The problem with the way we farm now is that we treat our soil like dirt.

Anon

Yet soil is miraculous.  It is where the dead are brought back to life.

Toby Hemenway

Make soil, not war.

Graffiti

 

 

Think gardening is hard work?    Think again!   Gardening practices that support the soil so that the soil supports what we are trying to accomplish tend to be much less labour intensive and, frankly, satisfying.  A couple of examples:

There is a method of agriculture called “no-till”, in which a hole is drilled into the soil just large enough for the seedling or the seed to be dropped in.  This method leaves the soil structure intact.  It encourages earthworms.  By combining no-till practices with consistent use of cover crops, yields increase by up to sixty percent.

Another way to build a garden - without disrupting the earthworm population - is a layering method that involves chopping the weeds back, spreading cardboard and newspaper on the ground  in a thick layer, topping it off with several inches of compost, and seeding in a cover crop like annual rye or hairy vetch.  The combination of the cardboard, the compost, and the cover crops smothers the weeds and loosens the soil.  In early spring, the cover crops get cut down with a string trimmer.  The roots and leaves decompose, the worms work their way through it, and the garden is ready for planting.

That’s right - no, or at least very little, digging.   Organic gardening practices are based on the knowledge that the greater the number and diversity of soil organisms, the larger and more diverse will be the flows of nutrients among them as they release the fertility stored in the soil.  Bigger nutrient flows means that more plants, both in numbers and varieties, can thrive on that abundant fertility.

The case for returning to organic food growing goes something like this:  farmers have, over these last several decades, taken the multivitamin-and-antibiotic approach to agriculture.  When people take a multivitamin instead of eating fresh fruits and vegetables, they lose out on the nutritional value offered by the whole food.  The fiber and juice in an orange, the beneficial oils in a walnut, the micronutrients in a spinach leaf are simply not readily available in pill form.  In our fast-food society, a multivitamin is a poor substitute for a healthy diet.  The same is true of chemical fertilizers in agriculture.  In fact, there is a saying among organic gardeners:  chemical fertilizers may feed the plant, but organic fertilizers feed the soil.  More specifically, when farmers add amendments like manure, kelp, alfalfa meal, and vermicompost (worm poop), what they are really doing is providing a food source for bacteria, fungi, and protozoa in the soil.  Those microscopic creatures, in turn, feed the plants.

Organic matter is also the stuff that is responsible for most of soil’s water-holding capacity.  

The goal then is to acquire the knowledge and techniques for maximizing biodiversity in garden soil. Ask Earth Sisters for help in meeting this goal.

No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth and no culture comparable to that of the garden.

Thomas Jefferson

 

 

Compost Tea

Recipes and methodology for brewing compost tea are varied and range from super-easy to somewhat complicated.  To get started with learning to use the tea, however, began simply.  Once you are enjoying the benefits, you may decide to invest in equipment to try out other methods.

Both comfrey and nettle (see our Plants page) grow rapidly in our climate and are packed full of nutrients that can be used to feed other plants.  Pack a large container -- at least 15-litre size -- with comfrey or nettle leaves (remember your gloves!), fill container with water, cover, and let brew 2 weeks for nettles and about twice that for comfrey.  Stir tea occasionally and try not to mind the smell.

When ready, strain; you can use comfrey tea undiluted to water plants.  Nettle tea should be diluted about 10:1 which you can do readily in your watering can.

 

 

Permaculture 

Human bodies and their complex digestive chemistry evolved over millennia in response to all the different foods -- mostly plants -- they raised or gathered from the land surrounding them.

Camille Kingsolver

We truly are what we eat; good food leads to good health.   The further we distance ourselves from the production of our food, the higher the price we pay in terms of our health and wellbeing.   Shifting our gardening practices to include a variety of beautiful and nutritional fruits and vegetables, particularly heirloom and native species, reaps huge personal satisfaction.

The term permaculture combines the words permanent and agriculture.  Permaculture differs from normal agriculture in the diversity of organisms in the permaculture system.  Permaculture is an approach to designing perennial agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in natural ecologies.   Permaculture is about design - integrating structures, plants and animals with the needs of humans. Permaculture-designed gardens are based on the natural ecosystems found around the world.  Low maintenance of the system is essential; the amount of human effort and energy expenditure is kept to a minimum by incorporating energy-efficient, intensive systems rather than energy-wasting extensive systems.

For many people, permaculture is a philosophy and way of life that has a fundamental set of core values - earth care, people care, and fair (or sometimes surplus) share - which remain constant whether the land cared for is a windowbox or an entire forest.   Modern thought about permaculture began with the issue of sustainable food production and stressing the value, among others, of home gardens for food production. 

 

Earth Care - recognises Earth as the source of all life and involves taking action to maintain biodiversity, restore damaged and degraded land, conserve natural environments and use resources ethically;

People Care - developing healthy societies that meet people’s basic needs and supporting and helping each other to change to ways of living that do not harm ourselves or the planet;

Fair Share - ensuring that Earth’s limited resources are used in ways that are equitable and wise and includes the contribution of surplus time, money, and energy to achieve the above two aims of earth and people care.

 

Permaculture is often thought of as living lightly on the land.   Some practices you can adopt immediately include:

✦Eating locally grown food wherever possible and supporting local growers or box schemes;

✦Eating ethical and fairly traded for the things you can’t get locally;

✦Eating a large proportion of your diet in the form of fresh fruit and vegetables;

✦Re-designing your garden and planting fruit trees and bushes, herbs and vegetables.

 

This year, for the second consecutive year, I am using “polyculture” in the vegetable garden.   Polyculture is defined by Toby Hemenway as:

     Dynamic, self-organizing plant communities composed of several to many species.

 

Stay tuned for more information on how this works.

 

Some books that have recently inspired us:

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  Our Year of Seasonal Eating.  Barbara Kingsolver.  Faber and Faber (2007) 

Gaia’s Garden.  A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture.   Toby Hemenway.  Chelsea Green Publishing Company (2009)

The 100-Mile Diet.  A Year of Local Eating.  Alisa Smith & James MacKinnon (2007)  (See more about this book on the Resources page in our Tool Shed)

 

Clients of Earth Sisters receive encouragement and concrete information to support this shift.   If you want to do it, we can help!