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Introduction: Will Bonsall's Essential Guide To Radical, Self-Reliant Gardening
Introduction: Will Bonsall's Essential Guide To Radical, Self-Reliant Gardening
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consists of those plant foods that I can grow to maturity here in western Maine, no one should feel sorry
for me. When people hear that my family and I do
not eat meat, milk, or eggs, they often ask: So what
do you eat? Silly geese, little do they know that the
diversity of tastes and textures found in plant foods
dwarfs the paltry range of flavours found in animal
foods (which even as a meat eater I found rather
boring). Im aware that because I eat so largely from
my own soil (although it comprises a great assortment of glacier-borne igneous rocks), I run some
risk of deficiencies in obscure nutrients found in the
global foodshed. Therefore I keep my diet as varied
as possible (plus I like it that way). By the way I feel
extremely healthy for my 65 years, thank you; my
doctor confirms that.
I try to keep my use of petroleum products,
especially fuel, to a minimum. My tractor hasnt
run for years, and anyway its meant for work in the
woods. Most of my cropland has not been ploughed
for two or three decades. Some areas see occasional
rototiller use, by no means every year, usually
for incorporating grain stubble and heavy green
manures, and not always then. My walking tractor
has a mower attachment and a chipper/shredder.
The latter sees frequent action, as Ill discuss later,
yet its consumption of gas per unit of work done
(costbenefit ratio) is very moderate. I use no
plastic mulches. Add in my chain saw and weed
whacker (which others use; I prefer my scythe for
tight places) and that pretty well accounts for the
petroleum use in our farming system. Although it
is proportionately small I am always mindful that
no amount of petroleum is sustainable, since to my
knowledge none is currently being created. My ultimate goal is to have done with it altogether, about
which Ill have more to say later.
Of course, no amount of gnat straining and camel
swallowing will change the fact that our biggest
use of petroleum is in moving stuff (including people) around, a huge argument for locavorism and
anti-consumerism. In general I prefer to avoid going
anywhere or buying anything, and when I must Im
careful to factor those costs into my decisions.
Whence Fertility?
For a very long time the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) couldnt have cared less about
organic. According to Earl Butz (secretary of agriculture during the 1970s), it was a recipe for global
starvation (which his system was preventing?). Only
when the marketplace began clamouring for organic
commodity crops (an oxymoron?) and when US
farmers began to recognize the enormous potential
for organic exports (yet another one?) did the USDA
decide it needed to weigh in. Not to promote organic,
mind youthe marketplace was way ahead of them
therebut to concoct some watered-down standards
(including GMOs!) that would pave the way for
imperialistic agribiz. A useful side effect of those
USDA attacks on the integrity of organic principles
has been to make the movement define itself more
precisely and to engender a lot of soul searching
about our values. A less useful side effect has been
a tendency to separate local from organic and to
pit them against each other. I want to address that.
Lately, Ive noticed some bumper stickers that
say: to hell with organicbuy local! It saddens
me because it shows an erroneous assumption that
the two concepts can be somehow separated. They
cannot. When someone in my community brings to
market locally grown food that has been grown with
applications of chemical fertilizer shipped in from
hundreds or thousands of miles away, how local is
that food? Conversely, when winter lettuce is shipped
in from certified-organic factory farms located in
California or Chile, how organic is that lettuce?
Truly local and genuine organic are inseparable
you cant sell out one for the other.
Fortunately for me personally, defining organic is
barely relevant, since I have no need to certify what I
myself eat. I hew to a line that is more strictly organic
than the standards set by USDA or any other certifier.
What I do call my garden is eco-efficient, because that
reflects what is important to menot to the USDA.
There is a movement called the veganic (veganorganic) movement, composed mainly of animal
rights advocates, that eschews the use of manure and
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Third-Order
Consumers
Second-Order
Consumers
First-Order Consumers
Producers
Third-Order
Consumers
Second-Order
Consumers
First-Order
Consumers
Producers
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likewise vary hugely in their ability to transform little into much. Lets look at some examples, starting
with the typical vegetable garden.
Most of the vegetables we like to grow and eat
are basket cases when it comes to soil building. For
example, if you sow a plot to leeks or pumpkins but
harvest nothing and instead turn under the crop at
maturitythe whole works: roots, leaves, fruits,
seeds, eating nothingwould the soil be enriched
thereby? No doubt, though not in good proportion
to the fertility it took to produce the crop. Thats
probably why seed catalogues never have leeks or
pumpkins listed in their green-manure sections.
Rather they suggest more vigourous grasses like rye
and oats or pasture legumes such as clover, vetch, or
alfalfa. Those are far more eco-efficient.
The problem with most veggie plants as
soil-builders is that they are Band-Aid species, by
which I mean that they are natures quick-fix shortterm remedy for disturbed soil. They dont need to
be particularly eco-efficient; they just have to sprout
and spread quickly to cover and protect the soil. In a
natural system they will soon be replaced by perennial weeds and grasses, then in turn by woody shrubs,
eventually succeeding to forest. The problem is that
humans cannot eat grasses or woody shrubs or forest
trees. Our tummies have adapted to those Band-Aid
speciesthe succulent, easily digested weeds from
which our vegetables have evolved. Theyre all well
and good in our pampered gardens and on our plates,
but for powering a dynamic soil community, we had
better look elsewhere.
What about those perennial weeds and grasses
that make up our hay fields? They are certainly no
wimps at creating much from little: Consider that
they generate a huge surplus of biomass that is
removed in the form of stuff from cows, with very
little returned for the plants themselves. Yes indeed,
grassland is a very eco-efficient ecosystem; one
British veganic writer described it as the ultimate.
Understandable error, I suppose, since they have lots
of pastures over there and very little of something
my fellow Mainers take for granted: forests. You
see, forests (especially old-growth hardwoods) are
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