly to the new taste sensation.

US intensive farming serves to consume US finance, petro-chemical, heavy machinery and military enterprise outputs. The value of the farming output is terrible considering the costs, including soil depletion, and the opportunity cost of the wasted inputs.

No-till farming has been around for many millenia. Australia is getting a clue: The use of trees and shrubs for livestock production

Though trees/shrubs for animal fodder deliver five to twenty times the value of intensively farmed grain, shifting to trees/shrubs should not be a license to continue devoting 80% of arable land to livestock production. Instead, we should cut out 80% of the livestock production, and still shift to trees/shrubs.

We only need to farm 20% of arable land instead of the current 90%. The remainder can grow up as forest, and we can put the towns in the forest with a few meadows dispersed around for beauty. Why not make the landscape idyllic and thriving too?

Better than capitalist death/destruction, don’t you think?
KEM PATRICK January 22nd, 2008 3:18 pm

We can always kick rocks. That’s what they do in Aroostook County Maine in August. Nothin much else goin on there. It snows every other month. An inch in July and three feet in September, by March 20 feet has fallen.
baruch January 22nd, 2008 3:23 pm

We can build topsoil through using tried and true organic and permaculture practices. Building topsoil sequesters carbon from the atmosphere in the soil. Permaculture ethics: Care for Earth, Care for People, Share the surplus. The more people learn and take up these practices, the more we can rebuild topsoil.

http://earthactivisttraining.org is a good resource!
kelmer January 22nd, 2008 3:39 pm

There is a way of grinding rocks into a nutrient rich soil. They do it in parts of England I believe.

But people need to stop treating Nature with disrespect.
They never seem to learn though.

Notice all the panic about stocks and so little about pollution.
greenskier January 22nd, 2008 3:59 pm

Well stated baruch.

I have an organic garden where I use the leaves collected from my landscape business as a source of organic matter. The leaves are a good mulch (less weeds and watering) and help replenish (less fertilizer) the soil. At the end of the growing season I till the remaining leaves under and spread new ones, preventing soil erosion over the winter. The food grown is better than any store bought stuff and saves a lot of money.

A simple organic garden is one of the best ways to help the environment !
KEM PATRICK January 22nd, 2008 5:35 pm

We plant our garden with soybeans and purple vetch, then cover the area well with alfalfa cubes and composted steer manure. We turn it all in just before the soybeans flower. We also have added earthworms and plant peas in the spring and turn those in. You have to coat the bean seeds with an bactia activator, which is available at seed outlets. We have converted an acre field of mostly rocks, into a very healthy organic garden.
ezeflyer January 22nd, 2008 6:13 pm

When my family lived near the beach, on a piece of land filled with rocky rubble, we had no topsoil. It took us a few years of spreading rain-washed seaweed on it over a little compost to make plants grow. Crabs helped by loosening and aerating the rubble. I would yank weed clumps, turn them over and leave them to rot where they grew. Their decomposition somehow inhibited the growth of more weeds. I would pee around plants, urine being sterile, to provide nitrogen. I did not water the plants and grew only native plants and fruit trees from that part of the Caribbean that thrived on the average rainfall. It was a lush flowering jungle when we left, with singing insects, birds, frogs and lizards. It took us about ten years to restore the land.
Greg R January 22nd, 2008 6:52 pm

I no-til farm to save the soil and hold down on energy use. This is more important than a little judicious chemical usage or gm concern. Do remember all you ‘organic only’ shoppers, some organic farmers substitute extensive tillage for chemicals, leaving the soil ‘open’ to exessive erosion. Just because it says ‘organic’ does not mean it is wonderful.
ruthru January 22nd, 2008 7:04 pm

ezeflyer,

EEEEEeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwhhhhhhhh!
johnwyclif January 22nd, 2008 7:37 pm

Once in a while I hear of someone or other suggesting that when the climate change warms the tundra, it will be a terrific bread basket.
I just can’t figure out where the topsoil is going to come from.

Compost and enrichment of soil is okay for all those who have some land.
But, we have a lot of people to feed, adn most of them don’t have land.

