Imagine if you will, having been shrunk down to a microscopic size. Smaller than an amoeba, but larger than a bacteria. You live in the ground, in this microscopic world of one celled and larger creatures, some of them living in the film of moisture around the soil particles. As you roam around, knee deep in this water layer around a large grainy sand particle you see in the water film a multitude of animals and algae floating around in the tiny currents in this small world of water. Some of these small microscopic creatures are animals, catching the algae and bacteria and eating them. Some of these small bacteria are eating on algae, and also the dead bodies of the animals that live in this film of water clinging by static action to the sand grain.
You however are large enough to leave this film of water and venture to another particle nearby. This one is up against the sand grain, it is a particle of compost. This particular piece is so decomposed that it is not possible to distinguish what it once was. But now it is a piece of compost, decomposed plant of animal matter, it is a fluffy segment larger than the sand particle. As you get closer to it you see that is so open and porous, it many cavities and cracks are full of tiny organisms, some the same as were around the sand, and some are different. This piece also has water in and around it, but since it is so porous it is full of water much like a sponge would be. Its’ many cracks and fissures are full of water, in fact this piece of detritus is carrying more water than its’ own weight. And in all this water and organic matter there is a veritable colony of organisms at work, digesting the organic compounds of the compost, as they work at it their own waste product is released into the water in the particle.
There are some creatures that have the ability to convert naturally occurring compounds and chemicals into food for themselves. They do this by directly eating the naturally occurring compounds, and sometime they secrete enzymes that help them break the compounds down for digesting. These creatures are called ‘autotrophs’. The rest are generically referred to as ‘heterotrophs’, they dine on the autotrophs, or their waste products. These are basically the plants and animals of this microscopic world. On them the rest of life depends, because these creatures form the base of the food pyramid. With them the decomposition of all organic materials begins. And in turn, the renewal of all energy given to us by the sun. Also from the recycling of organic compounds, chemicals, and other materials that is constantly being renewed into new life in a large cycle known as ‘The Cycle of Life’.
Going around to the other side of this spongy mass teeming with microscopic life you see a large root near the organic matter. This root is actually a very small feeder root, but as it is larger even than the sand particle or the compost it seems overly large in this tiny world. The root is inhabited by a multitude of small fungi called mycorrhizae that live in conjunction with the root in a process called symbiosis. This means that each depends on the other for help, and each releases something that is a waste product to them but useful to the other. In this way they help each other out without any harm to themselves. The bacteria in this case are releasing a substance that is a food for the root, the root is giving up sugars that the mycorrhizae and other little creatures depend upon. Each exchange on this sub-atomic level is a chemical exchange that involves swapping of one atomic neutron for another. This tiny change signifies a chemical change in itself, and helps both life forms grow.
Much of this chemical exchange is a result of positive for negative electron swapping, and happens only in the presence of sufficient water to carry the electrical charge across the gap between soil and root. In this same way water (hydrogen) is carried into the roots and transported through the plant.
The ground near you rumbles and heaves, suddenly the head of an earthworm moves into view, squeezing its’ way between the soil particles, and swallowing the bits of organic debris which have made their way down into this soil from the surface, or left over bits of rotted roots from dead plants. As it moves the worm makes a small tunnel which will serve as a passage way for tiny creatures, air and water. It will also serve as a handy highway for the plant roots to move through the soil quickly and easily. This traveling composter leaves a trail of castings in the tunnels it creates. These castings are a nutrient rich source of food for many of the micro-composters such as bacteria which colonize these bits of organic debris. These little critters do like the fact that organic material such as this has been pre-digested by a higher animal, it makes the job of reducing it much easier for them once it is already shredded, and half broken down increasing its’ surface area. As the plant roots invade the tunnels they take up the rich nutrients from both the castings and the colonizers in it.
This tiny land is so full of algae, bacteria, viruses, protozoa, fungi and mites that a single shovel full can contain over one thousand separate species, and each gram of rich soil can have millions of individuals. In fact the amount of bio-mass in the soil is so very high that there is generally (in a fertile no-polluted soil) a larger weight of mass than on the soil surface. For instance an acre of soil might contain 130 pounds each of Algae and protozoa, 890 lbs. of insects, nearly 900 pounds of earthworms and about 2,000 pounds each of bacteria and fungi. One can see on this small level that the soil is like a jungle with it’s scavengers feasting on the dead bodies of every creature in the ground, as well as the detritus from above the soil line. There are predators that catch their prey with sticky pads, and others that ensnare unwitting victims in microscopic lassos of tiny filaments. It is a bacteria eat virus world, and it all goes on continually in the ground beneath our feet. It is influenced by outside weather, too much cold or heat can affect the balance of populations in this small soil world. Too little or too much water, or the acidity level of the soil can initiate large scale die-offs, and this can in turn be influenced by soil temperature alone. So it is easy to see how small things people do to the soil can influence how the soil behaves. Turning the soil when it is too wet can compact the soil, causing the air spaces between soil particles to become packed together, this will reduce the airflow, and also the soil moisture between particles to become reduced. This in turn will influence the movement of water and air through the soil. PH and microbial action will be impacted, resulting in the potential for a ‘sour’ (highly acidic) soil. Such a soil might take a year of careful attention to correct this imbalance.
