Act Four

 

With a Worms Point of View

 

Scene One: Kneeling on a windswept sand dune.

 

Voice over:

“A section of Maine, just west of Freeport, has become a tourist attraction because of a newly formed 300-acre desert. It’s on land that used to be a sheep farm. This desert of Maine comes complete with sand storms and 20-foot high sand dunes.”

                                                                      -Lee p. 312

 

Narrator:

            There is a lot more to think about when managing a farm than just production. “Reductionist science” where “everything can be understood by reducing it to its simplest component parts” (Gershuny p.X) has done much damage to common agricultural practices. I have met a lot of growers who lack a basic understanding about their soil. In reality, there is a lot more to growing plants than simply balancing nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

            Healthy soil requires a lot more thought and consideration than the oversimplified N-P-K system makes one believe. Many micro nutrients are necessary for healthy, disease resistant plants such as sulfur, calcium, magnesium, zinc, iron, copper, etc, not to mention the thousands of kinds of micro and macro fauna that exists in every spoonful of healthy soil. Certain bacteria, actinomycetes, fungi, algae and nematodes are all essential ingredients to creating soil that spawns some of the strongest and healthiest plants.

            Some plants, like legumes, cannot perform their extremely important nitrogen fixation process without the help of Rhizobium bacteria. So, as I have learned, if someone is trying to rejuvenate sandy soil, one which lacks substantial organic matter (in which such bacteria live),  then planting a legume cover crop (say... hairy vetch) doesn’t do much good for improving the nitrogen available in the soil because there is no bacteria (Gershuny).

            Even something as straight forward as nitrogen is useless to a plant without the assistance of nitrifying bacteria which must first turn some of the varying forms of nitrogen found in the soil  (such as ammonium) into nitrates before most plants can make use of it (Gershuny p. 30). When farmers use shortsighted solutions such as chemical fertilizers or pesticides, these beneficial bacteria, along with thousands of other living components to healthy soil, become unable to do their job or simply die out altogether.

 

Scene Two: Standing in ancient Lebanon (Pre-desertification)

Voice over:

“The Phoenicians thrived on overseas trade of timber and grain, which eventually led to the deforestation of the once-famed cedars of Lebanon. The Phoenician empire became unable to feed its expanding population because its soils were depleted of nutrients necessary for plant growth. They resorted to warfare and conquest to import foodstuffs in an attempt to remedy their problem, but instead were conquered themselves by Alexander the Great.”

                                                          -Gershuny p. ix

 

Narrator:

            It is a tragic legacy, one not so distant from that sandy sheep farm in Maine. “Reductionism is an arrogant belief system” (Gershuny p. X) based on ignorance. Something as complex as the makeup of healthy, living soil is “not wholly predictable from the component parts” (Dewey p. 145) and when a movement in agriculture begins to remove essential elements because of their supposed irrelevance, disaster strikes. Thanks  to the ever popular NPK system and the “complete and balanced” water soluble plant food and fertilizers, farmers world-wide have abandoned once common ecological methods for fumigated soils and high input agriculture. Nearing the end of his life Justus von Liebig (“credited with ushering in the age of 'scientific agriculture”) “wrote that he regretted that his theories on amending the soil had resulted in farmers abandoning the building of soil humus to improve its productivity” (Gershuny p. x).

            As awareness grows and effect has had enough time to inspire a search for a cause, greenhouse gases (such as CO2) are building up in the atmosphere. But where did all this carbon come from? Automobiles, volcanoes, factories?  How about cows? “Soil organic matter stores a huge amount of atmospheric carbon. Carbon, in the form of carbon dioxide, is a greenhouse gas associated with global warming” (Magdoff p. 3). Poor agricultural practices are largely responsible for the fall of many civilizations, but that is only the beginning of the bad news. The increasing amount of sandy soil or, more directly, the decreasing of available humus to trap carbon, the  more there is free to build up in the atmosphere. With proper agricultural techniques such atoms would be trapped within dark, healthy soil. On top of not being able to use the soil anymore, the atmosphere is warming, changing weather patterns and causing droughts and floods world wide. Both droughts and floods worsen due to the lack of organic matter in the soil which holds more water when it’s scarce, and is able to soak up extra when there is too much.

            There is also a tremendous amount of water pollution due to poor soils with little organic matter left in them. Leaching micro and macro nutrients as well as heavy metals that were once trapped within humus is released when organic matter levels drop. This starts a vicious cycle of over fertilization, because when organic matter levels drop, so do crop yields.

