Grow love.
======
To participate in, or to donate seeds, garden tools, other materials, or money to
Hazelwood Harvest, contact
Barbara Williams 412-489-7080
hazelwood.harvest@gmail.com
======
To learn more about making good soil, contact me at 412-421-6496 or appropriatebiotech@yahoo.com
======
Growing Food With as Little Money and Work as Possible
The worse the economy gets, the more discussion there is about growing food locally. But it's not that simple. Everything is connected in the web of life. And all the plants and animals in a given area have their own agendas, which must be harnessed to our (we humans') benefit. So we start to realize a farmer is more a natural systems manager than simply a food-grower. And we begin to see that the whole community has to participate in order to restore healthy growing conditions - for us people AND for our plants and other animals.
You can't grow on polluted land, for instance, so either the land can't be allowed to be polluted or it's going to have to be cleaned up later. In the case of the soil and air in the Pittsburgh area we've got the latter situation. Our land is already polluted, our soil degraded, and our air continues to carry toxins to our lungs and gardens. You have to be sensitive to the living things you're trying to grow, as they are every bit as fragile as the people you're trying to feed. So, since we're not dealing with the ideal, let's see what we can do with what we have.
Okay, so we have stressed and tired soil that's lost a lot of it's life - the tiny living things that are such a central part of soil fertility. These little critters - earthworms, bugs, molds, etc. - need to be fed the remains of dead plants and animals, which they break down into plant nutrients in forms that are absorbable by plants. And they are needed to help break down and detoxify the pollutants that are everywhere. So we must feed the soil as if it were a living thing, because it IS alive.
An example of organic waste which must be broken down by soil life is plant cellulose. If you take non-color newspaper and cardboard (which are made from trees) and lay it on the soil you have a free mulch, but it won't make the cover of Garden Beautiful because your neighbors may think you're just too lazy to pick up your trash. Being less enlightened and thoughtful, they think that corn comes from the grocery store and cardboard comes from a box factory somewhere. But we whole systems analysts know that a corn plant is way more than just the yellow kernels that get eaten, and every paper bag, cardboard box, and page of newspaper started out as part of a great big plant called a tree somewhere before it got to the paper mill or got made into cardboard. So - just as with sunlight and carbon dioxide - here are some materials free to the grower who knows how to use them. Local organic farmer Don Kretschmann (kretschmannfarm.com) uses cardboard for mulch around his corn plants. It holds in the water, prevents weeds, and eventually degrades into soil. Cardboard or newspaper can be used to line the bottom of plant pots rather than stones, to give air space and water holding capacity - and eventually increased root space - as the material rots down and becomes food for the roots which grow into it.
And a cardboard or newspaper mulch which is thick enough to keep out the weeds is a labor saver. You can lose an entire season if you don't make good plans for not letting the weeds grow in the first place. I know, I've done it...
Taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to grow a tree - and then feeding the carbonaceous materials like leaves, grass clippings, cardboard and newspaper back into the soil - strikes me as a beautiful return to our role as stewards of Nature.
Agriculture is low-paying labor only depending on how you look at it. I was never so strong or healthy as when I came back from that family farm in West Virginia. I had eaten better than any city person - farmed and wild meat, raw milk, homemade butter, buttermilk, and fresh-picked fruits and vegetables. I had cleaner water from the wells and springs. I had hard work in fresh air and sun. I came back to Pittsburgh about broke, but I had my health and I'd learned a lot. The muscles were a perk.
I learned about death being a part of life. If you're going to eat meat, you might as well get up close and participate in the death of the animal you intend to eat, be it hog or cow or sheep or deer or whatever. And plants and animals don't care any more about you than you do about caring for or feeding them. Let's not be overly romantic. It's no fun to rope a pig or prod a cow or corral a lamb on their way to slaughter. To the extent we learn to work together with other life forms we can transcend this ancient chain of suffering which extends throughout nature, not just with humanity.
Let's free ourselves up from some stereotypes about farming and country people. Country people are not stupid, Hee Haw jokes aside. When I did farm work in the 70's I had to get some humility - I really didn't have a clue about a lot of things country people learn growing up. Learning the names of the wild plants that I later found out were herbs and edible "weeds," farm machinery operation and repair, landscaping and construction basics, dealing with wildlife - all made me realize that we city people are in a lot of ways dumber than country people.