I took a lot of ’AgriBusiness’ classes in school. They tried to impress on us the importance of ‘economy of scale’. “Become a giant farm, have specialists for everything, and ‘mine’ the soil for all the nutrients you can, bring in all the inputs that allow you to grow the foods you need, use the pesticides so the produce will be blemish-free and appealing to the consumer.” Then I went overseas and spent some time in Third-World countries, eating the fresh local produce…. I remember being at a market in Morocco and seeing scabbed oranges for sale…. I thought to myself how these would never sell in the USA and we were so lucky to have such great produce in the States. But when I peeled the rind away, the orange was as nice as any I’d seen, and the taste was better than oranges I recalled in the USA. That was the beginning of a desire in me to produce organically. It is the taste of the food, the nutrition, and the food safety in it that really counts.
But organic methods don’t work so well on the large scale of a huge agribusiness with its economy of scale. An organic operation must have patches of unworked land with bugs in them, and a variety of foods grown, not the large scale ‘monoculture’ that makes for such economy in the case of a large farm. Yet the small scale of the standard small family organic farm means those people lose the economy of scale that a large operation has. For instance, marketing and compliance with food safety regulations can both be done more efficiently with a large farm.
We are going through hoops right now with the local regional Water Quality Control Board who want to do monthly testing of our well water. They say the costs will be ‘insignificant’. But over one thousand dollars yearly is not insignificant to us. It means we must reduce some other costs that we can control, something like marketing.. which might reduce our sales.
While I understand the issues related to food safety, I also would like to see this country become less one of huge corporate mega-farms, and more of a hodge-podge of small family farmers, each selling locally or shipping on a limited basis some unique vegetable that cannot be grown efficiently in other places.
North Carolina is a place I have some family, so when I see NC articles, they jump out at me. One such recently was about the Feds starting to examine small farms in NC. The small-scale growers there are concerned that the proposed new regulations will drive them out of business. I understand their concerns. But I have a prediction…. our government and people tend to move in cycles…. fear becomes hysteria, and then rules and changes out of all proportion to the threat are soon enacted … then years later cooler heads prevail, and things ratchet down some. Still, once you give the government the reins, they tend to keep tight fingers on them and never relinquish power.
There’s a movement afoot to build small farms in the inner cities. Some propose bulldozing entire near-empty blocks and replacing them with farms to provide healthy nutritious foods for the local people. There will also need to be farm managers for these places, and many workers. I expect the federal government will give a large amount of assistance to these enterprises, and non-profits will be rushing to fill the spots, for which the government will pay them (we’re working with non-profits regarding our water testing, but still they charge, and everyone in the line there is making money, non-profit does NOT mean free). These groups will be getting funds and assistance to meet their payroll and goals… but it seems that rural dwellers will still remain paying on their own…. but we’re used to being ignored by the government, except when they want to get their fees and revenue and now code-enforcement money.
Believe me, the only thing the Federal Government can do is protect the country from invasion and fight wars, it is the only thing that is large enough to do that. But pretty-much, that is the only thing the Feds should be doing… it is too large and unwieldy an organism to be able to see the small. And so I expect it will in general wipe out small farms…. except for the ones that are willing to go ‘hat in hand’ and let the government take over their operation, and run it as a non-profit. In this way, the government will control the food supply. Control their food, you control their hearts and minds.
Chapter 17
When the Master governs, the people
are hardly aware that he exists.
Second best is a leader who is loved.
Next, is one who is feared.
The worst is one who is despised.
Such as these have no faith in their people,
and the people in turn become unfaithful to them.
The Master doesn’t talk; he acts.
How sparing he is with his words!
When his work is complete and the purpose is achieved,
the people regard the triumph as their own.
Chapter 22
Yield, and maintain integrity.
If you want to become whole; let yourself become partial.
If you want to become straight; let yourself become crooked.
If you want to become full; let yourself become empty.
If you want to be reborn; you must let yourself die.
If you want to be given everything; you must give everything up.
The sage accepts the world as the world accepts the Way.
He is free from self-display; and therefore he shines.
Freed from self-assertion; he is distinguished.