 

Voice over:

In a Maryland experiment, researchers saw an increase of approximately 80 bushels of corn per acre when organic matter increased from 0.8 to 2%”

                                                           -Magdoff p. 21

 

Narrator:

            When a farmer notices lower yields the most common reaction is to reach for chemical fertilizers. Such fertilizers may help immediately, but the sudden shock within the soil's ecosystem causes “indigestion.” “If large amounts of nitrate fertilizer flood the soil system, the bacteria responsible for converting protein fragments into nitrates will be suppressed” (Gershuny p. 47). Thus, there is a need for further fertilizing the following year. In the end such bacteria in the soil stop producing nitrates altogether, ending the decomposing process that once built humus levels, which in turn increases crop yields. This minimizes the release of dangerous greenhouse gases, and minimizes the leaching of dangerous fertilizers, pesticides and heavy metals, which  would  be broken down into less dangerous compounds by the bacteria in the soil.

 

Voice over:

Organic farmers and gardeners have come to recognize that the ecological profile of a material- the effect it has on soil health and environment- is more important than whether it was dug from the ground or is a by-product of industry.”

                                                          -Gershuny p. 103

 

 

Narrator:

             Simply being certified organic doesn’t mean one is not part of the problem. In fact, the present day regulations seem to be drafted for organic factory farms rather than smaller and more diverse eco-farms. There are more than enough organic fertilizers on the market today to choke a horse, let alone the soil. And the same downward spiral is permitted within certification guidelines. At some point “I feel just being organic isn’t enough ... You have to be responsible too” (Lee p. 265).

 

Scene Two: Standing waist deep in lush brassicas

Voice Over:

“... Look for the hero within yourself . . . Look to the good and loving heart in you and all others. For just as every seed holds the power and magic of creation, so to do you, and every other creature in this world. We all have the power and it grows when it is shared.”

                                                          -Magi Lune (Fern Gully)

Narrator:       

             When it came to planning and design, as well as much of the tedious seeding, the garden was planted  by emmy while I played second fiddle.  This year, due to the future plans of moving the garden and not having a crop rotation from the year before to work with, much of the design was done for ease of planting and harvesting and aesthetic appeal.  And once again, plans change. The garden is now set to stay put for a few more years.

            Altogether, we seeded ten tire stacks seeded with potatoes, (something new to us so much of this is experimental). There are two rows a piece of red and not so red cabbage, four rows of brussel sprouts (two direct seeded and two seedlings). There are 16 tomato mounds containing 3 different strains: Big Boy, Early Girl and Fabulous, as well as Sun Gold Cherry tomatoes. We have 5 rows of direct seeded beans (Wax and Green), 2 rows of onions, one of leeks. There are four rows of direct seeded peas(Little Marvel), three rows of carrots (Danvers half long and Touchon), one row of Autumn Beauty sun flowers, two tires of bell peppers, two tires of hot peppers, and four tires mixed with summer squash and Zuccinni. We are also experimenting with three kinds of cucumbers, an heirloom,  and two types of hybrids.

            Interspersed in the extra corners of an oblong garden are assorted herbs and flowers including basil, thyme,oregano, sage, salvia, garlic, nasturtiums and cat nip. Also, in beds around the house we have started two beds of Early Glow strawberries, and one bed of sweet rhubarb. Otherwise, everything else we have planted is simply for aesthetics. 

            With all this extra planting we scraped the literal and metaphorical bottom of our existing compost pile during all of this. Luckily, a friend of mine has a horse and let us haul out a truckload of mostly well-aged manure (sawdust free) from their stable. We have thrown this into the second section of our two part compost bin. This was mixed with our household compost and grass clippings from work and will be ready by next year.          

            Most of the garden maintenance I did  digging around for cut-worms while emmy weeded like crazy. The cut-worms seemed to favor the peas the most, although I believe  they are leaving the peppers alone only  because they are relatively protected within tires. In one sitting I had discovered and “disciplined” over 20 worms from our four rows of peas. For some more preventative ideas we turned to John Seymour's book The Self-Sufficient Gardener (1979). I first read Seymour's book The Self-Sufficient Life (2003) in Philip's Homesteading class earlier this year and it was hands down my favorite book because of the functionality and applicability  of the knowledge contained within it. The Self-Sufficient Gardener was my parents guide to gardening when they first moved out to this piece of land and I found it useful, much like the one I read in class. Neither are really “reading” material, but more like a survival guide and I suspect my most used reference for this semester.