When I would listen to the real old timers tell their stories about the Great Depression, especially on the Canadian Prairies, what struck me was that a lot got through each day, not by retreating into an isolated world of just looking after ones’self, but by working and cooperating with others around,-neighbours, and strangers passing through.
(The Black Plague wasn’t dealt with by the rich who ran away to their mountain chalets; it was dealt with by people who stayed and worked together for the common good.)
wrenwren January 22nd, 2008 7:55 pm

Actually Greg, the law used to state that produce could not be labeled organic unless it had been grown on soil which hadn’t used synthetic chemicals for any purpose for at LEAST seven years. Maybe the laws have changed?
wdmax3 January 22nd, 2008 7:57 pm

This is sooooo old, and yet it seems to be new news. No-till has been an viable answer to the problems caused by our agricultural practices, but we still go about it in the age old “that’s how my father did it” yankee stupidity.

The article I read about 15 years ago stated that herbicides and insecticides (as well as fertilizer) can be reduced and even eliminated if the farmer planted amongst the weeds and natural plants giving the insects something else to feed on. During harvesting the stalks and weeds were mulched to form a layer of organic debris where insects and bacteria consumed it to make a fertile bed for the following years crop or dormancy.

The problem Americans (westerners) have is that we believe that we can dominate our natural environment ( I wonder were that came from ). We are about to find out that our natural environment is going to show us just how much control we have. So,get ready folks it aint gonna be pretty…

ezeflyer - urine is sterile to “your body” only, and that’s only right after it comes out. After a few minutes bacteria will invade the urine and start to convert it to ammonia NH3 and other substances good for plants.

Human Fecal matter and urine was used in farming long before we had fertilizers or at least was the first fertilizer. Poor rural areas in India have begun (again) to use human feces and urine for creating fertile soil for crops just recently. Modern composting uses cow manure as a key component of fertile soils in neighborhood gardens (composting crates heat, enough to kill e-coli).

Just remember where the modern fertilizers and herbicides come from, when the oil runs out, so will 90% of our chemicals. It seems the phrase “back to basics” will become a modern paradigm in our not so “future” times.
shortattentionspan January 22nd, 2008 8:39 pm

Top soil is easy if you compost and encourage earthworms. It is rather incredible stuff. I have large trees where you can actually see the benefits of composting one side and not other.
SikWilly January 22nd, 2008 9:25 pm

Funny this article just came up. I was thinking the other day about food distribution and its impact on greenhouse gases. That made me think again about the local farmer’s market and trying to buy the families produce from the local guys. That got me thinking even more…

Here in Florida, it is amazing the percentage of home owners who pay landscapers to keep their property looking good. Why don’t these landscapers design landscapes with vegetables and fruit interspersed throughout. It doesn’t take much at all to keep a family knee deep in produce. My one lemon tree provides me with enough lemons to supply half my street block, my fellow employees at the fire station, and my wife’s fellow workers as well! I could imagine, if veggies, fruit, and roots were cultivated in your yards landscaping, it should be sufficient. And concerning the bugs and pests, let them have their share! Christ, if anything that will bring more birds to the area. We need to stop thinking that any life form that doesn’t directly serve our needs or appears to be a nusance should be killed.

www.oneplanetonelife.com
miftin January 22nd, 2008 9:50 pm

The Cuban government has been studying this problem for many years; and in fact has the most top-soil friendly farming techniques in the world, and certain in the Western Hemisphere.
shakker January 22nd, 2008 11:31 pm

Soylent green is the answer. I suggest starting with the rich. They have health care and would be less likely to spread disease.
peaceman January 22nd, 2008 11:59 pm

greenerthanthou

That’s it for me. No more tofu or soymilk.

shortattentionspan

Correct! Earthworms do work wonders with the soil and mulch. Nature’s free aeration of the topsoil. With little effort and no toxic chemicals, we can grow some nourishing foods in a small limited area. One of these days, I might get one of those compast drums for my food waste. Those folks using them tell me the discards decompose a lot quicker as more heat is generated in the barrel.

SikWilly

Well said. When I pick fruit off of a tree or buy it in a farmer’s market or health food store, I just cut the part which may have been pecked on by birds or bugs and eat the rest of it. It’s all okay. They have to eat too.

I think most homes used to have vegetable gardens where the front lawns are now. Supposedly, wealthy Englishman flaunting their wealth, had landscapers install grassy lawns in order to show people they had enough money to buy food from others. True or false, who knows. Your lemon tree is a perfect example of what can be grown with limited space.

Does anybody remember a book from the 70’s called, ‘One Straw Revolution’, writen by a Japanese farmer?