Removed from self-boasting; his merit is acknowledged.
removed from self-complacency; he acquires superiority.
It is because he is free from striving that
no one in the world is able to strive with him.
When the ancient Masters said,
“If you want to be given everything, give everything up,”
they weren’t mouthing empty phrases.
Only in being lived by the Tao can you be truly complete.
Chapter 44
Fame or integrity, which do you hold most dear?
Your wealth or your life, to which will you cling?
Gain or loss, which one increases your anxiety?
In fame and wealth and gain can be found the seeds of failure,
And in integrity and life and loss can be found the root of treasures.
Thus it is that a contented person is never ashamed of what they have,
Having self-restraint he can avoid trouble,
In this way he can endure long, and live contentedly.
Chapter 53
If I possess even the smallest bits of wisdom,
I would walk the great way, and my only fear would be in straying from this great road.
The great way is wide and the going is easy, but how people seem to prefer the side paths.
When the offices of government, the palaces and temples are richly adorned, and lavishly outfitted…
when the ministers are concerned chiefly with pomp and display;
the fields will be dusty and overgrown with rank weeds, and the granaries of the land will be bare.
The gentry wear elaborate richly embroidered clothes,
eat and drink in excess with their sharp swords at their sides,
these are surely the robber barons. This is not in keeping with the Way.
Chapter 57
Rule the kingdom with justice. Use surprise tactics to fight a war.
But it takes letting go to win and hold the world.
How do I know it is so? Through this: -
The more restrictive the laws in the kingdom, the poorer the people will be.
The more sharp weapons the people have, the more troubled and chaotic the state will be
and the less secure the people will be.
The more clever and advanced the people, the stranger the contrivances they will invent.
Law after law promulgates robbers and thieves.
Therefore the Master says: “I will let go of the law,
and the people will act rightly of their own accord,
I will love tranquility and the people will act with righteousness.”
“I will make no effort, and the people will prosper.
I will let go of all of my desires, and the people will return to native simplicity.”
Chapter 58
When a government is unobtrusive and tolerant the people will be happy and prosperous;
when a government is suspicious and strict the people are dissatisfied and crafty.
Good fortune is linked to calamity; misery is tied to happiness.
So who can tell when the end of this will come?
Is there no measuring-stick for the norm?
What is seen now as right and true will certainly someday be seen as wrong and false.
The people have labored under this sea of vexations for a long time.
Therefore the Master is square without sharp cutting corners.
His straightness is not strained; he is pointed without being piercing.
And he is bright but not blinding.
Chapter 72
When the people have no more fear of oppression; that is when oppressive forces will overtake them.
Do not restrict the people in their dwellings.
Do not oppress the people with heavy taxes and burdens.
If you do not wear the people out, they will not weary of you.
Therefore it is that sages know themselves well, but this self-knowledge is not displayed for all to see.
The sage respects himself, but does not try to become admired.
He will choose self-knowledge and love, and set conceit and opinion aside.
Chapter 75
When the nation is in want of food,
it can be seen that the government officials are eating too much of the grain in excessive taxes.
And why are the people restive and hard to govern?
They are in a state of near rebellion due to the intrusive machinations of the government.
The people learn to make light of death when they strive to obtain goods and extravagant items.
They are relentlessly working to acquire more, and look to death as a release from pursuit of material gain.
In this wise it is easy to not place too high a price on life.
Chapter 76
At birth a person is soft and supple; at their deaths they are firm and strong.
All creatures, plants and trees are born tender and flexible,
when they are dead they become brittle and dried.
Thus it is that people who are stiff and hard are companions of death.
The soft and yielding are the followers of life.
It can be seen that a great inflexible army will fall under it’s own weight,
just as a stiff unyielding tree will break in the wind.
Dwelling in an inflexible unyielding manner will bring downfall.
The pliant and supple will survive.
Chapter 77
The way of nature is much like the drawing of a bow.
That which is high is lowered, and that which is low is brought up.
The excess is removed, and where there is deficiency more is added.
The way of nature is to reduce the excesses and spread them to where there is deficiency.
The way of the world is otherwise, Mans way is to take from those who have little,
and give to those who have much.
Who is it that can offer more to the world, and have still more to offer? Only the person of the Tao.
Therefore the sage acts without laying claim to the act.
He can accomplish without boasting.
He has no wish to appear superior.
Chapter 81
Truth is not spoken with rhetoric;
rhetoric does not embrace truth.
The good do not quarrel; those who quarrel are not good.
Those who know are not widely learned, those who are widely learned do not know.
The sage does not hoard for himself. The more he does to help others, the more he can do.
The more he gives to others the more his own treasures increase.
The way of Heaven is to cause benefit, not harm.