            I turned to Seymour for advice about the cut-worms. First thing I found was what I  now recollect seeing my dad do to the pepper plants when I was younger. This was to put cardboard collars around the stems to prevent the worms from gaining access. As much as I know about the effectiveness of these collars (I distinctly remember removing the cardboard to find only a nub of a plant and huge, well-fed and well protected worms) and the thought of having to put collars around approximately 100 pea plants I decided it wasn't the best approach. I did find, however, that spreading wood ash around plants is known to deter such pests. This was a lot easier, and as for results, it seems to be working relatively well, but that could also be because I had personally squeezed the sticky life out of about 50 of the little things.  By the end of the season I was about 90% accurate in identifying what plants were being eaten without even bending over. This being the fruits of first-hand experience: learning something of those hundreds of “perceived details for which we have [seemingly] no intellectual use” (Dewey p.5).

            For everything we have planted, from beets to rhubarb, to potatoes and perennials we asked John for advice before beginning. It was actually a combination between John's method of growing potatoes in trash cans and  my dad's uses of tires that made a connection for me. As the potatoes start to get a few inches above  the soil we simply toss on another tire and fill it in. The tires keep the stacks relatively warm, make hilling-up a breeze and harvesting was simple. Kind of like cow tipping, but a little easier on the back.

            The only crop we seemed to have a problem with was the beans. We ended up doing two plantings on the 5 rows we had. We assumed that the problem is not the blackbirds because there are no tracks, though my dad swears that they can eat a whole row of beans without leaving a mark. They were old seeds we got from my grandfather, and knowing him they could be from the 50's. At last we ended up buying new ones and doing a third planting. And even though we had such a late start with the beans we were still graced with 4 full pickings of all five rows.  8 lbs of green and about 2 lbs of wax each time through, of which emmy and I have pickled 24 jars.

           

Scene Three: Standing in a desolate wasteland: a garden after frost.

 

Voice Over:

“No one is powerless. If you have access to even a tiny piece of land, you can make a big difference. You have the opportunity to help heal our damaged planet in the only way that can really work- one little bit at a time. The best place to begin is beneath your feet. To help out earth, we must start with the soil.

                                   -Gershuny p. xii

Narrator:

            After reading a few books on soil management I now have a basis on which to start renovating our soil. We have been blessed with fine, dark soil that my father had to have trucked in. The pure beach sand that resides only a few inches below the surface at any given spot is unsuited to any agricultural practices and only exacerbates our problem of leaching nutrients.

            Because of it's sandy texture, the soil in the garden has little to no aggregates (“A collection of soil particles that holds together forming the basis of soil structure” Gershuny p.255). This I believe is the result from over-tilling and not using cover crops or mulch to put organic matter back into the soil. With the texture of over-pulverized sandy soil, the garden has poor water retention and aeration. The problem of water retention is compounded by the fact that bare soil (as it has been left winter after winter) leaches heavily. Meaning, any additives or elements put into the soil are either used up quickly by the plant, or washed away.

            Not only the garden has such problems. The old goat pasture is scabby at best. Small clumps of choke grass are scattered within large patches of pure sand and years of pine needles or pure soldier moss up to six inches thick. Such a pasture cannot support even one animal without first being brought back to health. Now that I know how to interpret such problems, we have been able to begin the long rejuvenation process.

 

Voice Over:

“Applying large amounts of compost and mulching are the best strategies for healing and maintaining soils suffering from either too low or too high a pH.”

                                                           -Gershuny p.166

Narrator:

            All we have are pine and oaks, which make for rather acidic soil. So emmy and I have taken on a couple jobs raking leaves to acquire such a resource that is otherwise beyond our means. Altogether, we spread about 1000 sq feet of leaves three inches deep between both the garden and the pasture. The person  kept offering to dispose of the leaves at the transfer station for us after we raked. But we kept gratefully refusing while overloading our trailer with more than we could hope to fit.

            Approximately a month or so before we started raking, we  sowed our first cover crop. We spread approximately 50 lbs of winter rye over the pasture, garden and around the homestead with a walk-behind seeder. Unfortunately, the chickens made it a point to eat every single seed spread around the house, and the late planting left only enough time for a few inches of growth before winter kill. Still, at least it will help with aeration and add organic matter.

            Come spring we are planning on  sowing a spring cover in the garden and a balanced mix in the pasture for the sheep. The details of these  plans are still in the works because, like the root cellar, we decided to leave the inside work, be it digging or planning our attack for spring, until the depths of winter.