======
To participate in, or to donate seeds, garden tools, other materials, or money to
Hazelwood Harvest, contact
Barbara Williams 412-489-7080
hazelwood.harvest@gmail.com
======
To learn more about making good soil, contact me at 412-421-6496 or appropriatebiotech@yahoo.com
======
Growing Food With as Little Money and Work as Possible
The worse the economy gets, the more discussion there is about growing food locally. But it's not that simple. Everything is connected in the web of life. And all the plants and animals in a given area have their own agendas, which must be harnessed to our (we humans') benefit. So we start to realize a farmer is more a natural systems manager than simply a food-grower. And we begin to see that the whole community has to participate in order to restore healthy growing conditions - for us people AND for our plants and other animals.
You can't grow on polluted land, for instance, so either the land can't be allowed to be polluted or it's going to have to be cleaned up later. In the case of the soil and air in the Pittsburgh area we've got the latter situation. Our land is already polluted, our soil degraded, and our air continues to carry toxins to our lungs and gardens. You have to be sensitive to the living things you're trying to grow, as they are every bit as fragile as the people you're trying to feed. So, since we're not dealing with the ideal, let's see what we can do with what we have.
Okay, so we have stressed and tired soil that's lost a lot of it's life - the tiny living things that are such a central part of soil fertility. These little critters - earthworms, bugs, molds, etc. - need to be fed the remains of dead plants and animals, which they break down into plant nutrients in forms that are absorbable by plants. And they are needed to help break down and detoxify the pollutants that are everywhere. So we must feed the soil as if it were a living thing, because it IS alive.
An example of organic waste which must be broken down by soil life is plant cellulose. If you take non-color newspaper and cardboard (which are made from trees) and lay it on the soil you have a free mulch, but it won't make the cover of Garden Beautiful because your neighbors may think you're just too lazy to pick up your trash. Being less enlightened and thoughtful, they think that corn comes from the grocery store and cardboard comes from a box factory somewhere. But we whole systems analysts know that a corn plant is way more than just the yellow kernels that get eaten, and every paper bag, cardboard box, and page of newspaper started out as part of a great big plant called a tree somewhere before it got to the paper mill or got made into cardboard. So - just as with sunlight and carbon dioxide - here are some materials free to the grower who knows how to use them. Local organic farmer Don Kretschmann (kretschmannfarm.com) uses cardboard for mulch around his corn plants. It holds in the water, prevents weeds, and eventually degrades into soil. Cardboard or newspaper can be used to line the bottom of plant pots rather than stones, to give air space and water holding capacity - and eventually increased root space - as the material rots down and becomes food for the roots which grow into it.
And a cardboard or newspaper mulch which is thick enough to keep out the weeds is a labor saver. You can lose an entire season if you don't make good plans for not letting the weeds grow in the first place. I know, I've done it...
Taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to grow a tree - and then feeding the carbonaceous materials like leaves, grass clippings, cardboard and newspaper back into the soil - strikes me as a beautiful return to our role as stewards of Nature.
Agriculture is low-paying labor only depending on how you look at it. I was never so strong or healthy as when I came back from that family farm in West Virginia. I had eaten better than any city person - farmed and wild meat, raw milk, homemade butter, buttermilk, and fresh-picked fruits and vegetables. I had cleaner water from the wells and springs. I had hard work in fresh air and sun. I came back to Pittsburgh about broke, but I had my health and I'd learned a lot. The muscles were a perk.
I learned about death being a part of life. If you're going to eat meat, you might as well get up close and participate in the death of the animal you intend to eat, be it hog or cow or sheep or deer or whatever. And plants and animals don't care any more about you than you do about caring for or feeding them. Let's not be overly romantic. It's no fun to rope a pig or prod a cow or corral a lamb on their way to slaughter. To the extent we learn to work together with other life forms we can transcend this ancient chain of suffering which extends throughout nature, not just with humanity.
Let's free ourselves up from some stereotypes about farming and country people. Country people are not stupid, Hee Haw jokes aside. When I did farm work in the 70's I had to get some humility - I really didn't have a clue about a lot of things country people learn growing up. Learning the names of the wild plants that I later found out were herbs and edible "weeds," farm machinery operation and repair, landscaping and construction basics, dealing with wildlife - all made me realize that we city people are in a lot of ways dumber than country people.
======
posted by St. Jim the Composter at 8:32 AM
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