Therefore the sage observes this and imitates it.
He acts, serves, and does without relentless striving.
The Law in its majestic equality,
forbids rich as well as poor to sleep under bridges,
to beg in the streets,
and to steal bread
~Anatole France~
Since 1993 we’ve been an organically certified small farm in California. I had a job with a contractor which paid our household expenses and kept us solvent even when the farm sales were less than our farm expenses. But two years ago when the factory in town closed down, and most of us were laid off, I decided to go into the cactus growing more full time. We grow a unique vegetable which we’ve shipped throughout the country. Initially we shipped the cactus leaves as nursery stock, then governmental regulations tightened and we became more aware of the laws and regulations of shipping nursery stock into other states. So we switched to shipping the younger leaves for people to eat themselves as produce. Our goal has been to ship to Health Food Stores, and restaurants as well as individuals who might be interested in the leaves we grow. Through the years our customer list grew slowly but steadily at a steady 30% rate. As the years progressed the governmental regulations seemed to grow more onerous… and the last year we’ve lost many of our older customers due to the recession. Other businesses have quit, some people seem to have stopped their regular orders. Yet, due to aggressive marketing, our sales this year are the highest we’ve ever had due to many new customers. Yet this was done at the expense of any profit we might have had. And again the government has come down on us harder. Now we have been notified that we must complete a fifteen hour ‘continuing education’ credits in water pollution and conservation. I’m all for education, but these government-mandated classes for all farms in the state are not provided for free… we must pay for them ourselves. The worse part is that they are given in the major population centers of Ventura or Monterrey to which we must take ourselves, and pay for our own lodging for the three days of the course.
It is this extra bit that has me stymied. We don’t really make any money doing this cactus business. All of our money goes to shipping, governmental fees of several thousand dollars yearly in order to maintain our licenses, permits, and associated fees and overhead expenses. Knowing that this trip will lead us into negative financial territory makes me reluctant to want to go. Knowing that due to these regulations, we must take a sample of our water and have it analyzed monthly at unknown costs…. I am seriously aggravated at the state of our laws and the level of compliance required even for tiny little micro-farms.
We have some months in which to take the classes, and maybe I’ll find some classes nearby, but this more personal posting than usual is to let the people know that governmental regulations are a double-edged sword. While they give the USA good traceability in produce, and what is perhaps the safest produce in the world, it also makes for stronger economy-of-scale issues that stymie the small grower… right at a time that we are needing MORE small farms, not less. If we were a huge corporate farm, with many employees, still we would need just one person to go to the classes, but when it’s a one-man operation, the standards are the same. The costs are the same, but they are a larger share of the profit in a small operation like ours.
My usual outlook is of hope and positive thoughts. Rarely am I dragged into this level of aggravation. I am sure I will sign up for the classes in Monterrey, they seem very informative and interesting. But people need to know that excessive governmental regulations strangle small business, they hamper the process of business formulation. We need to seriously look at what we want for this country, a place where people can transact business legally and efficiently with little governmental interference. If the government requires classes such as this, it should place them within the reach of the people, if it requires monthly water sampling, it should have a method to make such sampling efficient and inexpensive, (the paperwork mentions some samples might cost $8,000 yearly).
Excessive governmental regulations hamper small business more than the large. If due only to ‘economy of scale’.
When my dad grew up on an Ozark farm in the thirties and forties, they raised corn and wheat, raised hogs which they sold every fall and winter, and had a hundred or so chickens from which they sold eggs daily. They had five or six milk cows which they milked by hand, using the milk for food and their dogs, and one milk-can daily which they left on the roadside for the milk company to pick up. They also went to neighboring farms to supply skilled farm labor. Nowadays they would have to have many more permits, and each operation would require specialized equipment and permits and licensing. As all these regulations pile onto business, you must streamline your operations, drop aspects that have no profit and require permits, then you start to specialize. Yet a small family farm should not be a specialist farm, it should have a wide variety of foods and animals to create the ‘loop system’ for bio-diversity. Yet through the years we have had to drop livestock from our farm, first initially because we did not have proper butchering facilities, so we stopped the breeding of animals, until we had no more. We stopped using manures for fertilizer years ago because the government is worried about contamination of the soils with bacteria from manures. We stopped bringing in mulches for weed control and soil building because we could not vouch for the exact trees the wood chips came from. We are now a closed system with no outside inputs, and only material going out at a rate of a ton a month. Yet even this production is priced so low, and the shipping and governmental costs are so high, that we make no profit. One day, it might just get through my head that I’m better off just enjoying the property ourselves, and stop working so hard to make a business out of it. Yet, I know I can’t, we have such great customers….