With the government/corporate collaboration, try saving as much seed as possible, for future plantings. Most of you are aware of the ’seed infringement’ policies of the big seed conglomerates.
jungleboy January 23rd, 2008 1:31 am

We till a little area for the compost and we pick all our own weeds. That is the fun part of gardening. Gives me something to do out there ‘every day’ even in winter, few minutes here and there. We have almost leveled out the entire yard with composting. We have raised the whole thing (our plantable area) about an average of two inches in three years. If we didn’t rent, I’d bring the coming pit of a lawn up to level too. I’m kinda new to urban farming but I’m totally surprised how much you can raise the ground with a little work. I started with a small depression in the back to work in, and now its a small hill. Every season it gets tilled, with a shovel, mixing in the leaves and stalks, all my clean wood dust from work and a little lime and yarrow (carpenters herb). (I’m a fine wood butcher.) The first winter we did the landscaping hard part, blackberry removal and digging out the rocks from a full third of our yard (the big depression). The rocks made the path next and we had our first planting in which nothing did good with or with out organic fertilizer. The water would just run to the low spot in the middle of the old deceased patch of soil sucking blackberries, across the dead dry sandy soil. Now, two years later after the first planting, the trees and plants have given enough back to ‘us’ for ‘me’ to have to raise the stone path three more inches from last year when I raised it two! The water sinks right in and stays moist longer, saving water and we are now pulling three and a half foot collard leaves and the chard is unstoppable! Our sickly looking sunflowers have now reached over ten feet, the stalks are a little thin yet but we are on our way! Organics aren’t perfect yet, they take some knowing, but its worth the effort to ease my conscience. Sluggo is the only chemical we have used and should/could probably be organic anyway. In the winter, here in the northwest, we have a totally dead yard (but slugs) the weather is still nice enough to work in. All the plants are under and the compost is warm under the surface. By next year I’m hoping to have the whole thing leveled. I might be pushing that, but its a hope I’ll work for. There, I’ll tell stories and make dirt.

Have you chemical users heard of the flamer? A torch used for killing weeds during the rainy season, it works great I hear, haven’t tried one.

Seeds are the hard part of urban gardening as they become contaminated so fast there is nothing you can do on this small a level. I’m really worried about collard seeds and the lack of local strains of seeds for each area and ‘hand pollinating’ in the future, along with the new(ish) ‘BT’ like spray that kills bees used across the midwest threw coloradio to california used on potato bugs(?)and others sold at the farmers supply shops everywhere used by the big farms. No one is watching them kill the planet as they watch a single non native strain grow and kill off the rest. Plant genocide.

I never thought that chemicals made from petrol could do our plants any good.

Happy Planting!
Treefrog January 23rd, 2008 1:40 am

Peaceman

If you have a couple of earthworm bins, your food waste will be gone in a day or two. You can use anything like a redwood planter or larger plywood box (untreated if you can find it) and use a screen in the bottom. Just don’t compost meat as earthworms do not tolerate fats and citrus. They appreciate coffee grounds as it aids digestion and sweet fruits disappear over night. The soil they produce is nutrient rich and whatever you grow will be noticably stronger. Also you don’t need to add fertilizer to get things to grow. It is actually better if you don’t use chemicals that disrupt the natural process that happens between plants and soil.
minitru January 23rd, 2008 8:15 am

Many people still believe that conventional farming is “normal” while organic farming is kind of weird and uneconomic. The agrochemical industry wants to maintain this false perception for obvious reasons. Biological production methods are ridiculed because they are allegedly not the result of rational thinking but based on “green” ideology, portrayed as a sentimental view of nature which ignores economic realities.

The truth is, that organic farming (OF) is very efficient but “conventional” industrial farming (CIF)is nothing of the sort. The success of CIF seems obvious since the “green revolution” (massive use of agrochemicals)crop yields have increased, doubled or trebled. What these statistics ignore is

1)Energy efficiency: total energy input in CIF is 1o times greater than its output so the apparent “progress” is an illusion. Meat production is especially energy inefficient since 1 calorie of meat requires an input of 7 to 12 plant calories (dependent on the type of animal)

2)Environmental degradation/pollution and Health Risks
Environmental damage is simply not factored in, like most industrial costs it is “externalized” to society. Monoculture and heavy use of unnatural fertilizers and toxic pesticides / herbicides and GMO´s lead to soil degradation, loss of fertility and undermine biodiversity, the foundation of a healthy environment. The cruelty and madness of factory farming requires the increasing use of antibiotics and other chemicals which encourage the rise of new diseases as microbes thrive and mutate under such conditions.