While mulling these thoughts over in my head, I decided I needed to go for a walk. So with my camera in hand, I went down the road and took photos of the things I love about living here. And it is when in the wilderness, when I am furthest from people and the government, that I am closest to God and nature. These photos are my world, they are my daily activities and sights…. it is what is most in my heart.
The large oak once was a nut that stood its ground
Spanish Moss on Black Oak
Cutbank on the canyon road
Cutbank on the canyon road
The green lush creek bottom
The green lush creek bottom
Live Oak reaches over the creek
Live Oak reaches over the creek
Old cattle Loading Chute
Miocene Deposits, this was all once underwater
Oak Woodlands
Poison Oak vines wind up the Oak Trees
Spanish Moss on the Oak Tree
A tarantula, means rain is coming soon!
A tarantula, means rain is coming soon!
A tarantula, means rain is coming soon!
Right around the bend from home, my daily view
‘One Tin Soldier’
`Lambert-Potter’
Listen, children, to a story
That was written long ago,
‘Bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley-folk below.
On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath the stone,
And the valley-people swore
They’d have it for their very own.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.
So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill,
Asking for the buried treasure,
Tons of gold for which they’d kill.
Came an answer from the kingdom,
“With our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain,
All the riches buried there.”
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.
Now the valley cried with anger,
“Mount your horses! Draw your sword!”
And they killed the mountain-people,
So they won their just reward.
Now they stood beside the treasure,
On the mountain, dark and red.
Turned the stone and looked beneath it…
“Peace on Earth” was all it said.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.
Even though I don’t like the big thumb of the Federal Government squishing people all over the place…. this is one of the reasons I support a certain amount of governmental interference in some aspects of the marketplace.
The first is that it will actually prevent climate change. Organic farming — one way of carrying out agro-ecological farming — has been shown to increase carbon sequestration in soil relative to non-organic methods. Furthermore, extensive research, most recently by agronomist David Pimentel of Cornell, has shown that transitioning to organic and local farming could cut energy inputs into the U.S. food system by 50 percent.
Vickie and I were going around the pond today weeding the tender shoots of springtime grass. While bending and methodically tugging the grasses out of the mulch it made me reflect on weeding. Not that this is anything that is normally given much thought, but the facts as I see it are that one can work hard at a weeding job year after year, or one can work with consistency and attention to the life cycle of the plants, noting their seeding and other reproductive characteristics and use that to your advantage to reduce total weeding chores when considering the whole scope of the garden as its’ design is carried on from year to year. My major thoughts on weeding are this:
* Not all plants are weeds. ‘Weed’ is a term we use to denote a plant that is growing where one does not want it to grow. Therefor a cactus plant in a cornfield is a weed. But a corn plant in a cactus patch may be seen as a weed to the cactus grower. I stress this to make the point that ‘weed’ is used as a derogatory term to a certain extent. Yet all plants share many characteristics that when understood may be used to enable one to come to terms with weeding.
* A beautiful manicured garden is attractive, but is much work. It may be better to tolerate a small amount of weeds in some areas that are not negatively impacted by a small amount of weed growth. I for instance have some areas where we grow our large plants, I do absolutely no weeding on many of these areas. The cactus plants and trees are able to grow above or within the rank foliage of the annual grasses and herbs. They cause no harm to the cactus plants, and indeed help to bind the soil during our rainy periods in the winter. I let them grow until they have set seed, then I come along with a hand-held string trimmer (51cc Shindaiwa) and spend several days cutting the annual grasses down to six inches or so from the ground. The cut portions of the grasses will settle onto the ground and form a light mulch that will shade the soil, and eventually rot back into the soil keeping the humus content of the soil high. These grasses are often six feet high and I cannot see many cactus when viewing the area from a distance. In fact it is fun for Vickie and I to walk into this ‘high grass’ area and be twenty feet from one another and barely able to see each other. It is also interesting to see the succession of grasses and forbs that grow in this area, there is a regular progression of different plants that grow throughout the winter. The cutting of the grasses also affords a chance for me to get the perennial plants that like to grow here, the poison oak, lupines, sagebrush and creosote etc. I do like to keep the hillside cactus garden free of these perennial plants that often will interfere with my cactus growing efforts. Some will say that the garden could be better and more easily maintained with just an herbicide application, and while this might be true in the short term, I believe this is a short-sighted approach when you consider the fact that weed plants carry a certain amount of bio-mass that will be returned to the soil in a form that the micro-flora and fauna will be able to use. The mulch of the plants when cut and left on the soil surface will perform the same function as a purchased and brought in mulch. It will shade the soil, and moderate temperatures; Hold moisture in; keep the soil open and easily permeable to water, roots and worms. It will encourage the worms to run to the surface at night, feeding on the detritus there and returning back into the lower levels when day comes. This is actually much better than the old ‘dust mulch’ or bare earth methods which became popular in the 1800′s and continue largely unabated to this day.