3) Wider, global ecological impact
“Modern” agriculture has contributed a lot to “climate change” since it ignores ecological laws and produces globally
75% of methane (> cattle breeding)
63% of global nitrous oxide (> use of nitrogen fertilizer)
Nitrous oxide absorbs 270 times more heat per molecule than carbon dioxide, and methane absorbs 21 times more heat per molecule than carbon dioxide.
7% of carbondioxide (production and transport of agrochemcials and animal feed)

More information see:
http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/b0062cf005bc02c180256a6b003d987f/d2b3a314a06b799780256fc70039d5ac?OpenDocument

Another huge problem is, that in the current economic market system food is treated like any other commodity. Under the auspices of the WTO, control of food and agricultural policy has more and more shifted from sovereign states to global corporations whose aim is not food security based on sustenance of ecosystems /soil fertility but huge profits and market dominance. Large industrial farms and food multinationals like Nestlé get billions of subsidies while small farms around the world are disappearing. In India, more than 100.000 (no mistake) farmers have committed suicide because of heavy debts. A trade system that favours agrobusiness (> rising production costs, patented GMO´s (which often lead to crop losses) and falling prices for “cash crops”, heavy subsidies in Europe and the US) has killed these farmers and increased the slum population in India.

Falling producer prices lead to a vicious circle of production / productivity increases which in turn leads to even lower producer prices. This is good for food (processing)-multinationals, but bad for people, animals and the environment. If the real damage is factored in, we realize that CI farming is organized madness.We can no longer afford to buy food without asking how it was produced and that “cheap” production is in the long run the most expensive.

Although food production and trade have grown considerably since the foundation of the WTO in 1995 poverty, malnutrition and starvation have also increased and consumer prices are rising everywhere.

Treating living beings like production machines or commodities may lead to short term profits but in the long run it will destroy ecological stability (climate change is only one symptom..), and thus our future.

Books: Earth Democracy, Justice and Sustainability by Dr. Vandana Shive

We Want Real Food by Graham Harvey
Greg R January 23rd, 2008 8:54 am

jungleboy (and other wood butchers who compost)-remember to keep the treated wood and walnut sawdust away from the garden. Walnut is toxic to tomato, apples and several other plants. They say dishes of beer in the garden will cut down on the slugs, but I hate to share. So, I use a little chemical around the hostas, but let the slugs enjoy life elsewhere.
Recycle1 January 23rd, 2008 9:22 am

My father was a Soil Conservationist for the USDA and so I’d heard a lot about this topic at the dinner table growing up. It wasn’t until I was in junior/high school that I realized most kids didn’t have a clue about soil health.

My husband grew up on a dairy farm (small by today’s standards-just 60 head) and they did use chemicals on their feed crops, but not very often (for small farmers, chemicals are too pricey to spray like a daily vitamin). My father in law and his kids would walk/drive the acres and see what weeds were present and only spray that area. Seems like a decent compromise.

We garden organically in our yard. The neighbors who treat their lawns have been great about staying 6-10 feet away from our garden and one has even stopped using chemicals. Slowly we have changed our neighbor’s thinking of lawns and chemicals through amicable conversations and backyard cookouts. Because we don’t use chems, we have a large population of visiting birds, butterflies, bees and other bugs that help keep pests away or under control.

I’ve found a hoe works just fine in the garden at knocking down weeds and hand weeding is a great “chore” for my girls when they are bickering too much!

We have 3 outside compost bins and a couple of rain barrels. Wisconsin usually gets plenty of rain in the summer, though this past July was super dry followed by an incredible amount of rain in August. I blame global warming. Worm bins have been discussed, but I am a bit squeamish about touching the red wigglers (an odd aversion for a gardener).
greatbear215 January 23rd, 2008 9:29 am

Just keep drinking the Kool-aide. You’ll be fine!
peaceman January 23rd, 2008 11:52 am

Treefrog,
Thanks! I wasn’t aware about the citrus intolerance by the earthworms. I never put meat or fats into the heap, but never really knew why everything else was pulverized by the earthworms BUT the organicly grown orange peels. Any suggestion on citrus discards? You’re so right about the sweet fruits. I guess those litle marvels have a taste for sweets, as well.