* There are times and places that I want absolutely no plants growing that I did not plant. Mostly this is in the vegetable garden, where I often have bare soil for a short time while young plants are breaking the surface. Most of our annual native plants are very fast growers and will out-compete the non-native vegetables. For this reason I really like to make sure that the vegetables will have generally weed free conditions in which to get off to a good start. There are two ways to do this, one is the hard way and one is the easy way. The hard way entails endlessly sitting and kneeling on the soil pulling weeds laboriously from the ground one at a time, taking care to differentiate the weeds from the vegetables, and doing this for a couple weeks off and on until the weeds are gone and the vegetables are getting large enough to out-compete the weeds. The easy way is to plan ahead a bit, don’t get into such a rush to plant today, prepare the soil much in advance of the planting, rake the soil after adding the compost and other fertilizers and digging it in. Water the soil, and let it sit for a week, then lightly rake it again. This will uproot the young weeds and many of them will die. Let them sit for a few days dying in the sun, then rake again to kill the rest you missed. Then water a couple days later, and a week after that rake the soil again. This should kill the majority of the weeds that will be germinating. Now when you plant soon after this do not till the soil again, the trick to this is to keep all buried weed seeds buried and not near the surface where they will germinate. If they were near the surface initially they germinated and were killed with the raking. So what you do now is scatter the vegetable seeds in the beds and rake them in gently to get them a bit covered up. This will get you some nice plants growing up without much competion from weeds. Of course you should still keep an eye on the beds to remove the odd weed here and there (we all know that they will come in on occasion).
* ‘One years’ seeding makes one years’ weeding’ is an old axiom that is worth repeating endlessy. Another one that I like is ‘A stitch in time saves nine’. Both of these are so very appropriate when used in the weeding context. Let me explain. A weed seed can live for years in a dormant state, in fact a seed in a sense is really a real live thing in a state of ‘suspended animation’. It has a food supply on which to draw from when the time comes to sprout. This will enable it to get a start in life until it’s own leaves can unfold and process the foods coming from the newly developing roots. The plant does not have an infinite reservoir of nutrients, it has only enough to live until it can break the soil surface. But what if it has been buried deep in the soil by an animal or tilling? In this case the seed can in many cases ‘sense’ that it is too deep, so it waits. Nature has infinite patience and can outlast any person. There are cases of archaeological digs in which ancient seeds, hundreds, even thousands of years old were found, and sprouted. I once grew a strain of black corn found at an Aztec archaeological dig in Mexico. When you let your weeds go to seed you are making a lot of work for yourself in coming years. I believe that it is imperative to get rid of all weeds before they seed themselves. So do not have more garden than you can handle, it is better to have a smaller garden that is very little work, and as the years go by you can add to it as your experience grows. This is preferable to a large garden that overwhelms you with the great demands imposed by the seasons. * Have a good deep mulch where it is possible. Vickie and I single handily take care of a lot of garden, and we try to do it with a minimum of work. We are so busy adding on to our gardens with new area that we have to reduce the work of upkeep and maintenance on the established sections.We do this with mulch piled kind of deep when I can. Near the house I do not want too much in the way of weeds or ground cover. I like the ground to be open to view, this is because I like the open ‘park-like’ effect of open ground. I also like the ground to be visible when walking near the house due to the high number of rattlesnakes near our house, we also have scorpions and other creatures which are interesting to observe but you miss them if the ground is covered with weeds or grasses. I like to use mulch piled about 4 inches thick onto the soil. When making a new garden area I like to weed-whack the ground to get rid of the deep grasses, then I pile the mulch on five or even six inches deep. Over the next few months it will settle down to a fibrous mat about four inches thick smothering much of the native plant material. Even better is a thick layer of newspapers (not the glossies) covered with a few inches of mulch. I don’t use the papers myself, but know people who have had good luck with that method. I work such large areas and have to be concerned with my organic certification, so I stick with just the mulch. I use about fifty to sixty cubic yards of mulch yearly, and that is not nearly enough to do what I want to do. You might be able to get spent tree clippings from a municipal source nearby for free. I can stop by a yard where the county dumps this stuff from the municipal tree trimming crews. It used to be that people in town could get them to drop it off at their house because no-one really wanted it. But now that there is a bit of competition for this material they decided to just dump it in a pile and let people take it home themselves. Now this mulch will by no means entirely eliminate weeding from your life. It just reduces the weed growth a quite a bit depending on the weeds and their growth habits. But it sure does make the weeding job easier. Imagine crawling over an area you have mulched the year before, here and there are weeds coming up through the mulch, you grip one and it comes out of the soft spongy mulch so easily, a lot less work is involved with each individual weed, and a lot less weeds in total.
There are two ways that weeds will be in a mulched area, there will be tough weeds that grow through it from below, these will be perennial weeds like bushes and tough forbes, but they are now isolated and singular instead of being one weed among thousands. So you can now take some effort into getting rid of them easily, maybe digging then out if necessary, slicing into the root with a spade (without digging the mulch in). The other type of weed that gets through the mulch in this area is the creeping rhizome types that spread by underground stolons. The only way to get these is to make sure you continually pull the ones you can get without digging into the soil. On occasion I will add more mulch over patches of this type that cause me such trouble. I continually try to ‘drown’ them in more mulch, building the mulch higher and higher. Hoping to eventually cause the plant to run out of energy to keep up, at some point it will die. You will also get new weeds that will come in as wind blown, or animal deposited seeds and land onto the mulch. These are where the real beauty of mulch comes into its own. These type of seeds will drop a bit into the mulch, and start their germination, they will perceive themselves to be in the ground and will send out a root to pull up nutrients, they will also stick their little heads above ground getting light. This is when you can come along when they are weeks or months into growth (but remember to get them before they flower) and you can so very easily pull these from the ground, they will have no good roots as they were just growing in the fibrous mat of the mulch. They will have a long root which has been trying to work it’s way through the mulch trying to find a nutrient source. This is one of the reasons I like mulch around the house so much, it does really make for an attractive landscape. A saying I made up goes ‘one hours mulching is worth three hours weeding’. I really feel that I save so much work by mulching that I do not begrudge the chore of stopping by the mulch yard to get a truck load when I can.
There are many schools of thought on weeding, some say that we should let nature take its course and accept the native vegetation. I do this to a degree in some areas as explained earlier, but when it comes to attractive and easy to walk on and safe I much prefer no weeds. But I must say that nature in general does not like bare ground, bare ground is generally not going to grow much. So I like to have the mulch to cover the soil and take the place of the grasses that would normally be there.
There are many folks who are switching to an organic diet. Such is considered to be healthier for the consumer, and most folks acknowledge that it is better for the environment also. Yet there are very few people who try to grow all their home landscaping organically. I’ve had people tell me that they don’t eat their lawn, so organics is a waste. Yet organics is more than just the health of the people eating the foods, it is also the health of the animals children and birds… as well as the unseen world beneath our feet, the tiny organisms that thrive in a rich organic soil, helping bring the natural fertility of the soil to full strength for the good of the plants. An organically-centered gardening system will keep your plants growing with less disease and stresses. Everyone knows that farmers in general use many pesticides, but we know also that farmers are always nearly broke, so they try to reduce their pesticide use to just what they can get away with…. they are also beholden to numerous laws and regulations, and must agree to comply with safety standards. Urban folks on the other hand may purchase and use a fraction of the pesticides that a farmer does on a per-person basis… yet as there are a great many more urban folks than farmers… how does the pesticide use per acre look?
I was discussing urban pesticide use with someone, and decided to look the numbers up…. here’s some web pages I ran across and their data…
“Pesticide Use Across Different Agricultural Sectors”. McLean reported that in 1998, urban residential pesticide use intensity in Calgary was 2.92 kg/ha, while agricultural use was 0.8 kg/ha. In other words, 3.65 times more pesticide was used per hectare in urban settings than in agriculture.”
“Pesticide use is often more concentrated in urban areas, with household and garden users applying more pesticides per square inch to their living spaces, with less information about the chemicals they are using, than agricultural users in rural areas.”
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”The Walrus and the Carpenter’
~Lewis Carroll~
The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might;
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright—
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.
The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done—
“It’s very rude of him,” she said,
“To come and spoil the fun!”
The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky;
No birds were flying overhead—
There were no birds to fly.
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand.
“If this were only cleared away,”
They said, “it would be grand!”
“If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose,” the Walrus said,
“That they could get it clear?”
“I doubt it,” said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.
“O Oysters, come and walk with us!”
The Walrus did beseech.
“A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach;
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each.”
The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said;
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head—
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.
But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat;
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat—
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn’t any feet.
Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more—
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low;
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
And cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”
“But wait a bit,” the Oysters cried,
“Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!”
“No hurry!” said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.
“A loaf of bread,” the Walrus said,
“Is what we chiefly need;
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed—
Now if you’re ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed.”
“But not on us!” the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
“After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!”
“The night is fine,” the Walrus said,
“Do you admire the view?”
“It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!”
The Carpenter said nothing but
“Cut us another slice.