We use fair trade organically grown coffee, and several times a year I mix some of the grounds into the topsoil. I spread them out thinly. I also spread seaweed powder into the soil, and several years ago, I used a liquid fish/sea vegetation emulsion around the fruit trees. So far, so good.

minitru,
Too bad we don’t have a person like Dr. Vandana Shive in charge of our Dept. of Agriculture.
KEM PATRICK January 23rd, 2008 1:01 pm

Get a bag of alfalfa blocks, not he ones that have other ingredients, just PURE alfalfa and put some in your compost bin, the worms love it also. Alfalfa is one of natures very best fertilizers, lots of minerals and a “green manure”. You can use a little dry dog food in the compost bin also.

Fish of course are perhaps the best fertilizer, a couple of small fish in the bottom of a plant hole, mix in a cut up half a banana, add a crushed one a day vitimain and the tomatoes and squash will thrive. We put a square of cardboard around the tomato plants, with a hole in the center for the plant’s stalk, it keeps the soil moist, the worms congregate under it and it prevents weeds near the plant. You can also plant the French radishes near plants, they grow very fast and give good ground cover and when pulled, help to aireate the soil. The unused leaves also are good green manure.
greenerthanthou January 23rd, 2008 1:11 pm

I would suggest the book “Edible Landscaping”, I believe by Rosalie Creasy (or something like that)

If you buy the red wrigglers from the back of Organic Gardening they cost a fortune. It turns out that they sell them in gas stations in the summer for fishermen for very cheap. I found that out after I spent the big bucks to have them mailed.

Peaceman, the tampons are nothing. I work at a hospital and the nuclear control guy told us at orientation that the city gave the hospital a special dispensation so that we could dump our nuclear waste into the sewage system. Thanks I live right by the sewage treatment plant, and now they’re dumping the toxic sludge on the soybean field. Oh well, I hear toxic sludge is good for you.
Douglas Barnes January 23rd, 2008 4:21 pm

It’s good to see this problem getting publicised despite its lack of sexiness. Soil degradation has literally caused the downfall of more than one civilisation.
KEM PATRICK January 23rd, 2008 6:26 pm

Haiti for just one example ~Douglas~. Haiti is a total barren wasteland. Have you seen what has also happened to Madascar?
Treefrog January 23rd, 2008 8:25 pm

Peaceman

On citrus there is more than one to approach it, depending on how much you have and the time of year. On some farms they just toss it into the orchard and let it decompose naturally. Once the moisture is gone it goes pretty fast. For leaves and trimming I let them dry on the ground and then put them in wire bins above the ground, after that I spread it around or mix it with other compost. I should say that my practice is unconventional and based on experience with what needs to be done. If you have small amounts you can let them dry on top on the ground and then dig them into the soil.

On how long it takes to be considered organic (without agri-chemicals) I think it is 3 years now. Depending on the soil condition it sometimes takes longer, you see a lot of improvement by seven years.

On snails and slugs, well I try to encourage natural predators but that is not always reliable. When I have to many I put them in a can and freeze them. (I know that sounds bad but most baits are a poison so I don’t use it)
Treefrog January 23rd, 2008 8:40 pm

Also you can tell if something likes where it is growing, I have holly hocks that have reseeded themselves for 20 years, they get along with everything including pumkins, mint, oregano, and all sorts of compatable plants. I try not to intervene unless I have to.
peaceman January 23rd, 2008 8:53 pm

Treefrog

I basically do the same with the leaves and the trimming, but I put them in a shallow box to dry, then mix with other compost. I haven’t seen hardly any slugs this past year and very few snails the past two years. I don’t know why.

I think it is 3 years to be considered organic, officially, anyway. One of the growers at a farmer’s market I buy fruit from are 3rd generation organic farmers. Their grapes and raisins are some of the best I’ve ever eaten, and you can “feel” the difference. (in taste and energy, afterwards). Thanks again.
Treefrog January 23rd, 2008 9:28 pm

Peaceman

You are welcome and thanks to you also. Good ideas from everyone here.
I’m posting this link to community support agriculture. I haven’t tried it though this site, I kind of have my own network but I think it is a good idea especially for people that do not or can not access good organic food. Here it is:

http://www.localharvest.org/csa/
commonscience1 January 24th, 2008 4:37 pm

I use a water run off hole to collect alot of watered soil run off it a matter of plaining the feild. Added manure to compost from the live stock market 15 dollars a pick up truck to mix with choped organic from my home and seasonal foliage makes good replinishment and rich soil for the next year. Deep buried fish heads as well as egg shells add more nurishments to the compost.
The pratice of scattering the compost onto my garden allows me to do my part and I taste the difference the money I save is mine.

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