I wish you were not quite so deaf—
I’ve had to ask you twice!”
“It seems a shame,” the Walrus said,
“To play them such a trick,
After we’ve brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!”
The Carpenter said nothing but
“The butter’s spread too thick!”
“I weep for you,” the Walrus said;
“I deeply sympathize.”
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.
“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,
“You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?”
But answer came there none—
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.
One of the big things you learn in agriculture is to keep your fields and farms free and clear of invasive pests. It’s something of the old ‘war against nature’ that man has had since existential awareness. Just keeping the native pests at bay is bad enough, but you have natural predators to help out. The natural ecosystem can deal with the myriad pests that are native… they slip into the system like they belong there.. which they do. A super-real danger to both agriculture and the local ecosystems is the introduction of non-native pests. Non-natives can sometimes have a way of spreading widely into their new areas. They have coping strategies that are unfamiliar to the native predators, and can often blanket an area within a short time. These new introductions to the local environment can displace native species, crowding them out and causing large disruptions to the local species.
It is in a ‘paradise’ system like Florida, California and Hawaii that these introductions can most readily spread and cause damage far beyond what you might imagine. For this reason many states have ‘declaration’ rules, so they can try to avoid the huge damage that introduced species can have. Every time I hear of a new insect somewhere that is causing problems, I think of my own responsibility in reducing insect spread. With us, much of it is just an awareness of our part in reducing spread of anything beyond our boundaries. Part of it is our own responsibility to not bring anything into California that is non-native. And part of it is our responsibility as citizens to help everyone understand the true implications of introduced pests. To that end, we are registered as a nursery and have to undergo inspections of our crops and plant material for serious pests, we don’t import anything onto our place from out-of-state without purchasing from an approved nursery. And we try to speak out on this subject, in a plain and straight-forward way. So that others can see and understand the true implications of being the guy who brought ‘such-and-such’ critter into Paradise.
To that end, we wish to introduce all to the ‘Invasive Pest Tracker’. It is a website designed by the California government to inform the public of both the dangers of invasive pests, but also to make the public aware of the ‘hotspots’ in the state. These are places that have a small localized infestation of some pest, and a quarantine has been put into effect in that area to stop the spread beyond that area. That area will also have an eradication plan in effect, to try to kill the pest off before it can establish a viable population for breeding. These ‘hotspots’ are shown on a map, so you can see where the current quarantines are in effect.
Please, when visiting other states and countries, please do not bring any fruits and vegetables back here. If you do, make sure you declare them to the customs agents. If you purchase plants through the mail, make sure they are a licensed registered nursery, not some guy selling his backyard plants over E-Bay. Believe me, even if you don’t get caught, if you suspect you are the one who brought something terrible into paradise, you’ll have a pit in your stomach for the rest of your life.
~The Eagles~
‘The Last Resort’
Then the chilly winds blew down
Across the desert
through the canyons of the coast,
to the Malibu
Where the pretty people play,
hungry for power
to light their neon way
and give them things to do
Some rich men came and raped the land,
Nobody caught ‘em
Put up a bunch of ugly boxes,
and Jesus People bought ‘em
They called it paradise
The place to be
They watched the hazy sun,
sinking in the sea
We can leave it all behind
and sail to Lahaina
just like the missionaries did, so many years ago
They even brought a neon sign that said ”Jesus is coming”
Brought the ‘White Man’s burden’ down
Brought the White Man’s reign
Who will provide the grand design?
What is yours and what is mine?
‘Cause there is no more new frontier
We have got to make it here
We’ve satisfied our endless needs and
justified our bloody deeds,
in the name of destiny
and in the name of God
And you can see them there,
On Sunday morning
They stand up and sing about
what it’s like up there
They call it paradise
I don’t know why
You call someplace paradise,
kissin’ it goodbye
I like these sliced into little rings on my samiches, which in the summer also have tomatoes.
Tomatoes starting to ripen
Nothing beats a fresh grown tomato, except watermelon.
These guys are almost ripe.
Jerusalem Artichokes
Jerusalem Artichokes are a type of sunflower.
When the first frost comes, it’ll kill the leaves and stems of the plants, and they will transfer all their energy to the roots. In spring, the roots loaded with all the life of the plant will put out good growth. I can eat them anytime after the first frost… until the early spring when they start to grow out again.
Jerusalem artichokes are usually considered a ‘famine food’, something people live on when times are really bad and no ‘real-good’ food can be found. But, I really love the taste of these nobbly roots, they have a nutty taste, and are super-great (double-plus good) fried in olive oil with onions…. and with fried liver on the side if you’re into that…. I’m not too picky about my food, as long as it is fresh and natural I’m happy to eat it.
